Film sound design

[V Knid esq]

Inspired by Steev's entry in the "what are you reading" thread:

How many of the music makers here have worked with film as well? Does anyone think that movies are a possible money-making opportunity for radical sound artists?

[CV]

i would jump at the chance to do film sound design , and I am sure I could do a great job. No - one ever asks though.

I know a little about foley and the psychoacoustic aspects of film sound - V Knid, do you remember reading that analysis of the Colours sound design at University?

[databombers]

which bit of sound design do you mean? score or dubbing? i have dubbed a few short films over the last 12 months... i also do location sound work and studio sound... I really enjoy it actually. But i would say it is a very hard and competitive industry to be in... I dont really do a lot of music directly for film but some friends do and thay have found it very difficult to keep getting frequent work... i think with everything in the media industry its all about contacts... there are loads of websites and agencies out there for composers

[proober glombat]

i've made music and worked on sound design for a few short films and it's great fun. actually working on 3 films at the moment, with directors who love to really play with music/sound in their pieces so it's a very enjoyable process. have had a few of these films shown in the cinema, and that's a buzz.

databombers is correct about contacts though, really helps to know people in the business.

[Tim Exile]

Well I'm trying to find some work writing for picture at the moment. The initial impression I get, though, is that there are a few initial criteria on which the "average" (scare quotes!) sound artist might fall down:

being incredibley well connected
being able to write in quite a wide range of relatively traditional styles
being able to produce a musical score

Now maybe I'm being presumptious, but I guess that a considerable number of sound artists don't necessarily have classical training, and are probably enthusiasts dedicated in the most part to writing a fairly specific style of music.

However, some of the production music companies I've dealt with recently have specifically said they're beginning to look for specialists more often, instead of jacks-of-all-trades.

The other downside to pursuing commissions for picture as a career is that you either go for it and do it full time or stick with being skint and have the time to work to your own sonic agenda. It appears there's no half way house... if you take regular time out to write your own material your output probably won't be enough to get above the chatter.

[V Knid esq]

Rob Playford's done some biggish films hasn't he, Tim? Does he have formal musical training? (of course in his case, he's had well over a decade to establish himself through his recorded output, and as a boss of moving shadow must be pretty keen networker)

[Tim Exile]

Originally posted by V Knid esq
Rob Playford's done some biggish films hasn't he, Tim? Does he have formal musical training? (of course in his case, he's had well over a decade to establish himself through his recorded output, and as a boss of moving shadow must be pretty keen networker)

Yes indeed, but what he was doing was in partnership with David Arnold so I think he was more of a programmer than a writer per se. At any rate I think it came about from a spur of the moment meeting, where they both got on like a house on fire. Since they did the bond film together I haven't heard from Rob at all, and nor have most of his employees at Shadow either! At one stage, though, Rob was making some noises about me doing some programming work for the team on the then forthcoming project (something makes me think it was Fast & Furious 2). As with most things in the music industry though it came to nothing...

[databombers]

Originally posted by Tim Exile
Well I'm trying to find some work writing for picture at the moment. The initial impression I get, though, is that there are a few initial criteria on which the "average" (scare quotes!) sound artist might fall down:

being incredibley well connected
being able to write in quite a wide range of relatively traditional styles
being able to produce a musical score

Now maybe I'm being presumptious, but I guess that a considerable number of sound artists don't necessarily have classical training, and are probably enthusiasts dedicated in the most part to writing a fairly specific style of music.

However, some of the production music companies I've dealt with recently have specifically said they're beginning to look for specialists more often, instead of jacks-of-all-trades.

The other downside to pursuing commissions for picture as a career is that you either go for it and do it full time or stick with being skint and have the time to work to your own sonic agenda. It appears there's no half way house... if you take regular time out to write your own material your output probably won't be enough to get above the chatter.

interesting that you say that Tim.. its damn hard trying to concentrate on doing more than one thing at a time seriously, but i think you can do it for a bit but definatley not a long time.... think after a while you are right... you do have to do one or the other... unfortunatley one is quite rewarding and pays ok, whereas the other wicked fun, but ya always skint...

But you should check out www.mandy.com etc and look for maybe more specalist sound design work... another thing maybe is to contact places like the National film school and post production houses to advertise your services and maybe get on their approved composer list?... good luck anywayz..

[mr_chombee]

I did the music / sounds / efx for a shortmovie some months ago. it was a great experience, though it sucked that we had very tight deadlines. I guess if you're good enough you can even make money with that. not only with movies, also commercials and trailers. u just have to find a cool agency - as databombers already said.

[mr franks]

me and decadnids have done web work for the trancemaster JUNO REACTOR in the past, he did soundtracks for Mortal Combat, some dodgy film with Christopher Lambert, and most recently he had a tune on one of the Matrix films. I think he got a lot of money for it..

