the music of sound

Say what you like about it but I’m slowly learning that the quality of your experience on twitter depends on who you follow, or subscribe to. Some people seem to think its just full of trivial short messages about what you had for lunch or something, but in the end its like life; you define it by your actions. To illustrate my point, here are a bunch of random but relevant/entertaining links that were scattered through the twitter feeds I subscribe to …

BBC gave a 13 year old a walkman in exchange for his mp3 player, to use for a week… some of his revelations beautifully illustrate the technology/perception gap between the digital generation (those who have grown up with ubiqutous internet/digital technology) & everyone else who has lived through the transition: “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.”

Similarly if you are old enough to remember playing the 8bit computer game Prince of Persia then watch this!

One of the ‘people’ I follow on twitter that reliably makes me laugh is Big Foot – for example:
“You think I just wandering aimlessly, but actually I on big comeback tour.”
“Peed on you so you technically mine now.”
“Don’t remember swallow lawn flamingo but sure happy it out of system.”

I love checking out some of the light drawings on flickr but apparently Piccasso has been there too!

And next year, ‘they’ have changed the rules so that the Oscar for best song is able to be given to no one, should they so choose. Interesting reading why Peter Gabriel chose to pull out of performing at the last Oscars too:

Last year, the best song category inspired controversy when Peter Gabriel withdrew at the 11th hour after being asked to perform his song Down to Earth, from Pixar’s Wall-E, for only 65 seconds as part of a medley with two songs from AR Rachman’s soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire.

“We’d assumed, as there are only three nominees, that the songs would be performed in full. But the producers came in to revamp it as audience figures were falling off,” Gabriel said in a video on his website. “So I’ve now decided to withdraw from the ceremony, but I’ll still go along. I do think it’s a bit unfortunate. I do think songwriters, even though they’re a small part of the filmmaking process … we still work bloody hard and I think deserve a place in the ceremony as well.”

Next, a good link to an article with handy tips on making a demo sound design show reel… The only thing I would add to that article is that I’ve found one of the most important things that helps when making a show reel is to have access to the seperate Dialog, Music & FX stems from the mix of each source clip… Most films have a reasonable amount of music & it is the one aspect that will stitch you up when cutting shorter sections together, and considering its a sound show reel the last thing you want a director to hear is bad music edits! With the seperate stems you can tidy up music edits across cuts (or drop music all together) & rebalance the stems in their new context.

Lastly, thanks to sound designer Andrew Harris for getting in touch, who recently finished work on a great short film that you should see called Terminus – directed by Trevor Cawood. I wont embed the youtube as its worth going & watching the higher resolution via the quicktime version

Andrew commented “I made the sounds of his feet by using a “NO PARKING” sign.. the type with the big cement block bottoms. I had to drag it two blocks and up four flights of stairs to my studio in Toronto at the time.” – nice work Andrew!

Coincidentally the score for that short was done by Clinton Shorter who was recently in New Zealand for the mix of Neil Blomkampf’s District 9 at Park Road Post, which many of my sound editor friends have been working on for the last six months.. Heres two of the trailers for it:

I can’t wait to see that movie! Some of the marketing for the film is pure genius!
Check them out:

For anyone not in NZ, a major court case finished recently with a jury over turning a previous multiple murder charge involving the deaths of 4 members of a family, and while ‘justice’ is always a debateable concept (often more clearly defined by the ability to spend a small fortune on legal aid and/or a QC) one piece of evidence was suppressed from the jury & while I wouldn’t normally be overly interested, this piece of evidence was audio – a recording of the phone call made to emergency services. Have a listen:

The issue here, is not so much what he actually said, but how prior knowledge alters the way you interpret what you hear. You only ever get one first impression & if you have any prior knowledge at all of what may or may not have been said, then that first impression is lost and it is on those grounds the ‘evidence’ was suppressed. One of the TV News shows consulted a forensic speech scientist, Dr Philip Rose, on the matter:

It is fascinating to me how perception can be altered, the McGurk effect is an obvious example, watch the following clip & establish what you are hearing, then replay it with you eyes shut:

There is a great article in the NYTimes about the concept of ‘Ear Witnesses’ and it explains similar phenomena: “If you ask people to count the number of times that a light flashes, and you flash the light seven times together with a sequence of eight beeping tones, people will say the light flashed eight times. When confronted with conflicting pieces of information, the brain decides which sense to trust…. on matters that demand a temporal analysis, and making sense of similar sounds in a sequence, the brain reflexively counts on hearing.”

Why is this? According to Barbara Shinn-Cunningham of Boston University; “The temporal resolution of our vision is an order of magnitude slower than what our auditory system can cope with.”

