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Re: [Nature Recordists] Movie soundscapes

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Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Movie soundscapes
From: Roger Norwood
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


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