“My Generation” by The Zimmers

“Hoppipolla” by Sigur Ros

“You know that ringing in your ears? that eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh… thats the sound of the ear cells dieing, thats their swan song. Once its gone you will never hear that frequency again. Enjoy it while it lasts’.
Thats a line of dialogue from the film Children of Men delivered by Julianne Moore and its a film worth seeing & hearing (watch the trailer) for many reasons. But its a strange phenomena, hearing loss and what is most strange about it is peoples attitude to it. It is almost something people skite about a la ‘that gig was amazing – my ears rang for half a day afterwards’. But the odd thing is, imagine if the light show at the concert made you partially blind, permanently… not very cool at all!?!
For what its worth a Swan Song is “a reference to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely mute during its lifespan, but may sing one heartbreakingly beautiful song just before it dies.”

Relatedly I went & saw Curse of the Golden Flower the other day (watch the trailer) at The Embassy Theatre, arguably this cities best venue for watching & hearing a film. And what a great film, I really enjoyed it & the soundtrack had some fantastic moments in it. Overall it was quite dynamic, but wow there were a few LOUD bits in it… and I mean loud as in wince/cover your ears/pain… The loud moments were only moments, momentary peaks during fight scenes, but for the re-recording mixers who go over and over those scenes mixing them, the cost to their long term hearing must be permanent.

Whenever we mix action sequences or loud moments I always take ear plugs or use my headphones to protect myself, except for when we are doing a critical playback – I am not a mixer after all & it is more valuable for me to protect my sensitivity until the scene is 90% balanced & some objectivity is valued… But we are also working in an ideal environment – the mix stage is VERY accurately calibrated for level & frequency and it can sometimes be disappointing to hear a film I have worked on in a lesser theatre – I won’t start a Hall of Shame for local theatres quite yet, but I should.. and probably will!
So it is interesting to read this article, where a technician took a sound level meter to 5 different movies, to verify what we sort of sound levels we are all exposed to when we go to see a film. Have a read of the results here but in a nutshell: “For the five movies tested, the average sound varied between 70 and 78 decibels — about equal to the sounds of rush hour traffic. That’s an annoying amount of noise, perhaps, but not dangerous. So in terms of average levels, the movies wouldn’t be considered particularly loud if you were comparing it to, say, workplace noise exposure,” Howe said. But maximum levels were a different story. They peaked as high as 95 decibels in The Lord of the Rings and 93 in Harry Potter — equivalent to standing next to a working leaf blower.

Detailed results for the films they tested are available in PDF format:
Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Star Trek
The Wild Thornberry
Treasure Planet

Randy Thom has a good perspective on the issue:
Digital Doesn’t Make Movies Too Loud, People Do! But what people?

But here is the official word on such things from
The League of the Hard of Hearing

“How Loud is Too Loud?
Experts agree that continued exposure to noise above 85 dBA over time, will cause hearing loss. To know if a sound is loud enough to damage your ears, it is important to know both the loudness level (measured in decibels, dBA) and the length of exposure to the sound. In general, the louder the noise, the less time required before hearing loss will occur. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (1998), the maximum exposure time at 85 dBA is 8 hours. At 110 dBA, the maximum exposure time is one minute and 29 seconds. If you must be exposed to noise, it is recommended that you limit the exposure time and/or wear hearing protection.

Measure Up and Turn it Down: Decibel Levels Around Us
The following are decibel levels of common noise sources around us. These are typical levels, however, actual noise levels may vary depending on the particular item. Remember noise levels above 85 dBA will harm hearing over time. Noise levels above 140dBA can cause damage to hearing after just one exposure

Points of Reference *measured in dBA or decibels

0 The softest sound a person can hear with normal hearing
10 normal breathing
20 whispering at 5 feet
30 soft whisper
50 rainfall
60 normal conversation
110 shouting in ear
120 thunder

