Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545099
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 41 - water is one of those things—it has this continuity to it that's really hard to build by cutting individual sounds. I loaded water recordings into Reformer and literally spoke into the microphone. And you get this movement that feels connected. At first, it was cutting off in a weird way, so I started experimenting with the signal chain. I put a reverb before Reformer, and the tail of that reverb created this extra sound that made it feel more natural. And suddenly, it just opened up. What would have taken a long time to search and cut took a few minutes to get something working. And the big thing is, I can tell quickly if it works. That's what really speeds things up, not just execution, but decision-making. How do tools like Krotos Studio Pro and Sound Particles affect the way you build environments and transitions? JDR III: They let me sketch faster and stay in a creative flow. Instead of hunting and pecking through libraries all the time, I can open something like Krotos Studio Pro and just start building the environment, room tone, exterior elements, and get a sense of how the scene is going to feel. I also like being able to perform transitions. Instead of making a long crossfade between two rooms, I can actually move between spaces in a more dynamic way. I've built presets where I map different environments into an XY control, so I can move between them. Sound Particles 3 allows me to build unique environments with a controlled randomness, to make something that truly doesn't exist. In The Patient, I used it to craft the essence of the basement environment and was able to have some house creaks and shifts generate randomly so that it felt organic. It also makes it more fun. Which matters. Because we spend a lot of time sitting in dark rooms doing this, especially now with remote workflows. Being able to interact with sound in a more immediate way keeps you engaged. You've mentioned dialogue techniques based on perception. Can you explain the lesson you learned working with Ken Hahn? JDR III: We were working on a backstage interview at the Metropolitan Opera, and there's a stagehand just hammering through the whole thing. I tried everything to remove it, iZotope, manual editing … nothing worked. So, I brought it to Ken, and he listens, and he's like, "Give me a few minutes." I come back, he played it back and … where did the hammer go? What he did wasn't remove it. He introduced it earlier, very quietly, and slowly ramped it in, so by the time it's loud, your brain has already accepted it as part of the environment. And that's when it really clicked: The brain reacts to change. If something suddenly appears, you notice it. If it evolves, you accept it. So instead of thinking, "How do I get rid of this?" it becomes, "How do I make the brain accept this?" That applies to everything. Noise reduction, ADR, all of it. If something suddenly shifts, you hear it. If you shape it, you can hide it in plain sight. At the end of the day, dialogue, sound effects, music, it's all moving air. It's all frequencies. As schedules tighten and tools become more advanced, are these workflows becoming essential? JDR III: I think they're becoming more important, but they're not a replacement for experience. They let you move faster; they let you experiment more within the time you have. That's huge. But at the same time, I see a lot of people trying to do everything themselves now. Especially in indie workflows. And the problem isn't the tools, it's that they don't have the experience yet to understand what they're doing. Sound is about perception. It's about psychoacoustics. It's about storytelling. And you learn that by being in rooms, hearing feedback, working with other people. You can have all the tools in the world, but without that context, you're missing something. You don't move a couch by yourself, you find people who can help you, and you do it. Sound is the same, it's collaborative as well. And I think we need more education around that. Because when sound is brought in early and treated as part of the storytelling, it has the potential to elevate everything. "Sound is about perception. It's about psychoacoustics. It's about storytelling. And you learn that by being in rooms, hearing feedback, working with other people. You can have all the tools in the world, but without that context, you're missing something." –JDR III