Tag: 2015

RESEARCH: Supervising Sound Editor

13421070 / / Audio Production, Individual Reflection, Role - Supervising Sound Editor

“Good sound design enhances the listening experience, but doesn’t get in the way of the story.”  – Eloise Whitmore

My role for the production of George is that of a Supervising Sound Editor. This is a hands-on role with involvement in the cutting and editing of dialogue, ADR, foley and special effects, as well as the oversight of the ‘deliverables’ for the film such as the various mixes required by the director, and making sure the mix meets any stipulated technical specifications. Responsibilities also extend to the sound budget, the work-flow and priorities of the sound team on the mix, and appointing and managing those responsible for each aspect of the post production editing.

 “On the average A-picture the first post production sound person brought onto the film is the supervising sound editor, who not only directs and coordinates the creative contributions of the post-production sound staff but also must handle all the related administrative duties like scheduling mixes. The tendency is to bring the supervising editor on earlier and earlier. The main reason is the changing demands for sound in early screenings. This practice has engendered the greatest changes in the logistics of post-production sound in the last two decades,” – (FilmSound.org)

Liasing with the artistic leads on the film (usually the director) is critical to the role, and supervising sound editors often double as sound-designers, directing the overall artistic audio tone of the picture to a greater or lesser extent. Again, this aspect of the role is relevant to ‘George’, as I am partially responsible alongside my colleagues in translating the wishes of the director into a functional sound-script and ultimately into a working soundtrack.

This makes the role very variable based on the scale of the film in question, and in the case of ‘George’ – a zero budget student-film – I felt the creative liason, sound design and the hands-on editing would likely be the most relevant aspects. ADR, for example, was unlikely to be required for a script which has ended up containing very little dialogue yet had engaged the services of a full location audio team, and the audio team personnel and roles were largely dictated by our modules requirements.It also became clear during preproduction (based on the original institutional deadlines for the work, at least) that the audio work on this film would need to be directed carefully and, as the evident lack of concept and storyboarding came to light, the liason with the director particularly would need to begin as any possible headstart on the more complicated aspects of the sound design would be necessary in order to be able to condense relatively large requirements for a piece into a short period of time.

This is somewhat at odds with some conceptions of the role in the wider industry as it tends to begin at picture lock and the beginning of post production for films with little budget, but this is usually due to the constraints of said budget. Larger budgets enable longer contracts and more responsibilities and involvement for a supervising sound editor, and whilst ‘George’ has no budget it was possible to begin work on it early due to the institutional context.

Forward planning and preparation is absolutely critical in audio work of all stripes and especially in the relatively complex world of moving image with it’s many interlocking roles working in a production line sense towards the end product. In the context of my post production role, this is important when considering the necessity for ample source material to work with in the edit phase, and I wanted to participate in the location recording of this project partially to make sure we collected plenty of useful wild-track audio for later use in our atmospheres. This documentary on the film Australia opens with the Supervising Sound Editor / Designer Wayne Pashley discussing his work on the film, the set of which he was able to visit in order to capture the location sounds because ‘…there’s nothing like it’, referring to the unique nature of the sounds of the landscape in Australia. Whilst the locations for ‘George’ are not in anyway similar to that production, I think it would be useful to collect ambience for later use in a similar way.

I’ve examined some of the work of a couple of well known supervising sound editors, one that is relevant to George and another who concentrates mainly on sci-fi and the fantastic, which is my preferred own specialism, in the form of Richard King. The work he directed on Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a personal favourite, and I would love to try to weave some of the nuance of his work on that film into this one in some small way, specifically the discussion of ‘transitioning’ the audience into a dream sequence from this interview –

‘…we also altered the pitch of all the real-world sounds when we transition from level to level (much like the watch ticks change speed in the first sequence). So all the sounds slow and change and become a different sound in the next sequence – interior jet roar becomes traffic when we transition to the first dream level, for instance.’ – http://designingsound.org/

This interview also supports the notion above of recording as much as possible on set, though not at the cost to the impact of the audio, as King points out:

‘…It’s so important to get the sounds which you feel and imagine could be there. There’s always a lot of manipulation afterward of course, but recording new raw material is so important. I’d love to record everything every time, but the most important thing is to find the sound which provides that feeling you’re looking for regardless of where it comes from.’ – http://designingsound.org/

Richard King is soon to receive an MPSE career award for his contribution to cinema audio.

