(relatively) up to date info on all Jace Sound projects in the works
Last friday I embarked on a foley mission into the ATB audio theatre to record several base AFX for ‘The Real Pirate’, pictured below is me organising tracks and recording some foley audio myself. I used Rode NTG-2s for the foley, and I recorded most sounds from between 1 and 2 feet away to prevent any proximity effect.
This post, as the title suggests, consists of the secondary research I have conducted into sound design in animation and games. As opposed to making a new post every time I do more research I will just update this one with any new notes I take, info I find interesting, etc. Each source will be headered for easy navigation and understanding.
chapter 1.1, pg 1
“According to sound designer Randy Thom, animation movies
can be made more cinematic by avoiding wall-to-wall dialogues (Kiser, 2018). Animation films rely heavily on imagination, starting off with static storyboards which is then translated into visual moving images. This imaginative production can be made more cinematic and dramatic using abstract metaphoric sounds and ambience. According to Beauchamp (2013), metaphoric sounds are more effective to create a dramatic experience than literal sounds, and as many objects in animation do not exist; consequently, metaphoric sound is vital to characterization and plausibility of the object. Therefore, creative use of sound design in animation can validate and strengthen the personalities of the characters and the story, as well as guide the audience through a cinematic
storytelling experience.”
Chapter 2.3, pg. 7
“Sound in film or any other media is designed for the audience, which makes it necessary to understand how the audience will perceive the sound.”
Salahuddin (2021, 16)
(cont.) “Therefore, Sonnenschein (2001) states that understanding our physiological and mental capacities and limitations can be the core of applying sound design principles for films. He states the different listening modes put forward by the film theorist Michel Chion, and introduces a fourth one as follows:
pg.8
“Kramer (1992) summarizes Bregman’s differentiation of two processes in which
the audience perceives sound: schema-driven and primitive processes. The schema-driven processes refer to the audience’s perception based off their past experiences, including understanding of languages and context of sound. Therefore, this can be tied back to the referential mode of listening introduced by Sonnenschein. Whereas the primitive processes refer to the innate perceptions of sound, like the effect produced by Archetypal sounds – chirping of birds, sound of the thunder etc.”
ch. 2.3.1
“One of the most important principles in a film’s sonic landscape is the distinction between figure (foreground) and background sounds. This distinction makes a sound pop from the rest of the soundscape, making the audience focus on that particular sound. Such distinction is achieved by the sound quality such as timbre, rather than its physical dimensions (or loudness) (Sonnenschein, 2001)”
Ch. 2.3.8 pg. 11
“According to Sonnenschein (2001), sound can be described in three levels, wherein the audience consciously listens and focuses on the first level, the second level supports the environment without demanding attention, and the third level creates a united and whole soundscape, therefore affecting us subconsciously. He also mentions that the first level can be referred to as the figure, while the second and third level as background. Therefore, appropriate placement and shift of focus between figure and ground sounds is essential in building an auditory hierarchy to narrate the story. The importance of auditory hierarchy and sonic focus have been stressed by sound designers like Walter Murch. According to Murch, our mind can focus only on a maximum of two sounds within a scene
(Sonnenschein, 2001). Therefore, a balance must be maintained between the use of dialogue, music and sound effects, depending on the intended storytelling.”
ch. 2.4
“According to Taberham (2018), “the audio operates like an echo of the physical world in an otherwise constructed landscape” (p. 131). Therefore, the sound design plays a crucial role in defining whether the film is going to sound “cartoony”, “musical”, or “live-action-like” and so on.”
ch. 2.5 pg. 13
“Since, animation films are specifically intriguing, where directors can get creative with the various modes of sound design, this paper will look at the films with the “poetic authentication” mode of sound design. In my opinion, “Less in More” visual design principles are more prevalent for this mode of sound design, as it purposefully neither includes flamboyant comic sound effects nor back-to-back dialogues, but tends to utilize various principles of sound design for effective storytelling and dramatic expression.”
pg.228
“It is often assumed that creating the sound design for an animated film is more difficult than it is for live action. that is not necessarily true. In terms of sound effects, the number of individual sounds recorded, gathered form libraries, fabricated specifically for that film, and cut into mixable tracks tends to be about the same for a large-scale animated film and a large-scale live action film.”