Audio Forensics is an intriguing aspect of audio, technology & perception, and while it reminds me of that great film The Conversation these people work on real life situations with potentially far reaching ramifications. While clarifying what is actually present in a sound recording is an obviously essential process, authenticating the actual location of the recording can also be vitally important. This article from Wired outlines some of the lengths forensic audio engineers go to: “Catalin Grigoras, a forensic examiner from Bucharest, told the workshop how he uses the frequency signatures of local electrical power sources to pinpoint when and where recordings were made. According to Grigoras, digital recorders that are plugged into electrical sockets capture the frequency signature of the local power supply – a signature that varies over time.
Working with electrical companies throughout Europe, Grigoras has compiled a database of power signatures spanning several years. He uses a software package called DCLive Forensics to compare the power signatures captured on suspect recordings with the signatures stored in his database. That, in turn, allows him to determine when (and, to some extent, where) the recordings were actually made.
The technique can even be applied to recordings made with battery-powered recorders, as long as they use electret microphones. Because they act like capacitors, electret mikes will register the electrical signatures of nearby devices. In one case, Grigoras claims to have identified the date of a recording broadcast in Europe, but made in the Middle East, “probably in the mountains, or in a cave,” he says. He didn’t mention any names, but it was hard not to think of Al Qaeda. Grigoras holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and performs forensic work for the Romanian ministries of justice and the interior.”

As they say, the truth will out – even if it needs some seriously high tech help!

Ok I’ve had 21 people register interest so far, & so I dont end up with too many applications to read, I’ll set a cut off date of the end of the month ie 30th June, after which point you will have to wait until next year.

It’s been interesting doing research on the mentor concept & one thing a few people have said to me is: “do you even have enough free time to be doing it?” but the same people say the same thing about having a blog (‘how do you find the time?’) and the answer is simple: I make the time by establishing a suitable modus operandi. So I figure I’ll outline a bit more as to what I plan as a virtual mentor & I’d appreciate peoples comments & suggestions as to what you see as the most valuable…

First, the time factor: there are most definitely times when I simply cannot be available. This is usually during mixes, but even then holding a conversation via email (as time allows) solves that one, and it is why I actually feel fine about offering virtual mentoring. And in many ways it is no different to working in the same building; there are times I do not want to be disturbed & it is not difficult to establish when those are. As with making phone calls, anyones first question should always be: ‘do you have a minute to talk now or should I call back when it suits later?’

Second, the content: some of the ideas I have for an intern will also spin off into this blog. One example is that I will make a list of films that the intern must watch (eg one a week or every 2 weeks) and then I’ll discuss each film with them; the mix, the style, specific moments & scenes, the role of dialogue, ADR, loop group, score, source music, ambiences, foley & sound effects. But when I mentioned doing this to a few friends, they were also keen for this to happen on my blog so they could participate & that makes good sense. Depending on the film in question I would like to involve the people who actually worked on the film, but I’ll have to see how that pans out. Of course I’ll have to insure we are all watching the same version of the film, so if I point out something that occurs at 01.23.30.00 then its possible to easily find & consider the relevant material.

But primarily the ideas I will work through with an intern will be the same that I go through on every project, starting with reading & assessing a script from a sound perspective. Then getting a feel for planning sound post for a project & working out mission critical priorities. Then working through all the roles & elements that go into a soundtrack, since even if you are say foley editor on a project you must know how a dialogue editor works. Then I imagine getting into specifics of recording & editing ambiences & sound effects and delivering these to a temp mix and/or predubs. Then working through predubs, final mix, screenings, fixes, late VFX & deliveries, from a sound editors perspective. But I will also discuss with them other important career issues such as cvs, show reel, IMDB, pitching for work etc…

Depending on the specific person we can use either projects they have access to, or I can provide example work for them to consider & practice on. But seeing as it is remote mentoring the ideal applicant will be doing their own projects over the course of the year, in which case I can provide specific help or advice as practical situations arise, via email, ichat, skype & ftp…

Its going to be interesting – I’m still working on the questions for the applicants but to those 21 who have registered, if you want to start doing some homework, I’ll paste a few questions below that will definitely be in the application – just dont send me answers yet, save them for your submission. For anyone else, you have 3 days left to register!

> Registration is now closed!

Ok, question # X: “I believe that if you are going to work in the film industry you need to have a love & knowledge of film, as your own personal reference points as much as entertainment, so please tell me your:

- the first film you ever saw

- the last film you saw

- your 5 favourite films

- your 5 favourite films for sound

- your 5 favourite films for music

A lovely microscopic short film with music by Mum

God of Small Things from elo | meno | pe on Vimeo.

I stumbled across these 3 interviews with directors discussing the work of legendary sound designer Alan Splet produced for the School of Sound – wow, I never knew he was a cellist!

The directors interviewed are Peter Weir (Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society), Carroll Ballard (Never Cry Wolf, Wind & Black Stallion for which Splet was awarded an Oscar), Phillip Kaufman (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Henry & June, Rising Sun)

A little note for anyone new to vimeo, if you scroll down to the bottom on the right is a link to download the source video file, rather than stream it… & frankly that is my idea of television = no ads, download it & watch it when it suits you!

Local musician Jonathan Crayford recently completed a project that is very intriguing: “44 Pianos was a filmed and recorded performance project that was the product of being in a piano store that contained a very large number of pianos, which later I counted at 44. I was intrigued if they could all be successfully played at the same time by a range of pianists from all walks of the musical spectrum”

Some of the compositions are genius eg one called Dawn Chorus where each player became a bird, composed a call, and ‘woke up’ or the Big Earth Chord: I met a man in New York late one night, who said he knew a guy who could hear the note the earth spun at. I asked him what the note was – he said ‘it’s Eb’

Go have a listen here