Mark Mangini’s work is discussed in this post covering the influence of Green Mile on the sound design of ‘George’.

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KEY POINTS –

Overview of supervising sound editor role – Research, Individual reflection on learning and team role.

  • Assess the technical requirements of a production to inform the selection of appropriate tools, techniques and processes.
  • Examine and implement professional practices in their production work in relation to professional contexts, clearances, ownership, copyright and commissioning.

Guest Lecture – Grant Bridgeman – 11/11/15

13421070 / / Audio Production, Guest Lecture, Individual Reflection, Learning Outcomes

Grant Bridgeman is a BAFTA nominated location sound recordist and sound designer.

This extra teaching session with him was largely based around the students in attendance asking questions as many of us (including our group) had been recording on location several times over the previous couple of weeks.

In our case this was particularly useful – Grant was able to answer a question which had been raised during our shoot about working with boomed microphones in wet or damp conditions, amongst others, specifically how long this equipment tends to be able to manage in wet weather before performance is effected. Not very long is the answer, and Grant provided several practical options for mitigating issues caused by adverse weather. He also discussed some methods of managing less than professional crews, some tips for handling moving shots, and the critical importance of preparation, reconnaissance and early communication of potential issues when working on location with film crews.

He also covered some of the intricacies of the various microphones often used for location work, and gave several tips for getting better results out of tricky situations.

It was extremely useful to be able to run our recent experiences in the field past a professional with 20+ years experience, and the information we took away from this session has already proven valuable in our planning of the location audio for the remainder of ‘George’.

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KEY POINTS –

Professional feedback on technical process for location recording and on process for managing tricky working relationships –
Contribution + Role, Individual reflection on learning and team role, Application of skills and conduct in production.
Learning Outcomes –
To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.
To successfully manage the audio team’s interaction with film’s director, editor and producer on a practical and creative level, and ensure the audio team’s work is delivered on time and to a good standard

 

Guest Lecture – Jez Riley-French – 02/11/15

13421070 / / Guest Lecture

Jez Riley-French is a field recordist and sound artist who’s audio work stems from an interest in microphone and recording technology and a naturalist and durationalist approach to recording.

He records the sound of “mediums other than air” using contact microphones and hydrophones (amongst others) and likens recording sounds of the natural world as they occur to improvisational music, in that the results are relative to many variables and always surprising. He also notes that little is really known about environmental sounds citing examples he demonstrated of recording orchestra mediated by the buildings they perform in.

The demonstrations of some of his work were quite unusual, and he made the point that some of his work has been picked up for use in films and games with a leaning towards sci-fi. He argues this is because they tend to be otherworldly, but retain a basis in reality. He believes that getting the audio right at source is critical for game and film sound design, and that too much EQ is the addition of an unreal element to the sound, equating this with a ‘loss’ of the natural.

Jez made the point that exhibiting sound art can be difficult and is relatively underdeveloped and misunderstood at the level of institutions, warning that sound artists should be learn to be forceful about the requirements for their pieces. He also commented on the barriers to entry for the sound art audience as being the unskilled curation, and that many artists don’t have a strong artistic voice and are very reactive.

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PLANNING – Location Selection and Recce

13421070 / / Audio Production, Learning Outcomes, Process Management

Location selection for George was well underway by the time we agreed to get involved but, as a local to Lincoln, I was able to make a couple of suggestions.

We decided to make George’s home a residential house which is currently empty of tenants I’m aware of. This seemed sensible because the original suggestion was a student house of one of the crew and I felt that an empty house would present less obstacles for dressing and less likelihood of interruption to the filming process, and a more controllable environment for us to work in in general. The film crew concurred with this point of view upon seeing the house, as well as feeling it was a stylistic improvement that fitted the script more naturally.

We next performed a preliminary reconnaissance of all the locations bar one, as per Grant Bridgeman’s repeated admonitions in our earlier lectures.