“Stylization in the visuals and the sound allows us to focus, to be more precise and dynamic emotionally, as opposed to presenting a wall of indistinguishable sound and hoping that will translate as “exciting””
on Early Collaboration:
“There is one area in which sound for some contemporary animation is substantially more ambitious than sound for live action: early collaboration. On an increasing number of animated films, the sound designer is being asked to create speculative sounds for characters, places, and events as a way of stimulating the imaginations of the animators.” he then elaborates using his work on “how to train your dragon” as an example: “I fabricated many sounds… before any animation at all had been done for those sequences. The sounds that I made suggested possible visual imagery to the animators. Then, based on the animation they created, I modified the sounds or reworked them entirely, either of which sometimes suggested more visual possibilities”
pg.229
“There is a temptation in contemporary animation to “flesh out” the sound effects and music tracks extensively during the early work on the visuals. When the visuals are still simplle and crude, often only stick figures, elaborate and continuous music and sound effects are a useful storytelling crutch to make a sequence coherent and emotionally powerful. Unfortunately, once the visuals are complete and the crutch is no longer needed, it tends to stay. In my opinion this presents a problem of story focus. “
This legion of sounds, both concrete and musical, often tends to blunt the impact of the piece by making it less dynamic and less focused
Thom (2013, 229)
“Some supervising sound editors and and sound designers feel strongly that a film without complex and diverse ambient, atmospheric background sound effects is deficient. I couldn’t disagree more. In my opinion the “background sound style” should be congruous with that of the film as a whole. The storytelling style of some films calls for richly layered and constantly shifting background ambience; the style of others does not.” – in other words, there is no “one size fits all” approach or background sound for animation, just as the same is true with all other audiovisual projects.
cont. “The point I want to make is that each film I work on calls for its own sound design aesthetic. I try to make as few assumptions as possible at the beginning of each project, then work with the director to discover what seems to work best.”
pg.230
“The ideal result is clarity of message. The sonic landscape is not muddied up with unnecessary sounds that will tend to mask and thereby emasculate one another. The sounds are chosen carefully to make each moment “realistic” enough to be believable and emotionally on point”
“The term “realistic” is problematic as it applies to any film, especially an animated film. Directors often put a premium on “realistic” sounds in both live action and animation because they feel “adding realism” is one of sound’s principal jobs to provide a solid base for the fanciful visual images so that they don’t float away, out of control.”
pg. 231
“It is possible to have several layers of simultaneous sound as long as there is, for lack of a better description, a “loudness hierarchy” among then.”
Thom (2013, 231)
(cont.) “One technique for accomplishing this is to allocate parts of the sonic frequency spectrum to each category or group of sound. for example, car engines can occupy most of the bass end of the spectrum in a given moment, while voices occupy occupy most of the mid range of frequencies. The engine sounds therefore have to be designed to be bass intensive.”
“All of the sound crafts in film, except for that of the composer, have too often been categorized, misguidedly, as “technical” jobs. All sound people tend to be referred to as “engineers”. Though we use technology, just as all the other film crafts do, making artistic decisions is the essential role of the sound designer in animated and live-action films. We have initial discussions with animation directors about the story and the principal characters, human and nonhuman. Then we begin to fabricate and collect sounds we think may be useful for the project. Before I am ready to play a set of those sounds in sync with picture for a director, I have made literally hundreds of artistic editorial decisions about their appropriateness relative to mood, intensity, spacing, tempo, volume dynamics, and so forth. The tech we use is directly analogous to a graphics or drafting program that a production designer would use to make early drawings of a set for the director’s approval. In other words, we in the craft of sound are not simply the operators of gadgets, waiting for the director to tell us what the gadgets should do.” – In application of this I have started work on some mindmaps with basic ideas to for the creators so that we can work better to create a project they will be happy with
Salahuddin, F. (2021) THE CONCEPT OF “LESS IS MORE” IN VISUAL DESIGN
APPLIED TO SOUND DESIGN IN ANIMATION. MSc. University of Dublin. Available from https://publications.scss.tcd.ie/theses/diss/2021/TCD-SCSS-DISSERTATION-2021-015.pdf
Thom, R. (2013) Notes on sound design in contemporary animated films. In: Richardson, J., Gorbman, C. and Vernallis, C. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 227-232.
