Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/44580
CLOUD: "In my job as an assistant editor, I will use sound effects libraries for temp tracks to give to the picture department as place- holders until editors and designers can do their work. On indepen- dent shorts and features I'll use sound effects libraries as a comfort blanket: to give directors some things they're expecting to hear." DEFORD: "I don't know a project I haven't used music on. SFX are an as-needed item for post work. Sounds such as gun shots, ambi- ent surroundings (train or car horns or crowds) and any automotive application can many times be replaced or enhanced in post with professionally purchased recorded sound effects." DICESARE: "The Napoleon Group specializes in test commer- cials, also known as animatics, which are basically storyboards put to video. We have to build the entire soundtrack from scratch just like with animation projects. We typically start with the voice recording and build the audio from there since there is never any production sound. Test commercials enable our clients to try out many different ideas before a commercial gets fully produced. That's why I call this 'The Idea Stage' of a commercial. Nothing is settled on, yet. "So, it's not out of the question for a client to ask for music — let's say a big orchestral movie-type score, for example. But once they hear it, they can do a 180 and ask for a simple solo acoustic guitar instead. Once they hear that, then they might ask for '70s disco. This can happen all within a matter of minutes! So, being able to click on a multitude of selections and musical styles instantly is a necessity for me. In the world of test commercials, almost every aspect of what I do is some kind of an exploratory phase. I have to be able to change on a dime, and libraries allow me to do that." HOLLAND: "I use stock SFX libraries mostly for pro- mos and interstitials, since they require a quick turn around. Having a well stocked library will get you up in the air quickly. Although for larger campaigns I like to spend more time creating the sonic 'branding' up front, creating sounds that are as distinct as the graphics and styling used to promote a specific show. This 'brand- ing' will follow that campaign of pro- mos sometimes for years." POST: How often do you use these library sounds effects or music to enhance your own sounds or SFX, or do you use them as is? CLOUD: "In our sound editorial of feature films we rarely use a sound library unless it's been heavily manipulated, but it's not an absolute. If a sound library has a good effect, we'll use it, we just want to make sure what we're looking for doesn't already exist in our master library as something unique to our shop." DEFORD: "I have an affec- tion for combining sounds to fatten the result. If I can combine three different gunshots, in varying percentages, to cover a wider spec- trum of sound, I'll do it. Many times a mixture in different percentages can give a unique result. One of the issues I have with older westerns is that the gunshots are, www.postmagazine.com Post • October 2011 37 literally, all the same sound, which isn't realistic. If you overlay sounds and vary one or two, you can keep the same sound, but with slight variations that the human brain interprets as different from another. This was one of the complaints of early drum machines — the snare sound, for instance, was exactly the same on each beat. A real drum- mer, however, will never hit exactly the same place, with the same force. The miniscule variation of human drumming doesn't create the monotony of the canned, repeating rat-ta-tat." DICESARE: "Rarely am I able to record my own music or sounds effects, so I have to use libraries as-is for my starting point. But, I alter them almost 100 percent of the time. It comes down to timings. Everything I do is either in 15-, 30-, or 60-second segments, so editing a four-minute piece of music to have the same kind of intro, verse, chorus, or some kind of music structure is essential. The song has to happen all within that 30 seconds, not over three or four minutes. And for sound effects, there are also those same types of timing issues. All sound effects have to be edited to match the timings of the video and very often, pitched up or down, to match the size of whatever we are seeing in picture." HOLLAND: "I rarely drop in a stock sound effect that plays down as is. I usually layer three or more stock sound effects and apply Smokey Cloud worked on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, manipulating Orangutan vocals from the BBC Sound Library.