Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546054
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 69 A concrete K-rail drops from 30 feet, with microphone blimps visible in the shot. To protect the audio team from flying debris, a junked car was positioned as a makeshift safety barrier. Field recording session for Battlefield 6 destruction sound effects. A 30-foot crane repeatedly drops 4-ton, rebar-reinforced concrete 'K-rails' until they are completely pulverized. These recordings provided the baseline audio for all concrete destruction in the game. immediately around the player, since in limited life modes like Battle Royale, hearing enemy footsteps and character movement is critical. And for our Single Player Campaign, we, of course go the opposite direction and push as cinematic as possible. Here, we move between our in-game core combat mix and cinematic cut scenes. Our goal was to give the feeling that 'the experience never stops.' We used transition sound effects, like risers and reverb blooms, to smoothly move between the two. And we set up systems to allow our in-game mix to crossfade over cinematic transitions, so even if the picture faded to black, audio is still present and carrying the story forward. CAPTURING THE REAL WORLD FIELD RECORDING & SOURCE CAPTURE Battlefield is known for large-scale field recording. What kind of planning goes into a recording session of this size before anyone even arrives on location? Jeff Wilson: When you're dealing with larger field recording sessions, there is a significant amount of work involved in planning and logistics. The first thing you deal with are the fundamentals: assessing what our audio needs are and making sure our budget matches those needs. For example, if we're planning a firearms weapons shoot, we first have to do the work of figuring out what weapons are being designed for the game. Then we schedule time with an armorer, go over that list and see what exact matches we can get. Some weapons won't be available, so we then fill in with a substitute weapon of similar caliber, action, and barrel length. Then we move to finding and securing the recording locations. If we only