This week I focussed on starting the collection of various sounds, largely centred around the ambience for the animation (waves, seagulls n such). While I did experiment with a few other sounds such as blinking and footsteps these are still in the early stages. I started this process with my initial spotting sheet done for the first 40 seconds of the animation to give myself a contained area to analyse, then creating what I call a “Solutions Sheet” which basically describes what I want to do to find or create the sounds I noted on the spotting sheet.
After this I used freesound.org to source as many effects as I could find that I thought fit the category of sounds I can’t recreate (gulls, waves n such) and put them into various bookmarked folders associated with my general mindmaps (cartoony, cliche and basic) with an extra folder called “who know” for things I was sure I liked but didn’t yet have a use for.
Here is the WIP so far.
After an arduous process of reformatting this blog for multiple projects, and not just the one I completed last semester, the first post for ‘The Real Pirate’ is finally here!
so, what have we got so far? besides an animatic of the full short with a basic scratch track provided by the animators, nothing to actually show on the blog just yet. I have a basic spotting sheet with some technical solutions and a few mind-maps put together with an aim to have my own scratch tracks (yes, plural) to be completed over the next week or two, and then brought to the animators for opinions.
I am optimistic about the future of this project as the animators seem very passionate about their creation and it’s really a very fun little animation.
A conceptual sound overview for a horror game built from the ground up for the visually impaired.
An adorable animation showing a mans difficult and painful transformation into a formidable pirate.
As my final post of notes I’ll be rounding out any last minute changes as well as attempting to solidify any things I haven’t outright stated in any previous posts.
following my last tutoring session on this project, I will be making some alterations to the sounds of the scream in the intro to make it sound more haunting, as well as actually uploading my fabled scene 3 as I believe it fits in well with the learning objective I had for conveying position in a 3d audio environment.
During my research into the games industry, to see which games inspired my decisions, I stumbled upon a game called DeadFright, a kickstarter crowdfunded videogame designed in, seemingly, the exact same way I had envisioned my game being designed. To be clear, I discovered this long after I had come to most of the same conclusions around how an audio-based horror game should be designed. The game never got a full release, however there is a playable demo available on itch.io and the steam page is still up, implying that it is still being developed, but the kickstarter page hasn’t been updated since 2020 and it failed to reach it’s initial $21,000 funding goal, with it’s kickstarter campaign ending in November of the same year having reached only $2,193.
This game’s potential existence highlighted what is essentially a gap in the market for these kinds of games, as the people who’ve played the demo seemed to have largely positive things to say about the experience, and the few websites that wrote articles about the game’s progressing development seemed to be . I think it’s telling, though, how I, someone who actively plays a lot of video games and is generally very aware of interesting and innovative gaming experiences in development, only managed to discover this game by accident while researching how a game like this should be made. I think that what essentially killed this project was a lack of marketing. it has a twitter page with one post, which is just a link to the kickstarter page, a fairly barebones instagram page which seems to be built purely to direct people to the kickstarter page, a facebook page with a few posts, some of which that do actually talk about some aspects of the game besides the kickstarter page, but with very little engagement and only being posted directly to the page and without any visible attempt to appeal to any kind of audience, their website, which seems to no longer be operable, and their itch.IO page, which is about as barebones as you can get. Despite this seeming lack of attempt to attract people to the game, it did get positive responses form the people that discovered it, which begs the question of what could’ve been, had this game had more powerful marketing and financing behind it. The main developer, Jorge Orta, also seems to have dropped off the face of the earth after the final post related to the game appeared on their facebook page on the 5th of November 2020, although his linkedin page still lists him as the head developer and founder of the company behind it, Korta Interactive.
