The Boom Box Post blog provides insights into the creative sound design process of Boom Box Post's owners and employees.
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Sound Editing
Creating sound effects from a musical angle adds a unique and fun energy to your design. Building effects, either momentary or sequential, can be made all the more engaging if their basis is a musical one, especially in animation. That being said, balance is key when approaching sound effect design from a musical perspective.
Creature vocal sound design and creature movement sound design is an essential part of creating believable and immersive worlds in film, television, and video games. It involves creating unique vocalizations for fictional creatures, ranging from terrifying beasts to friendly aliens, as well as translating where this creature comes from, what type of body it has and its size.
Often times, we’re faced with the task of designing sounds that track the movements of certain on screen visuals. These sounds need to be continuous, reactive, and dynamically pitched; imagine a car weaving in and out of traffic. It accelerates, then gradually slows down, eventually swerving out of the way of an oncoming semi-truck. Maybe you have a character wielding a magical sword; swinging it through the air at varying speeds and veracity while emitting a sparkly blue glow. These types of scenarios need a convincing sound that coincides with the every movement of the character or prop.
Katie was given the fun yet challenging task of creating a roller coaster only consisting of materials that could be found thousands of years ago. Find out how she tackled this project and what issues she faced.
When the team from Nickelodeon's Albert walked through our doors, they presented us with a great sound design challenge - bring a rich world of talking, walking plants to life with sound. Nickelodeon’s first original animated TV movie tells the story of a tiny fir tree named Albert and his plant friends overcoming all kinds of obstacles (like a Christmas hating cactus) as they journey to the big city. The rich animation of these plants - bouncing around in their pots, foliage and needles flying, trunks bending - is extremely detailed and impressive. Now it was our job to provide the proper sonic support. With the use of digital foley, we had just the tool for the job.
As sound editors and designers, it’s always fun to talk about the techniques and tools we use to create out-of-this-world effects. At Boom Box, we’re often teaching each other new plug-ins to broaden our “sonic toolbox” and take our work to new heights. All of these tools and tricks-of-the-trade are necessary for us to do our job, but it’s important to remember that our job is that of a storyteller. Everything we create (however we choose to create it) must support, and perhaps elevate the storyline. In my personal experience, I have found that the quality of my work shines when I allow the story to guide my decisions specifically when editing “toony” effects, backgrounds, and design.
