Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 71 library project which is turning 15 this year. It seems the very nature of the NZ environment in which you live, work, and roam is very influential on your work. You go to great lengths to record and share amazing sounds. How did this work start? Launching HISSandaROAR occurred due to a confluence of ideas. First was practical. Even when I had a busy year as a sound designer, I would still have months of downtime, and I wanted to find a productive use for that free time. Second was that back in 2008, most sound effects libraries were distributed on CD and I felt the 'old' approach had grown tired, and the lack of variations had led to some dreadful overused cliches. I had a lot of ideas about how I could disrupt the old model by improving it in ways that I myself wanted and needed as a sound designer. Third was that the internet was becoming a viable medium for distribution. Prior to HISSandaROAR launching, I organised the first-ever crowd-sourced sound effects project, thanks to the community that had formed around my blog. One hundred recordists from all over the planet contributed to create a 121 GB library of door sound effects. But that library was far too large to distribute so I had to ship hard drives, one to each continent. By 2010, releasing a library online had become viable, and not just CD quality; I wanted 24-bit 96kHz as a minimum. The first library VEGETABLE VIOLENCE came about after finishing three horror films and realising each time we had recorded specific gore sound effects. It is very messy fun—my studio smelt like a strange salad for a few days afterward. But I kept thinking, someone needs to make a definitive gore library! So that's what I did, but I also implemented aspects that I felt had been lacking. Back then, most sound library websites looked like an accountant's website. They were dull, grey, and all text. But I knew sound designers are creative people—they work to incredible images all of the time. Therefore, for every recording I did for HISSandaROAR, I also captured sync video and documented the recordings with lots of photos. Then, when it came to release the library, I had a fun promotional video to demonstrate the work, and every sound in the library had Recording Truck Doppler Horn Passes, Desert Road, NZ (2018).