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Lunch & Learns
Over the past few years, Dolby Atmos has become an increasingly common format in the industry. We are starting to see more and more movies, TV shows, and albums released in Atmos. What was once originally reserved for Hollywood blockbusters, has now trickled down to smaller scale productions, animation, and even childrens content. Thanks to advancements in technology, Atmos has grown increasingly accessible. Gone are the days when Atmos was a gimmick that could only be experienced in major theaters. With new affordable products such as soundbars, Atmos has been introduced into households across the world.
Before I began learning how to mix professionally, Pro Tools automation was a complete mystery to me. Working in post production often necessitates at least some understanding of automation, and if you’re mixing, you need to be an expert.
At Boom Box Post, we have the opportunity to work on various different types of animation, ranging from children’s animation to adult animation. When it comes to animation, whether it's targeted at children or adults, sound effects have a significant impact on the overall feel and immersion. Sound plays an important factor in bringing animation to life. In this blog post, we'll delve into the fascinating world of sound effects and explore the key differences between those used in children's animation and adult animation.
Creating sound effects from a musical angle adds a unique and fun energy to your design. Building effects, either momentary or sequential, can be made all the more engaging if their basis is a musical one, especially in animation. That being said, balance is key when approaching sound effect design from a musical perspective.
Creature vocal sound design and creature movement sound design is an essential part of creating believable and immersive worlds in film, television, and video games. It involves creating unique vocalizations for fictional creatures, ranging from terrifying beasts to friendly aliens, as well as translating where this creature comes from, what type of body it has and its size.
On past projects I have received critiques that my wood creaks for various items (doors, wooden chairs, footsteps, etc) sounded pretty weak and ill-fitting for the scene. The sound libraries I had access to at the time really didn’t offer many quality options, so I decided to do some research on how I could capture better creak sounds. I stumbled upon a couple videos online of Foley artists using what is called a creak box. This Foley instrument allows the user to more precisely create and perform creaking sounds quite easily. Below I’ll be going over how I put together a couple different creak boxes of my own and what I learned in the process.
Starting your first 360 audio project can be a bit overwhelming. I decided to focus my Lunch and Learn on some essential concepts to help you get started. This post is specifically about designing for 360 video or VR experiences that are intended to be heard through headphones.
Often times, we’re faced with the task of designing sounds that track the movements of certain on screen visuals. These sounds need to be continuous, reactive, and dynamically pitched; imagine a car weaving in and out of traffic. It accelerates, then gradually slows down, eventually swerving out of the way of an oncoming semi-truck. Maybe you have a character wielding a magical sword; swinging it through the air at varying speeds and veracity while emitting a sparkly blue glow. These types of scenarios need a convincing sound that coincides with the every movement of the character or prop.
Lunch and Learns are a staple tradition here at Boom Box. These monthly meetings are chances for the team to learn from one another and explore different topics in sound and post production. We have done many Lunch and Learns since Boom Box’s inception ranging from plugin tutorials, to recording techniques, to tips for leading a team of editors.
As a total productivity nerd, I’ve tried many different applications to speed up my workflow and day-to-day task management, both at work and at home. I use a mix of Todoist, Spark (email), Google Calendar, and Slack. After constantly jumping back and forth between all of these applications, I decided to look into a way to make them work together more efficiently. After researching different websites, I decided to try out Zapier, an app automation and integration tool.
Everyone knows that the key to becoming a quicker editor is learning and utilizing keyboard shortcuts, but Pro Tools is such a powerful piece of software that even the most seasoned editors or mixers might not know all the keyboard shortcuts that can help speed up their workflow. Hopefully after reading this blog. post you can walk away with at least one Pro Tools tip or trick you didn’t know before.
Weaponiser, a plugin from Krotos, was created to assist in the building of gunshot effects, but with a better understanding of how to use it, Weaponiser can be beneficial to all kinds of builds from customizing a one time effect to providing slight alterations to repeated sound events. Using Weaponiser you can even quickly build a multi character Foley Libraries!
The most important part of our job is to make our clients happy. Generally, every talented editor I’ve worked with is more than capable of taking direction from clients’ spotting notes and applying them to their editorial in a successful way. The tricky part comes when clients still have notes after the first pass of editorial is complete. We always preview our editorial with clients before we move onto the mix and they almost always have editorial notes. It’s highly important that we address these notes appropriately so the client knows we’re eager to help support their creative vision.
A common practice I see among newer editors is cutting directly from a sound effects library, and leaving it at that. Depending on what your library is like, that’s not always a bad thing. Some libraries are putting out some incredible content right now, and sometimes you find exactly what you’re looking for. However, the plop-and-drop method of cutting sound effects doesn’t always get the job done. A lot of projects call for a more custom sound palette than what you’d already find sitting in a library. Certain scenes, certain moments, sometimes even full series or projects call for a more specific, bespoke approach.
Like many, I find it a bit difficult to set aside time for ear training, so I was looking for a more on-the-go alternative, preferably something I could do from a mobile device. It could be just a couple minutes a day, on a lunch break, at the gym, or waiting in line somewhere. Consistent ear training can really help you develop your skills over time. Like anything in life, consistency is one of the biggest factors in personal growth, so I find convenience and accessibility to be big factors in whether or not I will be able to consistently practice something. With so many people streaming from their phones, tablets, laptops, etc., I think ear training on any device has actually become increasingly helpful.
Do you remember watching TV or listening to the radio and it drove you crazy that the audio levels were extremely different whenever something different came on or if you changed the channel? We no longer have this issue. Here is why!
Digital Foley is often a straight-forward and technical element of the sound design we create for a TV show, and it can become a simple skill for an editor’s toolbox that amplifies each episode. Though footsteps are a small detail in the entirety of a sound edit, it is sometimes tedious and overwhelming to transition similar Foley edits between episodes. Listed below are a few quick alternative solutions that I use when editing Foley.
Creating an exciting sound mix for television can be a HUGE challenge. Way back in 2020, I explained the basic structure of my mixing process, but there is a lot more to mixing than just following a list of steps. I also like to consider goals or objectives I want to achieve during the process. These vary from project to project, but here are three mixing objectives I often keep in mind while I work through each mix.
On occasion, a sound editor’s musical skills are put to the test when they are asked to recreate a tune or song for a specific sound effect. For example, in the second episode of Yuki 7, the alarm clock that goes off matches the theme song of the show, which you can listen to starting at 1:11 in the video below. For sound editors with no musical training, this task can be particularly challenging. So for this blog, I’m going to teach you how to recreate a melody to use with any sound effect just by listening to it!