A COLLABORATIVE POST WITH boom box post
Written by Tim Vindigni
At lunch the other day, a conversation about minimalism in the Oscar nominated film 1917’s sound design sparked a memory from a few months ago. So let’s take it back to summer 2019... and then I promise we’ll loop back around to 1917.
Before being hired at Boom Box Post, I partook in their incredible internship program. During that time I completed a trilogy of sound replacement projects. In one of my final reviews, I asked the classic question: How do I improve?
Looking back, I could have easily searched the Boom Box Post blog and found this wonderful post: How to go from GOOD sound editor to GREAT sound editor. But alas, I wasn’t as wise as I am now.
Anyway… anticipating a critique on my sound choices and creative approach, I was pleasantly surprised by the answer I received: Do more with less.
At first I was confused. Isn’t the point of a sound replacement project to replace any and all sound? Well, sure. But it turns out you don’t need 2+ types of wooden door slams to cover just one door. I know, who would have guessed?!
I thought I was showing off my attention to detail and ability to build up a moment; when in reality, I was only showcasing my inexperience. In my head, creating a moment in sound meant layering up similar sounds to create one BIG effect. Plot twist! Cutting two practically identical sound effects to cover one specific sound is just over-cutting. Let me put it this way, would you hire two people for a one person job? No! You hire the best candidate that can get the job done on their own. Well, the same rule can be applied to sound effects editing. I was told the easiest way to differentiate a professional sound editor from someone just entering the industry, is to look at the amount of sound effects being cut and how they are being used. In short, I was wasting my own time and showing my inexperience.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are definitely moments to build up sound effects to create texture and add some oomf to your sound design. In fact, in a recent blog post about common errors audio students make, Boom Box Post Sound Editor Jessey Drake brings up this exact point. She writes, “I often see students just using ONE sound effect for large moments like an explosion. We can’t just slug in one explosion sound and hope for the best. We need to define that explosion with rocks, glass, dirt, metal, etc; whatever may be blowing up. You’ll need a LFE sweetener if we are in 5.1. And most importantly we need to make sure that there are elements in that explosion build that will cut through in the mix. Good sound design is about textures.”
Do you understand the difference?
If you’re anything like me and this revelation just hit you, don’t worry because the mistake of over-cutting proves to be a very common error for individuals working in sound. In fact, one of our own editors, Tess Fournier, wrote a blog post all about the importance of using sound to aid storytelling. In the post she writes about her personal experience with over-cutting: “Earlier in my editing career, I let my anxieties get the best of my storytelling abilities. I was new to editing for animation and was having a hard time grasping when and how often to use “toony” effects. In fear of leaving any moment untouched, I littered my editorial with poinks, zips, and the like to accent even the slightest of facial expression. This caused for a very distracting soundscape, and as one would guess, many of those “toony” effects never made it to the final mix.”
Reading Tess’s experience of making similar mistakes to my own, I was encouraged to reach out to our other editors and find out how they combat the contagious spiraling mindset of over-cutting. I asked:
Have you ever been PROMPTED to cut back and simplify your editorial on any of the shows you’ve worked on?
Katie Maynard, our sound editor for Disney’s Duck Tales, had some really great insight and examples to share:
For starters, slo-mo scenes. In these instances, Katie notes, “We'll often cut entirely out of the ambiances and any other sfx that might be going on in the background. Then we'll add a bass drop or one simple layer instead.”
To piggy-back off what Jessey mentions above, Katie brought up a common practice for the moment leading up to an explosion -- “Right before a MASSIVE explosion, if it's like the climax of the scene, we'll usually cut out of anything we can to give a breath of silence before a huge hit or explosion so it sounds even bigger.” Similarly, Katie recommends, “If there's something huge that the audience should be paying attention to, then we might cut out of things that are more distant. For example, Duck Tales has a ton of general magical and sci-fi steadies. It is not uncommon that several of these sounds would be perspective cut at the same time. So, if there's something more pressing in the foreground that's getting drowned out by the miscellaneous effects happening in the back of a scene, we will thin out the soundscape to keep the focus on what's actually going on. We just worked on an episode with an abundance of magical effects. It would have been chaos to keep everything happening off-screen in the mix with all the backgrounds playing at the same time.”
I think the main point to take away from Katie’s knowledge is the importance of familiarizing yourself with the right moments to step back and simplify your editorial.
As case specific as these examples are, there is a pattern here of choosing your moments methodically. Similar to what Tess discussed, Boom Box Co-Owner Kate Finan wrote an incredibly helpful guide on how to do just that. In Kate’s post, she discusses how to use silence and when to properly “choose your moments.” I highly recommend it!
Since silence can be such a dramatic choice, the use of it is less common. Sometimes you have to keep a close ear out for it. Naturally, I wondered if any of our editors had gotten to play around with longer periods of silence in their work; but as our editor Brad Meyer put it, “We work mostly in children's television animation. The attention spans are super short. In the final mix with music and everything, we're lucky if there is LITERALLY more than 3 seconds of silence. If anything, some Halloween or horror focused episodes probably use silence the most for a scare or reveal.”
Still, silence in Film and TV is a fun and fascinating topic of discussion. Which FINALLY brings us back to the conversation that sparked it all: 1917.
What started off as a joke about the war film genres biblical use of audio muffling and ear-ringing, especially following an onscreen explosion, concluded in an agreement that 1917’s sound design was strategically brilliant. When speaking with Katie, she couldn’t help but bring up 1917 again. She loved the film and referred me to a great article about the sound designer’s minimalist approach. In the article posted by blog A Sound Effect, Sound Supervisor Oliver Tarney talks about sonic breaks in the films soundscape. In a direct quote from the article, Tarney states:
“We approached certain sequences with a vignette type quality, choosing unobtrusive sounds for ambiances so the audience would have a chance to recover from a large event whilst still keeping the foreground details focusing on the lead characters. A good example of this is after the mine collapse, the next few sections have a stripped backed ambiance. We’re learning about the relationship between Schofield and Blake, almost oblivious to the deserted environment they are traveling through. Even the hobnail boot Foley is blended with a much mellower alternative. The intensity is taken right down; then we start building up detail and tension again as they approach the farmhouse, ready for the next event to happen.”
Fascinating, right? Make sure to check out the full article for more insight into the sound of 1917.
This conversation got me thinking….
What are other TV shows and Films that followed this type of design approach?
On the subject of silence, editor Brad brought up episode 10 from season 3 of Breaking Bad, entitled “Fly.” As someone who hasn’t watched the show (I KNOW I’M SORRY!), one quick listen to the episode showcased how silence was used as a tool to heighten the annoying fly’s buzz. Here are a few clips from that episode:
As for myself, two films instantly came to mind regarding this topic...
Speaking to Tess’s point about storytelling, the first film that popped up was A Quiet Place.
I mean… this film is the textbook definition for how sound is used as a storytelling device. Set in a world where being quiet will save your life, there are a handful of scenes where silence becomes the main character. For example, every time the film cuts to the perspective of the deaf daughter Regan, all sound completely cuts out. This aural shift in perspective helps the audience connect to her experience. In an already quiet film, these silent moments are quite literally deafening. Listen for yourself! Check out the first 30 seconds of this clip:
The other example that came to mind was Gravity.
Check out the opening scene where the spacecraft is being ripped apart by space debris. We don’t even hear the debris coming in contact with the ship. Instead of an explosion, the destruction becomes present in the chaotic dialogue and energetic soundtrack. Between the two, the first time I watched this scene I barely even noticed the strategic silence.
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