Yellowstone National Park have done a cool thing by releasing a whole library of sounds that were recorded in the National Park into the public domain. The library includes a bunch of biophony including bird and bear calls, and geophony including geysers. You can access the library online at: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/soundlibrary.htm They also have a short … Read more Yellowstone Sound Library
Earlier in the year Pro Sound Effects published a video that featured supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer Brad Engleking (Sin City 2, Machete Kills) discussing his top tips for dealing with Pro Tools automation. He takes a non-control surface approach in this video that is applicable to anyone with Pro Tools, although some aspects are only available … Read more Pro Tools Mixing Automation Tutorial with Brad Engleking
Skywalker Sound is one of the big names in sound for film, and a short video profile has been posted up by American Lifestyle chatting to their Foley team about their work. Check it out below.
For a documentary project that I recently completed audio post-production on, I was asked about converting the native 25 frames per second (fps) audio mixes to a 24 frames per second (fps) version to make a 24 fps DCP that is a safe interop version for playback worldwide for festival screenings. The normal process for converting from … Read more 25fps to 24fps Audio for DCP
Apple have recently published a couple of specifications documents for podcasting at: https://help.apple.com/itc/podcastsbestpractices/ https://podcaster.apple.com/ The Best Practices document discusses formats and loudness. Loudness is as expected at -16 LKFS, although they don’t mention anything different for mono vs stereo which I find a little odd. It is pretty standard practice for mono content to be … Read more Podcast Specifications
I just came across a video from a couple of years ago about making the soundtrack for Jurassic World. The first half discusses the sound design including field recording for dinosaurs and other Foley and loop group work, and then the second half discusses the orchestral score more. Check it out below.
Audient have posted up a neat video about the Foley process. This one is a useful resource in that it has Foley artist Barnaby Smyth from Feet First Sound working through a short scene from The Night Manager. Check it out below.
Mike Thornton from Pro Tools Expert is a bit of a guru with regards to loudness management for media production. A few years ago he did a talk at BVE 2015 which is available to view online, and provides a good summary of the changes in loudness measurement and regulation for broadcast that came in … Read more EBU R128 Loudness Implementation for Broadcasting
The film A Quiet Place by John Krasinksi is a great example of a film where sound is truly integral to the whole story. A lot of times sound is not considered too much at the script writing stage, which can make for some missed opportunities, but in the case of A Quiet Place, it was … Read more A Quiet Place — Telling a Story with Sound
Last year Mike Thornton wrote a couple of articles for Pro Tools Expert about loudness and dynamics in Cinema, including input from Eelco Grimm from the Loudness Petition Group and the results of a survey. It provides some interesting, if somewhat depressing at times, reading. You can read the full article at: https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2017/6/21/loudness-and-dynamics-in-cinema-sound https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2017/4/29/cinema-survey-results