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Music & Sound in association withJungle Studios
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Sounding It Out: the Benefits of Composition and Sound Design Under One Roof

30/03/2022
Post Production
London, UK
216
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The team at Absolute discuss the way music and sound work together, how they're different and why it's useful to have access to both under one roof

L-R: Joe Worters, Jenna Le Noury and Joe Marsden

For lack of a better analogy, footage without audio is akin to pizza without cheese. It doesn’t matter if that’s in the form of music (mozzarella) or sound (Violife - other vegan brands are available), audio is an integral ingredient in the recipe for successful films. It’s often seen as the icing on the cake – decorating the visual, if you will, but always integrated at the end of the post-production workflow. We’re about to say the ‘C’ word, (no, not that one), but it has to be said. Collaboration - from the outset - is an incredibly integral attitude. Composition and sound design are both incredible crafts in their own right. They’re entirely different – but they can inform one another. And by getting audio artists involved from an earlier stage, they can also inform the rest of the creatives. So, how can clients reap the creative, as well as financial rewards of both principles - and what are the benefits of having both under one roof?

Meet Joe Worters, our award-winning in-house composer who has been with us since 2011. “When chatting to clients about a new music brief, I always ask them what emotion they are trying to convey”, he says. “References come in strange forms – I had a client recently ask me to make a track sound ‘blue’. It may sound odd, but anything that captures an emotional essence really helps with the overarching tone.” 

LNK’s ‘No More Knives’ is a fantastic example of how music can accelerate the delivery of a project’s messaging. The film opens with a stat: ‘In 2018, there were over 4500 stabbings in London’. For such a poignant film, the music needed to reflect the severity of the message – it had to be dynamic and ominous, yet hopeful and insistent about change. “The low bass synths and big Japanese taiko drums give a dark and foreboding feel to the track”, explains Joe, who went on to win a Kinsale Shark and a Cresta award for the composition.

So, if music is an emotional craft, what, then, is sound design? The answer is, largely, ‘an invisible one’. Good sound design supports the picture, but it should go unnoticed. Sound designer, Joe Marsden, suggests it can even take on a psychological artform. “Carefully crafted sound pushes the viewer in a direction of your choosing, not theirs. There are ‘trigger’ sounds that can denote un-seen realities - like making somewhere feel hotter by adding the sound of cicadas or adding a night-time feel via an owl hoot.” 

Delicate subject matter relies on perfectly curated sound for other reasons. "It’s imperative that the SFX supports the visual for all projects, but for more sensitive subject topics, you have to find that perfect line of enhancing, rather than overshadowing”, says Joe. “An oldie-but-a-goodie is ‘Don’t Give Fire A Home’. The film was supplied to me completely mute and it was a case of building up the different layers of SFX from scratch.” Joe describes creating SFX for animation as a similar layering process. 

Is it all about creative license, then? Not exactly. Joe explains that, with abstract sound, we’re still constrained by what people assume: “Historical pop-culture has already conditioned our minds to sounds we expect, even from fictional environments. We know there is no sound in space, however, we have heard spaceships zooming past the camera in films when attempting to denote a sense of speed.” On the contrary, Joe goes onto to list films like ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Gravity’ which use hyper-real sound, married with a great music score. “This is, of course, testament to the harmonious link between music & sound design at its best!”

A transparent sound workflow can be beneficial to more than just the audio team and the client. Editors are often supplied with a temp track to work to initially, before the music is locked. "The trouble is, the Editor then times the footage to that beat, which can sometimes result in clients obsessing over a track that’s outside of their budget. It becomes hard to remain objective and can lead to plagiarism”, explains Joe Worters. Alzheimer’s Research UK’s ‘The Smartest Thing’ saw Absolute work across the entire creative process, from production and animation to post-production. “Being able to give our Editor something to work with just makes the whole thing so much easier”, says Joe. Joe Marsden agrees: “The brain scans were abstract, so there was an element of hearing what you’re seeing, but also more obscure things going on. It was so useful to know what effect the SFX might have on the music.” 

Expert opinions from different angles are mutually beneficial to a creative outcome and audio is no different. “This is why we push for opportunities where both music and sound design work together”, says executive producer, Jenna Le Noury. Naturally, it’s creatively fruitful for two experts in their fields to share ideas, bounce around tracks, edits and tests. But the good news? An audio collab all under one roof can also prove financially beneficial – especially within tight budgets. “If we have access to the entire budget, we can be savvy with utilising it”, Jenna adds. “Demo fees and usage can sometimes prove music composition to be unrealistic for smaller financial allowances, but luckily, SFX can also inject personality into non-human protagonists.” Just take Pixar’s WALL-E, a lovable character made from cold hard metal!

And the silver lining of the other big ‘C’ word – covid – has meant that audio artists can be far more flexible. Marsden notes the number of voice artists working from home has grown hugely over the past twenty-four months. “Most have implemented professional home set-ups, but I’ve had VO artists record from their wardrobes on an iPhone yet with the technology at our fingertips, a lot can be done to produce good quality audio mixes in post.” Joe concludes, “I found this incredible article the other day on scoring ‘Tenet’ during a pandemic. Each. Instrument. At. A. Time. Incredible!”

So, there you have it. Sounds like there’s much to be said for the intrinsic relationship between music and sound.

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