On past projects I have received critiques that my wood creaks for various items (doors, wooden chairs, footsteps, etc) sounded pretty weak and ill-fitting for the scene. The sound libraries I had access to at the time really didn’t offer many quality options, so I decided to do some research on how I could capture better creak sounds. I stumbled upon a couple videos online of Foley artists using what is called a creak box. This Foley instrument allows the user to more precisely create and perform creaking sounds quite easily. Below I’ll be going over how I put together a couple different creak boxes of my own and what I learned in the process.
We recently brought on a new Boom Box apprentice. It is our pleasure to introduce AzMarie Livingston! We had a chance to ask her a few questions to better get to know her. Continue reading to get to know her better.
By the beginning of this year, Boom Box Post had fully moved into our new facility with three Atmos mix stages, three 5.1 mix suites, eight sound design/editorial suites, and full client amenities. So, when Women’s Audio Mission reached out to revisit the idea of having an in-person workshop focused on sound for television and film that would meet the needs of their Los Angeles membership base, we had the perfect space to accommodate it.
For the last six months Isabel has worked as the Boom Box Post studio apprentice. She has done an absolutely stellar job, adapting to any task assigned to her. Isabel was kind enough to share some of her experiences and insights on the process for future Boom Box Post apprentices or anyone entering the sound industry for the first time.
We are extremely proud to announce the release of our latest Boom Box Library: Women and Men! You can now also purchase this new library by itself or bundled with Babies & Kids as the Human Vocalizations Bundle!
The Women & Men SFX Library contains a variety of custom-recorded adult female and male vocalizations.
Starting your first 360 audio project can be a bit overwhelming. I decided to focus my Lunch and Learn on some essential concepts to help you get started. This post is specifically about designing for 360 video or VR experiences that are intended to be heard through headphones.
I am currently knee-deep into recording an extremely comprehensive auxiliary percussion library for Boomboxlibrary.com. The idea is to produce pristine recordings which we (and other sound editors) can use as source material for new creative sound design.
As the recordings pile up (and I procrastinate having to edit them all) I have been playing around with some of them, just to see if my hunch was correct; that these would help me create great cartoon sound effects that are high quality and new but harken back to the classic Hanna Barbera sounds we all know so well.
If you are just starting your career in post production sound you might have seen the position of Supervising Sound Editor or Sound Supervisor pop up here and there on job sites or in the end credits of TV shows or movies. For many new or aspiring sound editors there is a bit of a misunderstanding over what the roles and responsibilties of the Supervising Sound Editor position consist of. Sound supervisors are more than just people who check the editors work, they wear many hats that they need to switch between at a moments notice. We had a chance this week to chat with Tess and Brad, two of our supervisors, about what their jobs entail and advice they would give editors looking to become sound supervisors.
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.
Congratulations to the Boom Box Post team for winning the Golden Reel for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing — Non-Theatrical Animation for their work on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie! We are so honored to have won this award, especially in such a competitive year.
Lunch and Learns are a staple tradition here at Boom Box. These monthly meetings are chances for the team to learn from one another and explore different topics in sound and post production. We have done many Lunch and Learns since Boom Box’s inception ranging from plugin tutorials, to recording techniques, to tips for leading a team of editors.
As many of you know, in 2017, we branched out from our post-production sound business, Boom Box Post, to start Boom Box Library. BBL (as we call it around here) is a sound effect library company which allows us to share our sound design work with other professionals, and also contribute to the creativity of our community members with custom-recorded libraries that we feel fill a void in basic materials. In short, our award-winning sound designers are creating sound libraries that we ourselves want to use.
For many of you who freelance or have unpredictable schedules, adding library creation to your business ventures could be just the thing you need. But, while recording or designing the sounds may be totally in your wheelhouse, there are a lot of other things that go into being able to sell your libraries. And that’s the end goal, right?
Whether you are a newly graduated student or you are a long time picture editor looking to delve more into sound, jumping into the freelance world can be intimidating. You might have some money saved up and are wondering where to allocate it to best help you freelance career. After securing a decent computer and a Pro Tools subscription it can be easy to fall into the mindset that you need the newest shiniest plugin or the fanciest piece of hardware. While plugins and gear are nice to have and can indeed help you, finding quality sound effect libraries to add to your personal sound collection is perhaps a more worthwhile endeavor.
As a total productivity nerd, I’ve tried many different applications to speed up my workflow and day-to-day task management, both at work and at home. I use a mix of Todoist, Spark (email), Google Calendar, and Slack. After constantly jumping back and forth between all of these applications, I decided to look into a way to make them work together more efficiently. After researching different websites, I decided to try out Zapier, an app automation and integration tool.
We are honored to have been nominated for two Motion Picture Sound Editors 2023 Golden Reel awards!
“Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie”
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Non-theatrical Animation
“Transformers Earthspark” -
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Broadcast Animation
We thought this would be a great opportunity to share some stories behind the sound editorial on these two fantastic projects via interviews with Supervising Sound Editors Jeff Shiffman and Brad Meyer.
In many of our shows, we often get the exciting opportunity to work on a pirate adventure! I wanted to outline some of the things that are crucial to building a pirate ship that sounds fun, authentic, and thrilling! The kind of ship you are designing may vary, but this is a good guide to give you a place to start. You can always tailor it to whatever special needs your project calls for.
Everyone knows that the key to becoming a quicker editor is learning and utilizing keyboard shortcuts, but Pro Tools is such a powerful piece of software that even the most seasoned editors or mixers might not know all the keyboard shortcuts that can help speed up their workflow. Hopefully after reading this blog. post you can walk away with at least one Pro Tools tip or trick you didn’t know before.
The twenty twenties just keep getting better (it’s hard to go anywhere else but up)! 2022 was a big year for Boom Box Post. Here is a look back at the year and some of the staff’s 2022 retrospectives!
Happy Holidays from Boom Box Post!
