The Boom Box Post blog provides insights into the creative sound design process of Boom Box Post's owners and employees.
Job interviews are a challenge. As much as you know you deserve the job, those interviewing you do not (yet). A job interview is a sales pitch; the product you are selling is yourself. No worries, you know yourself really well! You just need to bring your story forward in the best way possible.
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.
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.
A radioplay is a vital step exclusive to the animation pipeline; however, there is a lot more to the process than simply editing one together. In this post we outlines the basics of a radioplay and their importance in the production workflow.
The first mix of any project, especially long-term projects like a television series, is always the hardest. Everyone involved in the sound package has done their best to put creative high-quality sound into the session. The mixing team have put in the effort to create a mix that they believe is of a quality that could air on television right out of the box. But, then the clients step into the room.
As a mixer, I try my best to do justice to the content. I use all of my tools to achieve balance and clarity. But the clients always have their own unique agenda of what’s important to the story for them, which plot-points need a little extra clarity from the sound, or which emotional beats are essential for the music to carry. There is no knowing these priorities and sensibilities until you’ve sat down in a room with the clients and gone through their notes one by one.
Tess was tasked with designing a laser beam for a spaceship that would intensify over time. It was important to the story that the laser was not only intense, but extremely hot in temperature.
Recently, Vivian created a sound build involving a character magically growing three stories tall! Find out about her process and what techniques she utilized.
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.
At Boom Box Post, since we focus in sound for animation, I thought it would be helpful to create a list of classic toon sound effects and the emotion typically associated with them. In this post, we will be focusing on the following: happiness, anger, sadness, and humor.
We recently finished construction on our brand new post sound facility in Burbank, CA. One of our top priorities was to have multiple mix stages under our roof, all of which ready for Dolby Atmos. The way we saw it, we might as well be on the forefront of this emerging format. Building a mix stage is challenging enough, but adding in the extra Atmos considerations meant we would be faced with lots of opportunities to learn. Lucky for us, we are all about continuing to learn here at Boom Box Post! It’s in that spirit that I want to share with you some of the details of our journey.
Natalia was given the challenge of creating the sound design for a character’s superpower transformation sequence. Natalia describes her process and the inspirations that led to her successful sound build. Read more to find out how she did it!
One of the most exciting parts about working in audio post production is getting to be a part of the final stages of a project. Here are a few recent releases that Boom Box Post had the pleasure of working on!
Katie was given the fun yet challenging task of creating a roller coaster only consisting of materials that could be found thousands of years ago. Find out how she tackled this project and what issues she faced.
Recently, Peter was tasked with creating the sound build for a time machine as it creates and travels through a time portal. Find out how he managed to achieve the desired effect while putting his own personal style into the sound.
We have a new Office Manager/Assistant Editor at Boom Box Post! It is our pleasure to introduce you to Jayson!
We have dozens of blog posts on how you can level up your sound editorial game. This post is intended to go beyond the basics - making sure you color code you work, cut for perspective, etc. This isn't about missing deadlines or forgetting to clean up markers in your session before turning in your work. These are mistakes that even seasoned sound editors make all the time. Avoiding these seemingly small mistakes could make a big difference in how you are perceived by your supervisors and those mixing your work.
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!
Tim was recently challenged with designing ambiences for a series of shorts that had a lot of action. The clients very smartly requested these builds have a rhythmic quality to them, allowing them to play in the background without distracting too much from what was happening on-screen. Check out how this was accomplished!
One of the biggest challenges in sound design is creating unique and beautiful design work that will work with the musical score rather than against it. Because television schedules are tight, composers often need absolutely every moment they can get, and the music goes directly to the mix stage without the sound design team ever hearing it. In a dream world, we would be constantly collaborating with the composers and music departments. But unfortunately, we’re often on two secluded islands, trying to create something fantastic on our own, and just hoping that it will work when it’s all put together in the mix.
As I get more and more experience as the re-recording mixer, I’ve come to intuitively understand what will work and what will never work in a sound design build once the music is added, no matter how cool it sounds in the sound effects preview.
The key to designing sound that will work flawlessly with any musical score hinges greatly on the use of inharmonic elements rather than harmonic ones. But to understand what will work and when, we need to dive deep into the concept of harmonic versus inharmonic elements.
When I first started working at Boom Box Post, I had a hard time understanding what exactly took place during each step of the post-production process. With so many different steps in our workflow, it was very easy for me to get lost in the order of events. Oftentimes, I mixed up editor spots with client spots, editor previews with client previews, and don’t even get me started on editorial fixes and when those were supposed to happen…