[V Knid esq]

Again, Juno Reactor dude (Mike something?) is a prime networker and has been in the business for a long long time, hasn't he?

[databombers]

hey knid u thinkin about becoming a music media supremo?

[V Knid esq]

Gosh no, I'm a terrible businessbloke... Just trying to build up a fuller picture of how musicians can build their careers... And of course I'm interested in checking out any audiovisual shit by the interesting kind of producers we get on here.

[wheezer]

Originally posted by mr franks
me and decadnids have done web work for the trancemaster JUNO REACTOR in the past, he did soundtracks for Mortal Combat, some dodgy film with Christopher Lambert, and most recently he had a tune on one of the Matrix films. I think he got a lot of money for it..

omg does that mean that super mortal kombat theme song is by the juno reactor dude? I've always wanted that on vinyl

[databombers]

oh right

yeah i think writing score to film is actually quite hard... i did some location sound work b4 xmas and at the premier i was talkin to the guy who wrote the score, he was telling me he had watched the complete edited film on 1 monitor and then played in the score real time with cubase running on another monitor... i think this is hard when your playing classical piano, sax or wat ever...

[databombers]

just reminded me as well, i did some sound fx for a pc based game years and years ago, was well funny... it was a games workshop style game and i went round recording all my friends bein orc's, wizards and havin various battles... was proper funny...

[mr franks]

Wheezer - no, i dont think he did the theme tune, just some tribal trancetastic stuff...

Juno reactor is Ben Watkins, there used to be two of them, maybe the other one was Mike ?

Juno have been around for ages...Ben Watkins also produced an album for Traci Lords. i dont know if it set the world alight or anything....

[Sheridan]

photek did the music for a show in the states recently. the show didn't last long at all. so I can't even remember the name. it had something to do with hip hop record producers and label owners.

[V Knid esq]

Is Ben Watkins the same dude who was in Sunsonic? They did a couple of LUSH Balearic type tunes.

[Lady E]

i think juno reactor wanted a remix off collider at some point - the bells are ringing but are pretty muffled in my head - when they were on loaded.

[dan gulberry]

Any of you joined the sound-article list on yahoo groups? It's run by the guy who maintains the www.filmsound.org website (also very good).

All kinds of things come through that list, regarding technique (not so 'technical' though) and creative decisions with films and TV sound.

I am stunned at how many of you have worked in that field. I also did it for a while - dubbing editor on TV progs, music for TV etc. It was something to do in a studio environment while getting paid I guess. Then I had to leave cos I got utterly sick of working on Welsh dramas with the incestuous S4C lot.

And I wanted to fuck around with interesting sounds, not edit some idiot dialogue which I couldn't understand anyway.

Those who work/have worked in that industry should definitely check out the sound-article list - all kinds of people are on there.

DG

[databombers]

cheers for the link Dan...

[dan gulberry]

No probs - I would also recommend that you go to the "School of Sound" symposium. They're not having one this year, but they are next year (though where it will take place is not certain).

Anyway, it's a great way to meet people and set up projects (I met Ren Klyce there, the guy who does the sound design for all David Fincher's films, and am now going over to San Francisco to attend a mixing session with him; I also got to shake Walter Murch firmly by the hand ; ) ).

Other than those benefits, it's four days of a mixed-bag of some good and some awful "presentations".

DG

Originally posted by V Knid esq
Inspired by Steev's entry in the "what are you reading" thread:

How many of the music makers here have worked with film as well? Does anyone think that movies are a possible money-making opportunity for radical sound artists?

I really don't think there’s much opportunity for money to be made from Film Sound Design in the UK... TV maybe.

I spent the last 5 years doing gameplay design for videogames, so I'm probably more likely to find work doing sound design for games.
The course I’m doing is part of a general post production course, with three threads to it, picture editing, sound design and music for film.. So my thread 'sound design' won't include music as such, although to some degree that is flexible, as the boundary is hard to define.

I'm mainly doing it for indulgence rather than vocational reasons if I'm honest... I need a change of scene/pace for a bit.

Originally posted by dan gulberry
No probs - I would also recommend that you go to the "School of Sound" symposium. They're not having one this year, but they are next year (though where it will take place is not certain).

Yeah I'm hopefully going next year.. and you're right.. the sound-article list is definitely worth checking out.

School of sound have had some interesting experimental music type stuff in the past too, including lectures by David Toop and Jon Wozencroft from Touch.

[nothinghere]

I do a fair amout of this as my flatmate is a videographer/documenter and I help out as much as possible with the sound editing side of things. id love to get more involved in though.

[komakid]

i'm working with my band the whole time with several people who make films. we do sound design, music and the engineering on the set.. the last film were we made sound design was for the Acadamy of film arts in Ludwigsburg, it was the film "Schwarze Erbeeren" wich contains music by alex cortex.
currently i'm doin the set engineering for another film here in the area of ffm. actually i just arrived home from the set.