Awards season is here and we are SO honored to have been nominated for three Children’s and Family Emmy Awards for our sound work. We spoke with our talented team to get an inside look at the sound work for our nominees.
Viewing entries tagged
sound design
Growing up in the Midwest, it seemed like everyone had a basement (not a thing here in LA). A basement is a bonus space the size of your entire floor plan. For adults, this means lots of storage (functional but boring); for kids, a giant playroom! When I was young, my dad bought two used pinball machines from a friend and plunked them down in our basement. These were mid-70’s era classics with all the (literal) bells and whistles. At any time of day you could hear these very specific sounds emanating from our basement, working their way into the consciousness of one young sound designer in the making (me).
Needless to say, these two pinball machines became family treasures. So when it came time for my parents to downsize their house (no room for pinball), I just couldn’t resist keeping one for myself and my family.
It’s been some time since we’ve discussed the art of designing backgrounds here on the blog. Although backgrounds aren’t the sexiest food group in the sound editorial process, they’re absolutely crucial for providing the foundation of storytelling for every scene.
I was recently cutting sound effects on a scene for my apprenticeship project that included a slo-mo sequence. During the spotting session, my supervisor was discussing proven ways to get in and out of slo-mo sequences with different stingers and sub dives as the bread and butter. He referenced this specific sound effect to me and I thought it would be a fun idea to try my hand at recreating it.
By the beginning of this year, Boom Box Post had fully moved into our new facility with three Atmos mix stages, three 5.1 mix suites, eight sound design/editorial suites, and full client amenities. So, when Women’s Audio Mission reached out to revisit the idea of having an in-person workshop focused on sound for television and film that would meet the needs of their Los Angeles membership base, we had the perfect space to accommodate it.
As sound professionals, we always have our ears open for interesting sounds. This isn’t limited to just sound effects I can record but also interesting ways sound can interact with the spaces we inhabit. Over the years, if I find myself in an especially interesting space, I’ve made a point of recording myself clapping once, so that I can later farm that sound as an Impulse Response, recreating the space. This practice carries the same nostalgic feelings as my field recordings, but expands the idea to my mixing. I can put any Impulse Response (the clap) through a reverb plugin that will, like magic, recreate that space. You too can be out there capturing wild and interesting spaces for your work!
Several years ago, we created multiple blogs with keywords to help you search your sound library and find the desired effects. This year, we have combined those blogs into one comprehensive sound effects glossary, adding more key terms to assist with your project. Hopefully, this will make it easier to find all the correct sound effects you need!
We are so proud of our clients who have been nominated for a GLAAD Award! The GLAAD Media Awards is the most visible annual LGBTQ awards show in the world, sending powerful messages of acceptance to audiences globally.
A few weeks ago, Chad Anderson of Filmmaker U invited me to chat with him about sound for animation. Filmmaker U is a website that creates courses for film professionals to deepen and diversify their skillsets. So, as a huge proponent of being a lifelong learner, I was very excited to add the topic of animation sound to that knowledge base for their audience!
Last summer I found myself with a little extra time on my hands and a big idea. Coming on the heels of an original Boom Box Library offering, “Magic Chimes,” which I recorded back in 2021, I wanted to expand on the idea of an all encompassing percussion library. I received classical training as a percussionist at the Indiana University School of Music (now the Jacobs School). We would spend hours in master classes focused on one instrument, perfecting for example, the ideal triangle performance. Hours. On the triangle. Needless to say, I felt qualified for the task. Here’s my chance to revisit those roots and put together something really special.
We are honored to have been nominated for one Golden Reel Awards for 2023!
Transformers: Earthspark: “Security Protocols”"
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING – BROADCAST ANIMATION
I’ve recently been messing around with Soundweaver from Boom Library and I couldn’t wait to share my thoughts with our readers.
We are honored to have been nominated for three Children’s and Family Emmy Awards for 2023!
“Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie”
Sound Mixing and Sound Editing For An Animated Program
“Santiago of the Seas”
Sound Mixing and Sound Editing For A Preschool Animated Program
“Waffles + Mochi’s Restaurant”
Sound Mixing and Sound Editing For A Live Action Program
I’ve had it on my list to test out some software synths that I had purchased a while back. My week was light so I fired up The Riser by AIR. One of the presets had a really interesting oscillating sound and the functionality of The Riser made it easy for me to play around with pitch and speed. I found myself creating crazy spaceship engine sounds (very likely influenced by having just watched the movie) and thought, “this would be a great blog post!'‘
Creating futuristic anything is fun, but where to start? Here was my process for creating a full compliment of entirely original (and useful!) futuristic spacecraft engine sounds.
By the beginning of this year, Boom Box Post had fully moved into our new facility with three Atmos mix stages, three 5.1 mix suites, eight sound design/editorial suites, and full client amenities. So, when Women’s Audio Mission reached out to revisit the idea of having an in-person workshop focused on sound for television and film that would meet the needs of their Los Angeles membership base, we had the perfect space to accommodate it.
I am currently knee-deep into recording an extremely comprehensive auxiliary percussion library for Boomboxlibrary.com. The idea is to produce pristine recordings which we (and other sound editors) can use as source material for new creative sound design.
As the recordings pile up (and I procrastinate having to edit them all) I have been playing around with some of them, just to see if my hunch was correct; that these would help me create great cartoon sound effects that are high quality and new but harken back to the classic Hanna Barbera sounds we all know so well.
We are honored to have been nominated for two Motion Picture Sound Editors 2023 Golden Reel awards!
“Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie”
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Non-theatrical Animation
“Transformers Earthspark” -
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Broadcast Animation
We thought this would be a great opportunity to share some stories behind the sound editorial on these two fantastic projects via interviews with Supervising Sound Editors Jeff Shiffman and Brad Meyer.
In many of our shows, we often get the exciting opportunity to work on a pirate adventure! I wanted to outline some of the things that are crucial to building a pirate ship that sounds fun, authentic, and thrilling! The kind of ship you are designing may vary, but this is a good guide to give you a place to start. You can always tailor it to whatever special needs your project calls for.
Working with sound for animation provides us with interesting opportunities to bring to life scenarios totally incomprehensible to our day to day lives. One of our sound effects editors, Peter, was recently tasked with one such opportunity. Peter needed to combine the destructive natural sound of a tornado with the clinical inorganic sound of a machine. Keep reading to hear about his process.