Post Magazine

September 2014

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www.postmagazine.com 37 POST SEPTEMBER 2014 n keeping up with the Joneses, it often seems as if studios around us are all equipped the same. Well, if we look at others in our community, that ar- en't right next door, will we see the same gear? Outside the US, inside the audio post industry, these mixers and sound designers share their favorite audio tools for post production. GOLDCREST FILMS LONDON Adrian Rhodes is an award-winning supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer at Goldcrest Films London, UK (www.goldcrestfilms.com), where he set up the company's sound editing depart- ment in 2010. In Rhodes' long-standing relationship with Aardman Animations, he's worked on films like Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out; The Curse of the Were-Rabbit; and most recently, the Shaun the Sheep Movie. Rhodes' favorite audio tools include: Serato Pitch 'n Time Pro, and a Fatar Stu- dio 1100 Master Keyboard paired with an E-mu E4 sampler. With the E4 sampler and the Fatar MIDI keyboard, Rhodes can experiment, loop, and play sounds polyphonically, making sound designing more akin to playing music. "I've grown up with this sampler," he says. "I like that it's not a plug-in, but rather a stand alone instrument I have to record in." The E4 is always incorporated into Rhodes' workflow, allowing him to easily sample a sound and play it live to picture using the Fatar keyboard, with the output being recorded into Pro Tools 10. On the Shaun the Sheep Movie, Rhodes used the E4 to play looped atmospheres as if they were chords, varying the pitch in realtime. "It's an interesting, immediate way of tuning timbre and texture to suit a scene's emo- tion and energy," explains Rhodes. On the Shaun the Sheep Movie, Rhodes often used Serato's Pitch 'n Time Pro plug-in on various footsteps he recorded for the claymation sheep. Speeding up and pitching each individual footfall give Rhodes a tighter sync to picture, and achieves a more believable weight for the animated characters. He also uses Pitch 'N Time Pro to bend and pitch vocalizations for the sheep and other characters in the film. The plug-in works equally well for real animal sounds and human vocalizations. According to Rhodes, "Pitch 'n Time Pro helps shape the characters' emotions and expressions by taking things slightly 'off norm' and into animation territory." Serato's Pitch 'n Time Pro (www.sera to.com/pitchntime-pro) is a professional time-stretching and pitch-shifting Audio- Suite plug-in for Pro Tools. Retailing at $799, it features integration using the Pro Tools time trimmer tool, pitch shifting of up to +/-36 semitones, and the option to time stretch by tempo change, length change, target length, or target BPM. Rhodes likes Pitch 'N Time for its excellent sonic quality and precision. "It's the best tool I've found, in terms of preci- sion, when used to apply multiple bends to a sound throughout its length," says Rhodes. "And you can simultaneously audition the prospective result." Rhodes finds the time shifting especially useful for animation sound when he needs to quickly match sound effects to an action. For a live theater application, Rhodes created sound design for a Zulu ballet called INALA, which opened the Edin- burgh International Festival on August 10. Rhodes used a palette of African and other wildlife sounds to build sound de- sign that matches the tune and rhythm of music created by composer Ella Spira and South African singers Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Using both Pitch 'N Time Pro, and the E4 sampler and Fatar keyboard, Rhodes shifted samples of wildlife sounds up or down many oc- taves, and created sustaining loops that maintained their sonic integrity. He says, "That led to extraordinary discoveries. Macaws are extraordinary when slowed and pitched down, amazing and plain- tive. Chordal, choral lion cubs are just I BY JENNIFER WALDEN Goldcrest's Adrian Rhodes (top right) relies on Serato's Pitch 'n Time Pro when working on animated projects like Aardman's Shaun The Sheep Movie.

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