Home:
50 refrigerator
50 – 60 electric toothbrush
50 – 75 washing machine
50 – 75 air conditioner
50 – 80 electric shaver
55 coffee percolator
55 – 70 dishwasher
60 sewing machine
60 – 85 vacuum cleaner
60 – 95 hair dryer
65 – 80 alarm clock
70 TV audio
70 – 80 coffee grinder
70 – 95 garbage disposal
75 – 85 flush toilet
80 pop-up toaster
80 doorbell
80 ringing telephone
80 whistling kettle
80 – 90 food mixer or processor
80 – 90 blender
80 – 95 garbage disposal
110 baby crying
110 squeaky toy held close to the ear
135 noisy squeeze toys

Work:
40 quiet office, library
50 large office
65 – 95 power lawn mower
80 manual machine, tools
85 handsaw
90 tractor
90 – 115 subway
95 electric drill
100 factory machinery
100 woodworking class
105 snow blower
110 power saw
110 leafblower
120 chain saw, hammer on nail
120 pneumatic drills, heavy machine
120 jet plane (at ramp)
120 ambulance siren
125 chain saw
130 jackhammer, power drill
130 air raid
130 percussion section at symphony
140 airplane taking off
150 jet engine taking off
150 artillery fire at 500 feet
180 rocket launching from pad

Recreation:
40 quiet residential area
70 freeway traffic
85 heavy traffic, noisy restaurant
90 truck, shouted conversation
95 – 110 motorcycle
100 snowmobile
100 school dance, boom box
110 disco
110 busy video arcade
110 symphony concert
110 car horn
110 -120 rock concert
112 personal cassette player on high
117 football game (stadium)
120 band concert
125 auto stereo (factory installed)
130 stock car races
143 bicycle horn
150 firecracker
156 capgun
157 balloon pop
162 fireworks (at 3 feet)
163 rifle
166 handgun
170 shotgun

So if you fire guns, operate heavy/loud machinery or launch rockets regularly buy some ear plugs…
I said BUY SOME EAR PLUGS!!!
or it WILL be one of those things you WILL regret in later life…
ie fast forward a decade or two: ‘What? WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY?

What do you think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world’s great violinists performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?

The Washington Post did this very experiment with Joshua Bell performing on a Stradivari violin made in 1713. The results are here

Aside from the people lost to their ipods, what do you think happened?

This is one place I am definitely visiting next time I am in the UK!

If only you could rotate & point them at things!

For the record the above photo is of a sound mirror which was used for early detection of approaching planes during the war… thankfully they have been preserved & its possible to visit them on a guided tour.

They employ the same physical technique as parabolic dishes used by bird spotters/recordists the world over – the dish collects & focuses sound to a point which is exactly where people like me place a microphone. The main problem with parabolic dishes is that their frequency response is based on physical size – for recording birds the target sound is mainly in the upper register so a portable dish is very useful whereas for recording the full spectrum (or the drone of an approaching bomber) requires a large scale parabolic dish, hence the sound mirrors

Not quite as spectacular but a bit closer to home is a location with an intriging acoustic phenomena; the Massey Memorial, which is up in the bush on the city side of the Miramar peninsula here in Wellington. It is a big marble monument & at the sea end it is like a big dome with windows in it.

In the centre of the dome is a raised platform which if you stand on it & make any sound, you get an instant acoustic reflection from all angles of the dome. It feels almost perspectiveless, like wearing headphones with the foldback turned way up, while being mic’ed up in an anechoic chamber… Visit it, with your ears open!

& if you know of any other sonically interesting locations in New Zealand, please tell me about it!

There is a very interesting interview with pioneering film & sound editor Walter Murch about his research into ancient astronomy & a theory he has developed related to the Pantheon in Rome.

He also goes on to discuss architecture, acoustics & ambience and in the process comes out with the ultimate film makers decision making motivation: ‘It all depends on the dramatic intent of the moment.’