In organising my sound asset library, I based my structure on an article from ASoundLibrary.com called “How To Create A Sound Effect Library”. In this guide, it is recommended that sounds are broken down into sections to make the desired sounds easier to find. to follow this, I separated the effects I recorded or downloaded into 3 folders, Field recordings – for the recordings I did in the West Commons, Foley recordings – for the recordings I did in the Foley room in the audio theatre, and Freesound.com – for the sounds I downloaded from freesound, with the file names unchanged as to retain all information left by the original uploaders. Within the 2 folders of sounds I recorded, the recordings have been separated based on the main object used in creating the sound e.g. “stick vs rock” went into “stick”, and from there the sounds, if there were a lot, were further divided, e.g. “Stick vs Rock” went into “Impacts”. This meant that if I wanted the sound of a stick being thrown at a tree I could go Field Recordings -> Stick -> Impacts, and I would find every recording I did of a stick hitting a tree.
There were various points in development where I lost focus and started to talk or think more about what the actual game would be like as opposed to what the sound should be, like debating control schemes and plot elements etc. Early on I also threw around a UI concept which obviously wouldn’t exactly be necessary in a game made for people who can’t see, and definitely wouldn’t be necessary for an audio project focussed on the sound side of that game instead of the visuals.
I named the project “Teneberis Tenebris” because, to be perfectly honest, I was messing around on google translate seeing what some words were like in Latin. I started with blind and somehow ended up on darkness, which came out as Tenebris. I then accidentally typed Teneberis in when reverse translating to see how it translated from Latin to English, as google translate has a bit of a reputation for spitting out strange translations, and it came out “You will be kept”. putting these two together you get “you will be kept in darkness” or “Teneberis Tenebris”, which I found to be a pretty apt summation of the games premise, as well as being a strangely nice title.
Below are a few example recordings from my field recording session in the West Commons. I would have liked to upload a full folder however WordPress doesn’t seem to have that functionality.
In the last full week of work on this project I had to make some tough decisions to make this thing work. Ultimately I’m dropping off the 3rd “Scene” that I wrote because I simply couldn’t piece it together mentally, meaning I could focus more on the first 2 scenes I already had recorded and mostly edited, with just some mastering and other work left to do. Remnants of scene 3 will remain in the pro tools project still but it’s been essentially abandoned.
>Companion parts scripted and recorded, with bits of extra speech added to the intro to make it feel more involved.
>With dialogue added to Hallway, some of it has been reshuffled to give more space for speech
>Separating of effects for the library is almost done, after having put it off as it’s so tedious
This is the script I have written for the parts of the companion character (voiced by myself). These are conceptual and, in the case of the 2nd and 3rd scene, don’t take into account reaction time for the player and simply illustrate the role of the companion. The intro is unique in that it has no bearing on layer action/isn’t there to prompt anything, just to tell the player that there’s another person there with them.
*Monster screams in distance*
companion: What was that?
*floor breaks*
Companion: whoa (falling over into the gap in the floor, after the player has already fallen)
*falling*
companion: fuck, FUCK!
*companion properly falls after grasping the edge*
*companion hits the floor, a second or two after the player and coughs*
*end scene*
*standing in the hallway*
Companion: What now? (whispering)
*monster scream 2*
companion: we better hide, left or right? (hurriedly)
*player picks right (room with fireplace*
*companion grunts under pain of rapid movement*
Companion (after having entered the room and waited a second): this fire… it’s just been refuelled
*end scene*
*echoey environment*
Companion (seeing the creature and whispering): It’s… here…
*creature walks past*
*companion breathes lightly*
Companion: what do we do? Run…? keep hidden…? any suggestions..? (leaves open an option for player to come up with a solution)
Here I will post some of the drafts of the pro tools pieces I’ve put together
Draft 1 – no speech
Draft 2 – with speech and panning
Draft 3 – extra speech and effects redone
Draft 4 – final pre-submission feedback
Draft 1 – no speech
Draft 2 – With Speech
Draft 3 – final pre-submission feedback
Draft 1
Draft 2