I have been a sound effects editor and supervising sound editor for a long time now. But, I have recently begun mixing a television series here at Boom Box Post. I am enjoying how much I learn each and every time that I sit down at the board, and am my no means ready to start spouting mixing advice to anyone. But, I can say that I’ve come to appreciate certain editorial practices (and absolutely abhor others!) through my new vantage point as a mixer. Things that I thought of as a nice way to make your mixer happy have turned into practices that are essential to me being able to start my mixing day right. Seriously, these five things can be the difference of hours added to my predub day. So, here are five editorial practices that I’ve realized are absolutely essential to a smooth mix.
In this months Inside Sound Design I wanted to give our new interns some unsupervised Field Recording experience. I sent Colin Grant out with a stereo recording rig and instruction to capture a minimum of 3 distinct sound recordings. He did a great job and learned a lot, so let's what he has to share about his adventures.
We open on wide shot of a forest. A river runs in the distance. Not far from the river, emerging from the trees is a bloodied man in a torn business suit, limping and desperate for water. Cut to an over the shoulder shot of him staring at the river. Cut again and the camera is right on the water as he leans in for a drink. The focus (for our purposes) isn’t the man or his torn and blood soaked suit (I just added that for some flair). From a sound editorial standpoint, the complicated element here is the river. It’s far off in the distance, now it’s close to us, now it’s full frame in an extreme close up. As a viewer, the camera is our proxy here. Wherever the camera sits, so do we. And so, as the perspective of the camera changes so does our perception.
The Galactic Assistant is a standalone specialized synth that can be used to create high tech interface sounds and / or musical samples and accents.
Our interns have hit the ground running recording sound effects and learning from our editors here at Boom Box Post. Last week we chatted with Dilery Corona so this week we sat down with Colin Grant to learn more about him and what he is excited about.
At Boom Box Post, we enjoy creating a fun and educational internship program to gain experience in the industry. Through the weeks, Interns will learn from audio editors and mixers, record fun sound effects, and work on projects to showcase their amazing talents.This week, Colin Grant & Dilery Corona have begun their journey here at Boom Box Post so I sat down with Dilery to learn more about her background and what she hopes to learn from the internship.
Few things can positively impact a sound editors workflow like effective and thorough sound effects metadata. Having good metadata in your library will lessen the time needed to find the sounds you are looking for and speed up the process of finding new favorites in a packed library. If you are selling your sound effects, having rock-solid metadata is essential to creating a marketable product.
It's been another busy year here at Boom Box Post!
In February of 2017 we were honored to take home a Golden Reel award for Best Sound and Music Editing for Television Animation for Nickelodeons Animated Television Feature: Albert.
Throughout the year we were excited to share some stellar blog posts such as Top 5 Tips for Recording Sound Effects Like a Pro, 3 Easy Steps to Cutting Classic Cartoon Sound Effects, 5 Characteristics of the Rock Star Sound Editor, and many more, which you can read on our Blog.
We worked on 13 discreet animated series, including Mickey and the Roadster Racers, The Loud House, Penn Zero: Part Time Hero, Danger and Eggs, Future-Worm!, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Duck Tales, The Lion Guard, Stretch Armstrong, Pickle & Peanut and more!
We were also excited to announce the launch of our new sound effects library company: Boom Box Library, and our first sound effects library release: Robotic Creations: Heads Up Display.
Thanks to everyone who has been involved in Boom Box Post in 2017, and here's to another exciting year!
Today is the last day to get the sound design toolkit for FREE!
Are you interested in our sound design toolkits, but aren't sure what they are? Check out this great video demo, Getting Creative with Your Sound Design Toolkit!
Don't forget that from now until 12/25, the sound design toolkit is FREE with your purchase of the Heads Up Display SFX library! That's $20 off! Don't miss out.
Introducing the robots of our Robotic Creations Collection!
Each library within the Robotic Creations Collection contains sound effects designed to match five different robotic personalities with their own unique sonic characteristics.
Our Boom Box Library online store is open!
Boom Box Library proudly presents its first release of the Robotic Creations Collection: The Heads Up Display SFX Library & Sound Design Toolkit!
Go behind the scenes of the Mutant Apocalypse arc of Nickelodeon’s CG Animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series with this story of how Boom Box Post created the sound of the post apocalyptic Shellraiser vehicle by custom recording Executive Producer Ciro Nieli’s vintage Mustang.
We have a big announcement to make: we are branching out from our post production sound business, Boom Box Post, and have created our own sound effects library company, Boom Box Library. This has been a long-time dream of ours, and we are immensely excited to finally see it making its debut in the coming weeks.
In this Inside Sound Design I wanted to use our interns to explore an early part of the sound editing process: Field Recording. It’s always a blast to capture sounds in the wild, and we try to do so at every opportunity. I sent Ian Howard out with instructions to research and capture two unique and interesting ambiences.
We’ve reached out to our blog readership several times to ask for blog post suggestions. And surprisingly, this blog suggestions has come up every single time. It seems that there’s a lot of confusion about who should be processing what. So, I’m going to attempt to break it down for you. Keep in mind that these are my thoughts on the subject as someone with 12 years of experience as a sound effects editor and supervising sound editor. In writing this, I'm hoping to clarify the general though process behind making the distinction between who should process what. However, if you ever have a specific question on this topic, I would highly encourage you to reach out to your mixer.
Johnathan Lopez recently joined the Boom Box team as our new assistant editor and office manager. Johnathan was a stellar Boom Box intern, and we are thrilled to have him back to work with us again.
Here at Boom Box Post we have an extensive intern curriculum where our interns have to complete several different projects as part of their program. The projects include everything from sound editing basics, to pre-dubbing and from-scratch design work. In the project I teach, we come across many real-world sound editing scenarios, including a small clip in slow motion. Slo-Mo is a storytelling tool that sound editors come across quite often, and it is where I get the most questions regarding, “How do I cut this?”
Because slow motion is more conceptual than it is technical, there is no right way to approach it. However, there are some basics that you are going to want to cover, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to illustrate various sound concepts while editing scenes in slow motion. Every scene and scenario has it’s own set of challenges, but these tips are a great place to start.
In this month's Inside Sound Design, we have a brief chat with sound effects editor Kevin Hart. Kevin is a passionate member of the Boom Box Team who experiments with integrating other DAW's and softwares into his workflow. You can read about his method for creating dynamic fight backgrounds in Ableton Live here. In this post, Kevin shares his ideas and methods for creating the sound of high powered, electricity-based energy skates.
The entertainment industry can be tough. There are many cliche's, such as "It's all about who you know" or "It's all about right place right time." Neither of which are entirely untrue. However, I am a firm believer that anyone with some raw talent and a whole lot of drive can build themselves a career in post production sound - or any entertainment job for that matter.
If I'm making it sound easy, my apologies. It's absolutely a ton of work. Let me repeat that: getting a job in a highly specialized, creative industry where you are in competition with literally thousands of applicants will always be a ton of work. So why do it?