The sound team and I performed a reconnaissance of the house from the perspective of problems for the location audio and the obvious issue, with a reasonably busy road outside and old style, single glazed windows, was traffic noise. This noticeably worsened at different times of day, and led to us advising that the few scenes with dialogue were scheduled in the quieter periods.

The graveyard in the script was also checked over well in advance, and again suffered from traffic noise even though the shoot location itself within the context of a large site was as far from the road as practicable. We also noted the lack of cover from the weather, and the relative distance and inaccessibility of the location if the crew attempt to reach it on foot, which was being mooted at the time. Again the timing of the shoot was clearly to be an issue, as it had an effect on both light levels for working and traffic volume.

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KEY POINTS + LEARNING OUTCOMES

Reconnaissance of locations – Planning, Process Management, Contribution.
Learning Outcome – To contribute extensively to the practicalities of creating and recording music for, and of recording location sound for the piece.

Guest Lecture – Lol Hammond, Music Supervisor – 05/10/15

13421070 / / Audio Production, Guest Lecture

Lol Hammond is a music supervisor for film based in London and working for Vertigo Films, a production and distribution company responsible for award winning films such as Bronson and Monsters. He began life as a DJ and in events, before moving into film music in 2001.

Fundamentally, Lol’s job is to  commission or select and gain rights for the use of suitable music for pictures and his lecture to the audio production 3rd year covered some of the practicalities of this work, the key relationships he considers most important, and some of the intricacies and problems associated with his position.

Broadly speaking he described three categories of audio with which he has involvement –

Source Music – Previously completed music tracks, often previously released elsewhere.

Composition – Music created specifically for the picture.

Sound Design – Audio work done in post.

Hammond describes his position as a filter or intermediary between various parties and the most important relationships as those he develops with a given film director, editor and composer and to some extent the Performers Rights Society with whom he interfaces regularly to clear source music.

Discussing this use of source music, Lol explained that a lot of his time is spent securing rights to use specific tracks from their publishers and record companies. The average price at the level he works is generally £3 – £4000 per ‘side’, with a side defined as a party requiring payment from the agreement. Generally speaking, the bigger the name of the artist the larger the required fee will be with examples of Led Zeppelin and The Beatles as particularly costly. Cost for licenses is often related to the overall budget of the film, and specific use of the music within the context of the picture also effects the cost to the user – with requests for use in trailers or credits correspondingly more expensive – and fees also differ for short and small budget films as opposed to major features, with the former being more negotiable.

However, Lol pointed out that buying licenses can become complicated when dealing with source music due to variation in rights holders across different territories and that, given the long tail nature of film distribution and income, it is always advisable to negotiate rights ‘in perpetuity’ rather than for a limited period of time. Artists with a higher profile also tend to exercise more control over where their music is used, though this can also be useful if a music supervisor has an existing relationship with the artist or their management directly. He also points out that a well known piece of music can easily shift the audience focus away from the film as a whole if used.

Returning to cost, Lol also suggested that offering rights to release the movies soundtrack can sometimes be used as leverage to reduce initial costs of licensing.

Moving on to music composed specifically for a picture, Hammond refers to himself as ‘hands on’ and as drawing on a varied pool of composers as opposed to sticking with a preferred composer which is sometimes the case with other film companies. He works to guide the composer based on the directors preferences, and stressed that writing music to the picture itself is critically important when composing. Finally, he touched on a complexity of using artists-as-composers in the context of higher profile acts, which can lead to issues when making edits after the fact or requesting stem audio. On the positive side, he pointed out that specifically composed works can also be leveraged for extra revenue via publishing for the production house, citing the soundtrack for Monsters as a specific example.

Practically speaking, Lol’s work usually begins with the receipt of an assembly cut which he then watches and makes preliminary decisions as to what broad ‘type’ of songs may fit the cues before offering up three or four choices for a potential sound to the director, which he refers to as ‘temp tracks’. These choices are then refined down to a specific track or track section. A danger here is that director can easily become accustomed to the temp track and it can become difficult to substitute this for better choices.

For me, the key practical points from this lecture were that a music supervisor should always work for the film, ignoring their personal preferences, and that diplomacy and relationship management are absolutely key skills in Lol’s business.

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