Hi all,

I'm the production accountant for Central Station, but I also do sound design - I wanted to raise the issue of audio, and how people think of it - particularly in film and TV.

This is just my impression*, but having worked in TV and then film for several years, sound tends to be treated as a lot less important than vision. There is enough attention paid to make sure there's some reasonably decent recordings, but music and the overall sound design seems to be left to the last minute - so you get really short deadlines for coping with often quite complicated sound requirements, and I would say that a lot of the recent TV and (small budget) films suffer from the lack of attention to sound.

Is this a fair assessment? How important do you think sound should be in any audiovisual work? Should producers and directors bring in a sound designer at the start of the process for some consultation and guidance, rather than being brought in towards the end of post-production? I think sound carries a lot of the emotion and is a massive help in keeping the action flowing, linking the scenes, etc. so I of course am slightly prejudiced!

(* although I've done some work as a sound designer on short films, my main background is in production accounts for film & TV, so I get to see just when the various bits of post-production start and finish - it's quite interesting to see how the time and money goes...)

Andy

I was asked to re-edit a trailer for someone a few years ago and they didn't supply any of the audio from the film or any of their cleared music until just two days before final deadline. I remember asking them for all their sound right at the start and them being totally confused as to why I might need it. They'd planned on just adding music themselves to the edited footage once I'd finished.

I agree with Andy, the music is hugely important, name great movies in which the sond tack sucks? I always aim to find the right tune first to set the tome and then work from there, with that in the back of my mind.

Maybe audio gets left til last because filmmakers don't tend to have the skill to create music/ good audio themselves and have to hire in others to assist. Given budgets are always pretty small these days maybe everyone is just loth to spend their money - but its prob a false economy. In the end if the audio/ music sucks its prob not going to reflect well on the film.

In saying all that, the four people working on the pitches for the GFF2010 trailer are probably all in need of audio/ music assistance for super cheap so if anyone knows of any Glasgow based soundcreators of magic then give one of us a shout.

 Allistair Burt, Lucy Elliott, Patrick MacDonald and Kim Stewart.

A film is an audio/visual experience which means they are equally as important as each other, yet it is never quite seen this way. If you try and watch a film and you can't make out the dialogue, the sound is underproduced, wrong or covered with wind and noise, then it is an instant turn off.

I once worked as a Sound Assistant for TV and on one occassion, a First AD went for a take even though the Sound recordist had gone to the toilet leaving myself and the Boom Op standing awkwardly watching them record a scene with no sound.

Ah, interesting stuff. I can answer the why no audio thing on here question. When we were scoping the project we did discuss it. And came to the conclusion that probably the key people who would use Central Station would be focussed on video and image rather than audio. That mainly people use MySpace for their audio work and it was unlikely this would become a destination for sound designers, musicians etc. Turns out we were really quite wrong. We've had many, many requests from the community, wanting to upload sound design particularly. So, it's on our list of things to do, and we're looking into skinning an audio player next year. Watch this space.

I'm a bit late on the uptake here, but I can't agree more on the subject. I'm a sound engineer myself,and sometimes when recording bands or working at gigs, I find it odd that some musicians don't understand certain fundamental lessons in sound production. For instance the one I hate most is when I'm recording and the musician moves the microphone, sometimes without noticing, sometimes on purpose. The microphone is put in that position for a reason! If you move it to another position the difference in the sound it picks up can change significantly.

I'm also at Abertay uni in Dundee. Don't get me wrong the course is great, but the attention paid towards games students, animation, film, etc is huge! Audio is a level below the other arts here. This year (my last year), we've been all grouped together for some classes, and for the majority of these classes we have to translate the lesson behind the lecture to make it fit what we are studying.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

I make music for films and theatre and other stuff. Generally more 'music' than 'sound design' though sometimes they're pretty similar.

Much of what you say is true - and there are loads of reasons why (some of them practical like budget, time etc) but it is an area that film-makers often take short-cuts on. Several times i've been asked for some piano music thats 'not too happy, not too sad'. What they're really wanting is something to fill the silence. So in fact i often think a) that there's too much music in film/TV, and b) that most of it is just inoffensive filler, so we don't get distracted by the silence.

We shouldn't paint all film-makers with the same brush though, and i've worked with people who absolutely value music and sound in their films (take a bow Matt Hulse). Didn't Kubrick often cut the film to the music too?

I think there's something about the different practices' 'language' too, and that a bit more collaboration would help everyone. But as a starting point it does help a lot to be involved earlier in the project.

Collaboration is definitely the key. I did the sound design for a film student at eca (Edinburgh College of Art) last year, and we'll hopefully working together again this year. She really wanted to integrate the whole audiovisual style of her work, so it was great for me - we talked about the sound before she started filming. As she was filming abroad, on no money at all, I didn't do the recording myself, but we ran through the kind of kit that she would have, what she was likely to want to record,  and all the 'extras' which are so essential for the edit - all the ambient noise of a location, or a couple of minutes in the room where an interview takes place, but with no-one talking, so I'd have sound I could use as a baseline background. And she delivered great sound recordings as a result.

We then met up and went through the sound edit together at several stages in post production. We talked through a lot of the sound choices, and made sure we both agreed with each decision as we went through it all. It worked really well, and that's how we'll do it again next time.

I'll also be working with a visual artist soon, where we'll exchange sound and graphic ideas to create a final piece. We have worked together in the past, so we know how to get the most out of each other's work. But of course, the first time you work with anyone always sets the pattern for how you work together from then on - so it's really important to set up that collaborative way of working from the start.

It would be interesting to get the directorial view on this - any film-makers out there who haven't worried about sound that much in the past? Is it something where a longer discussion with a sound designer / recordist / editor right at the start of it all would be of any help?

Cheers,

Andy