Murch: “On every film I try to think as deeply as I can about the implied acoustic space of each scene; I then try to tailor the reverberant quality of the sound, and the tonality, to the spaces that we’re looking at. It’s endlessly fascinating, particularly because this technique flies “below the radar” of the audience. The filmmaker can have an effect on the audience without the audience knowing where that effect is coming from. Which I would guess is something that architects enjoy playing with, too.”

BLDGBLOG: “As far as an acoustically rich space goes, is there a specific place – or a building or a landscape – where you like to record sounds for use in a film? How does the actual space affect the sounds you can record in it? ”

Murch: “Well, first of all, I record a sound without any atmospheric envelope around it. I then take that recorded sound and find an acoustic space that is as close as possible to the acoustical space in the film; I play the sound in that space; and I record the resulting reverberation on another device, placed to extract the maximum reverberation. Then, in the final mix, I have the ability to blend those two sounds: the “dry” sound itself, alongside a sound which is almost all reverberation.

In musical terms, you could say it’s like the relationship between the string of the violin and the reverberation and amplification added by the body of the violin itself.

By first separating and then balancing those two elements together, I can custom-fit what seems to be the right dimension of sound implied by the space on screen. If you have too much reverb, and you don’t hear enough of the original sound itself, the result is too diffuse and ethereal to be realistic – but sometimes that lack of realism is exactly what you want. On the other hand, if you play proportionately too much of the dry sound, it doesn’t seem to connect to the space you’re looking at. But maybe that’s exactly what you want – that kind of dislocation It all depends on the dramatic intent of the moment. But these two elements give you the handles to control the final result.”

Last week I did an interview with Kirsten Johnstone from Radio New Zealand National for the show Musical Chairs – I have to confess I prefer being on the other end of a microphone but it was fun & I think Kirsten had fun cutting up my rants about sound, music, perception, grain silos, impulse responses, ambiences, sonic memory and recently released movie; Black Sheep
The interview airs tomorrow, Saturday 7th April, 4.10pm local time.
Aside from local AM & FM, RNZ broadcasts via internet streaming & cable TV – more info here or listen to the live stream
Afterwards it will be released as an MP3 podcast – you can listen to other interviews from Musical Chairs here – I’ll post a direct link to mine once its available.

UPDATED: you can download an mp3 of the interview here

During the interview I mentioned that eleven people were involved in creating the soundtrack for Black Sheep. As a soundtrack it really is like a band where each of the eleven people are playing an instrument & depending on what is happening onscreen we continuously trade solos. But remove any one of the players & the entire soundtrack begins to unravel. So those eleven people, in chronological order of work are:

Location sound – recordist: Chris Hiles
Location sound – boom: Sam Spicer
Composer: Victoria Kelly– interview here
Sound Designer: Tim Prebble
Dialogue/ADR Editor: Chris Todd
Sound Effects Editor: Matt Lambourn
Assistant Sound Editor: Age Pryor
Foley Recordist: Robyn McFarlane
Foley Artist: Caroline McLaughlin
Rerecording Mixer: (dialogue & music) Gethin Creagh
Rerecording Mixer: (FX, ambience, foley) Gilbert Lake

But of course the two people who contributed the most to the soundtrack were the director, Jonathan King and producer Phillipa Campbell.
The film was shot on locations around Wellington. The sound editing was completed at Substation while the foley and mix were completed at Park Road Post.

Also incase anyone wants a copy, the four legged choir singing the NZ National anthem that is heard in the interview is available as a cellphone ring tone! Audition it by clicking the orange play button below:

I’ve also made a series of TXT Alert ringtones – very short but interesting beeps & bleeps, which are available on my voeveo site as well… Personally my cellphone is permanently on silent ring/vibrate but if a phone is going to ring audibly it might as well sound interesting & reflect something of the owners personality. I’m happy to do requests – email me & ask me to make a ringtone & if the idea is weird/original enough I’ll happily make it for you for free & send it to you…

Here are links to previous posts & photos from our work on Black Sheep:
1. recording sheep at Hero Animals
2. violence with vegetables part 1
3. vehicle FX recording
4. violence with vegetables part 2