Colossus Noise

The time has come to end a colossal project and reflect on the processes used. With all the sounds completed and uploaded to the assets drive for their inclusion into the animation done on time. I spoke about 2 of the sounds I created in the last blog so I will only focus on the sounds I had not yet completed then. Starting with the MOST EPIC creak that I ever heard. I was wandering into a friends old shed out the back and the creak the door made was so incredible I had to record it. Amidst looks of confusion and noise I managed to record a good healthy scream from the door. This came in handy with the neck creak from the colossus, I stretched the file to slow it down and gave it a little EQ to boost the lows.

The creak is lacking in low frequencies, due to it being a very high frequency original recording. I boosted the bass with a shelf but it still lacks oomph that you would expect to hear from a large creature, I was unsure what I should do about this par from recording a low freq crack. The next sound was the flapping/swooping sounds. This sound was created by swishing a cord in front of a microphone, and layering it with a woosh effect created by my mouth. I pitched the cord swish down to give an airy woof tone with some bass, and blended it with a sound I made with my mouth, the end result gave an accented wing flap. I felt that the bass was still lacking so I added a low filtered drum hit to give some added bass because the animal was so large.

I'm happy with the flap sound, though the same issue with the last sound is that I think it still lacks bass. Even with the added drum that did help a little bit I feel that the sound isn't what I would expect from a high budget movie... But I suppose that's why the get paid the big bucks. The last sound I created was the footsteps of the female in the sand. Which was created from the location session with Rachel. The footsteps had a lot of ambient noise tagged along in the recording, I tried to seperate these footsteps but they were such a low volume and the noise of cars and things was so high that I wasn't really able to. I ended up giving them a heavily edited set of footsteps that sounded very short and sharp, but I think would have been alright buried beneath the epic sound track. They didn't like it and wanted something more strung together so I showed them the original file and they said they preferred it as is, suggesting the ambience could be a windy valley.

I think the sounds made here could have been done better, given some more time to reflect. The processes used worked well but additional elements could also have been used to add bass. Working with this team was less to do within a team and more to do with providing assets as individuals for an animation team to incorporate. Originally I put myself forward only to do the scoring for the composition working within a team with Jolon to create an exciting piece of music that would get the viewer pumped. But after Rachel expressed issues with some of her team members not doing work or flat out dropping out of the team I took up some of the slack and put my name down some of the sounds.

In the end this has worked out for the better because it's given me a chance to gain knowledge in sound design and how I would begin to tackle designing sounds for theoretical, mythical monsters. Working with this team has helped me understand that everyone has their own work practises and ways they go about working, and my style of putting my head down and quietly getting to work doesn't always work with everyone else. This is a large step away from my usual role at my place of work that demands I manage everyone the way I want them to work, so taking a step back and trusting in their work ethic is something that doesn't come naturally for me. Though initially as I said I was not leading this group or even a part of the sound design, as I believe it was Rachel M, Patrick D and Blake G on the sound design team. And Jolon and I on the musical content, things changed and I became a larger part of the team. I'm not saying this was a bad thing, because in the end I learned a lot about sound design and I'm always happy to help out when I'm wanted. But this was a definite change in the project I signed up for.