Creating A World With Sound

Hello to all!

Creating a world with sound is a lot more important than you can imagine. When you are working on a film and you are wandering why something does not sound right with the sound effects or your dialogue. None of that is going to sound right without the proper world to place these sounds into. Working with backgrounds could well be one of the most important jobs in sound design to be given, because you have to escape the image on screen that you are working with. When working with film this becomes step one for sound. Yes at first you will think you need massive impact sounds and fighting sounds but you must first ask yourself "where is this set in?" That is the main question that must be answered. You could be working with films like the hobbit for example and you decide to put a police siren in the background. That is not going to fit. Even when you are working with backgrounds and are only working with room ambience, as a sound designer you need to breakout and build a universe that is outside of a small room that the scene may be set in.

To make this point clear imagine a scene that is set in a living room. The first thing that comes to your mind will be a television, a clock ticking or anything that should be in a living room making sound. Then ask yourself "What is outside?" You suddenly have a bigger picture to work with such as wind, cars crossing the window, people talking outside as they walk past the house. You can take this even further as to describe sounds that would possibly be half a mile away such as a busy motorway in the distance, a near by airport, a heard of sheep running across the road. There is a whole word waiting for you to be made! Make the world your own. It can fit the scene easily by mixing it so the backgrounds are distant. Mixing is the key to make sure that you get the correct feel of the backgrounds and also towards making the scene a lot less quieter which is usually not good to have (unless you are working with horror).

To show an example of how to create a world you need to look at the sci-fi genre of film. To pinpoint further lets look at Avatar. The backgrounds in the film are astonishingly accurate to what they look like, you want to go deeper and explore the world of Pandora. When you see the floating rocks for the first time you get a good listen to what the world of Pandora really sounds like and it is so vivid that you feel like you are there when you are watching it. This is what you need to aim for when you are doing backgrounds. Get the feel of reality and breakout of the box!