Tricky isn't it. I now work mostly in theatre where 'sound effects' are exa=
ctly that, sounds that do the job or have the right effect, i.e. to assist =
the audience in an understanding that they otherwise would not achieve.
But theatre is the land of entertainment and fantasy, not documentary or re=
ality. Movies are movies, they concentrate on the eye-to-brain experience w=
ith the addition of sound to assist the process. The 'that-will-sound-bette=
r' attitude of unaware paymasters whether directors or producers looking to=
their budgets and using inadequate library clips rather than actuality is =
a sad indictment of today's entertainment industry.
A sad tale.... a producer client of mine was making a promotional film of a=
n idyllic rural retreat with a working watermill in a hidden valley in the =
remote Welsh countryside. Could I supply effects of riverside birdsong atmo=
s, running water, waterwheel, grindstones etc? Two years earlier I had by c=
hance found and recorded the very location, visited the mill and recorded a=
ll the milling processes and even met the miller and got a full sense of th=
e history and working of the place.
I dubbed the film with accurate effects from my library and did almost as g=
ood a job as if I had been on location during the shoot. (I have no idea wh=
at happened to the original location sound recordings.)
When my clients client, the miller - who was selling his rural idyll to pro=
perty developers - saw the film he didn't recognise the sound of his own lo=
cation and machinery and congratulated me saying "great what they can do wi=
th sound effects these days isn't it," "sounded like the real thing, almost=
like you were there, and "haven't we met before somewhere?"...............=
...
Can anyone pr=E9cis the final recommendation of the 'portable units for fie=
ld researcher playback' thread sometime back? I'm off to record fledging pu=
ffins & manx shearwaters and have been asked to produce playback calls for =
live burrow census research. I hope the birds recognise themselves!
cheers all
Roger
BigRogSound
On August 07, 2007 6:51 AM Heather Perkins wrote:-
I hear you. I'm in both camps - I have clients telling me what they
want, and if they won't listen to my gentle insistence that it's the
wrong sound, I do it, even if it's not right, since they pay me.
And I cringe every time I hear a red-tail hawk screech when an eagle
comes on the screen. Etc., Etc....
Tough calls to make.
Heather Perkins
Sound Designer - Composer - Mad Scientist
WaterDog Studio & Land-O-Newts! Records
On Aug 6, 2007, at 10:48 PM, Tim Nielsen wrote:
> That's pretty bad. In their defense (being one of those pesky movie
> sound guys) it's often pretty damn hard to have the luxury of
> tracking down a whole library of FX for a given foreign local. And
> the fact is, 99% or more of the people out there probably would never
> know the difference (which is also probably a bit sad). My father, an
> avid motorcyclist for his entire life, often vents to me when he
> hears them using the wrong sound for the bike, "On screen was a 1952
> Norton Commando, and they used the sound from a 1961 BSA blah blah'.
> When I point out to him that about 4 other people on the planet
> noticed, sometimes he quiets down :)
>
> And often it's the director himself that dictates such choices. In my
> first feature film, there was a beautiful Austin Healey, I spent an
> entire day recording that exact model, and in the end when the
> director didn't think it sounded 'beefy' enough, it was replaced with
> a 12 cylinder year 2000 Ferrari. Believe me, we all cringed
> constantly and every time we heard it. But in that case, our job is
> to listen to the director. We tried very hard to get the real car
> sound in there, but in the end, we were overturned. It's very
> possible that the director heard the sounds of Africa and didn't feel
> they were 'exotic' enough. I've had that happen to me, when the
> 'real' sounds were tossed out in favor of improper ones at the
> bequest of the people who sign the checks.
>
> Not defending them, but the term 'jerk' might just be a tad strong,
> not knowing all the circumstances.
>
> Tim
>
> On Aug 6, 2007, at 8:37 PM, Bernie Krause wrote:
>
> >
> > I don't know how many on the list have seen BLOOD DIAMOND, but with
> > my wife on the road last night, and the Netflix DVD sitting by
> itself
> > on the coffee table and me alone in the house, I put it in the
> > player. For me, it ain't a good flick. Way too violent in the
> > episodic Hollywood American sense to be worthwhile no matter what
> the
> > "cause." But it was made far worse by the terrible sound editing.
> > The story takes place in Africa in (sometimes) forested areas where
> > diamonds are mined. I got as far as the scene where those jerks
> > inserted a Screaming Piha (Lipaugus vociferans) and tropical South
> > American frogs and insects as part of the soundscape. It was at that
> > moment they lost me and I shut the damned thing off. I could no
> > longer suspend disbelief, having no patience for this kind of
> > cynicism.
> >
> > Bernie
> >
> > Wild Sanctuary
> > POB 536
> > Glen Ellen, CA 95442
> > 707-996-6677
> > http://www.wildsanctuary.com
> >
> > Google Earth zooms: Earth.WildSanctuary.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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7 16:53
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
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