Sound Design
Podcasting
In recent years, I've been developing my field recording and post-production sound design skills with a passion for creating intrictate sound profiles for immersive listening. My interviews so far represent the beginning of that learning. With each interview, I'm building more and more of the scene sound in post production, using field recordings and foley.
While most interviews are just about the discussion, and the audio is clean and crisp, my interest is in creating environments that make you feel like you're there, listening to the discussion in person. As I've learned each tool and technique of sound design, so I've used it in the next project, to refine my ideas.
Listen to the first few interviews in the collection:
Soundscapes
As well as interviews with artists, I write stories and record soundscapes for them. This is a collection I call "Roll Before You Read".
The soundscape is played in the background while you read the story, creating atmosphere and making the read more enjoyable.
Finding the right location for the scene bed is often the hardest part of this project, especially when trying to take a layer without engine noise. The layers often have to be heavily edited to create the bed, and then I create the accents with foley techniques and location recordings. The process is time consuming, but I love it.
Here's an example story with a soundscape:
If you're interested in more involved soundscapes, have a listen to this one, recorded in four cities and compiled from around 20 layers:
Film
As I develop my sound engineering skills, I am taking on more complicated projects, and for my current project, I'm tasked with creating the entire sound track for a 50-minute film.
During production, I was hired to record dialog and VO for most of the scenes, but for some of the others, the sound track was intended to be built entirely in post. That's where I've come back in, and I'm currently 90 layers into the mix, recording post-production scene beds and intricate foley, and working with my original scene recordings, actor VOs, and music.
This is where I want to be - neck deep in audio, with a world of options and my own vision to guide the process.
I record the main scene beds with a Tascam DR40X and isolate details with a pair of Rode NTG4s, going into a DR70 module. As with soundscapes, I use Reaper to perform the mix.
Mixing foley for a scene.
You can watch the trailer for this film here: "One Art"