Thursday 8 March 2012

Randy Thom- Forrest Gump Sound Design


This video demonstrates the enormous amount of work that can go into production sound on a feature, and, sadly, how very good sound goes widely unnoticed by most audiences.  Though perhaps this is a hidden compliment, as audiences will certainyl notice when the sound design is poor, but fully suspend their disbelief and enter into the world of the if the sound is all encompassing and realistic.

Some of the useful issues Thom highlights are:
  • The complete rebuilding of a scene for sound- the entire battle scene soudn is done is post, as the production sound was not of suitable quality. This involved a huge amount of work.
  • Like Ric Viers, Thom mentions building of effects through layers of different sound (e.g. the mortar explosions with lots of varying explosions and impacts to 'sweeten'- layering for effect is something I will attempt in my sound assignments.
  • The use of something entirely different to produce a 'Hollywood' accepted sound. Just liek every snake you see in a Hollywood picture will rattle, (regardless of whether or not its a rattlesnake) Thom mentions how the tracer shots in the battle are in fact richochet sounds but just 'sounded right'. Ric Viers alluides to this practice, with things like aiming down the gun barrel, gun movement and sheathing/unsheathing sounds- in reality, these actions make very different sounds to what film has led everyone to believe.
Tips and tricks:
  • Every single ping-pong strike was recorded and edited to match perfectly in post. A positively mammoth task considering the length of the ping-pong scene. This is useful as it shows you can't get away with simplyk recording a single sound that is to be repeated and over again (e.g. gun fire, ping-pong hit, punches) as they will instantly seem flat and produced.
  • Slow Motion- just because the visuals are in slow motion doesnt mean the sound has to be- in this case Thom seems to use 'micro-sounds' to bring the audience far closer into teh action as Forrest runs from the bullies. We normally cannot hear such sounds, so the temporary illusory bubble of this slow motion is enhacned with these seemingly extra-sensory sound effects. I would like to experiment with time, temporarility and pitch to bring deeper meanign to slow- motion or heavily POV scenes.

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