By Ben Gieschen
Sound Effects Editor, Boom Box Post
In animation, large crowds serve to support the fullness and sonic versatility of a scene. However, it is easy to get lost in an audience’s hyperactivity and noise, which can potentially distract the listener instead of guiding them through the narrative of the show. Read below to see how sound effects editor Ben approaches a stadium crowd design.
What was your brainstorming process?
Lengthy crowd scenes can play a strong character in a story if done correctly, and I wanted the crowd to play into that storytelling through sound. In addition to the stadium crowds sounding big, they also needed to be dynamic. It’s important for crowds to have a certain ebb and flow to them.
Could you give a step-by-step process of what you added?
I started out by building the base of the crowd such as steadies of cheering and applause that had variety and character, so that it didn’t cross into that white noise territory.
I looked for things that had whistles, sporadic cheers, and wide applause to give the crowd steady character and had a good use of the range of frequencies. Then I looked for moments to add crowd reactions to; such as solos, performers doing certain things, or close shots of the crowd.
I also had to be mindful of saving the larger cheers for when it was called for like the ending so that the whole section had a slow build of momentum to it.
What would you suggest to new editors on how to about this specific design work?
It’s easy to go overboard with crowds, but choosing the right files will help slim down what you have and prioritize what is needed. Variety it what is important. Look out for repetition as well because if you have a file that loops too often, even the average listener will pick up on a certain cheer that keeps popping up.
Any plug-ins that you used that you would recommend?
Since it was in a large stadium arena, I had to add some reverb to some sound effects to sell the space. I used R4 by Izotope. It has a large amount of parameters compared to most verb plugins, offering more creative control.
Visual of R4 user interface.
How did you make this unique?
I needed some specific call-and-response type crowd chants for the project, so we gathered together in a room and chanted like we were at a rock concert! They turned out great and add a unique quality to the crowds. Here’s a video of some of the team members recording the chants in one of our new pre-dub suites!
The Boom Box Post crew get together for a call-and-response non-English crowd recording.
Here is how we sound when cheering along to the “song” portion of the cheer. There is a greater sense of individuality when combining library crowd sounds and our own recording.
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