As the tutor, Dr J. Milo Taylor, suggested, I will apply the same methods a cook usually does to start cooking. It puts everything in place and gathers what is necessary to create the culinary journey – mise-en-place.
What does it entail, concerning my practice, to mise-en-place? It certainly depends.
When I do Sound Design for Films.
My methodology for editing the film sound is borrowed from a friend, previous tutors or other professionals I’ve met over the past five years. Despite seeming very structured and straightforward, editing the sound of a film can appear scary at first. Every film is a different challenge, has other goals, and seeks different outcomes and leitmotifs. Having already worked with many directors and edited many films, each director has different demands and expects “x” meticulousness and details. There’s also that director who doesn’t care about sound at all – they want the mouths to speak, the clothes to rustle, the doors to open, and the birds to tweet. It may sound easy, but it isn’t. When there are almost no ideas from the director, or when some director says to do whatever you want, it makes the task scarier.
However, as the tutor emphasised, ” (…) employing mise-en-place as part of your process can help you stay focused when inspiration strikes.”. These are the steps I take for the editorial to flow smoothly, either technically or creatively:
- The Script: I defend that sound design is not a process that revolves around juxtaposing and stacking processed audio – the sound design is highly related to semantics. Sound design starts with a description, a context and a motif, written or formulated by words. In a screenplay, dialogue is written, and many aesthetical aspects as well – image, sound, mise-en-scene, etc. A sound designer that lacks the language of film cannot properly give justice to a movie. Therefore, a sound designer needs to have the Script nearby. It is there where most answers for sound design are. It must be later underlined with all the sound references.
- The Sound Report: Each scene has many takes. Some takes picked by the editor are absolutely terrible for sound. Sound recordists, when they’re good, are concerned about the editors. A Sound Report saves the sound editor a lot of time. By having a sound report while editing dialogues, one can quickly understand whether the sound recordist had a good take on sound for a specific shot. Afterwards, it is just a matter of going around each take, cleaning it up if necessary, lip-sync it, editing it, and moving on.
- RAW material: Los brutos is what we call them in Spain. They’re all recordings made on location. Apart from having dialogues, these would also have wildtracks – usually room tones and ambiences of a specific site where the shooting occurred. These are used to help fill the gaps in dialogue editing. Very useful.
- DAW: which will be either Pro Tools or Nuendo. Can’t imagine anything else besides those two. I’ve tried it with Ableton… It won’t happen again.
- Headphones: good for editing dialogue. Switching to speakers only when the DX editing is done.
- Internet Connection: otherwise, Pro Tools or any cloud-based database won’t work.
- Sound Database Software: Without it, all your sound design would have to be made from scratch, which means dedicating at least one month to record every trivial sound in a foley studio, and then another month to clean it, name it, and fill all the metadata. This software saves every editor a lot of time. It is also an investment. The best in the market currently are PSE, Soundminer, and Soundly. Apart from storing my own sound, they also have sample packs with proper metadata. The guerrilla version would be Freesounds.org.
- Dual Monitor (at least): to combine usefulness and pleasantness together would mean having three monitors – one for editing, another for mixing, and another to preview the video reference. If one’s guerrilla mode, one would use one 17′ monitor for everything or less. However, having two instead – one for editing and mixing and another for previewing the video reference – is the easiest way for a good workflow.
- A Session template: this is not music. People in the film have methods and time pressure. A disorganised session screams NOT PROFESSIONAL. For freelance sound design, there are many templates one must have: stereo and 5.1 for film fiction, the same for docs, and another for radio programs and podcasts.
- Audio Interface: one can work without one until you go to the mixing phase.
- A dedicated External Disk: Usually, one has more than one disk and one SSD for projects in progress, and another is HDD for completed projects. In the SSD, one must store all the templates and sound design necessities, such as notes and libraries, but also other helpful stuff if one does freelance like me – contract sheets, budget calculations, 5.1 settings, showreel, and a short CV. The SSD is a working wallet.
- A Project Folder: with all the stuff mentioned above. Everything must be organised inside the respective folder, and every project must be managed similarly for easy access. Also, every file must be named appropriately.
It’s not easy not to conform. There are so many things one must learn to do the job correctly. If one works in a different, one won’t be hired for well-funded projects. I prefer to work with the standards – it extinguishes my anxiety.
When I compose musique concrète pieces.
However, and ironically, whenever I compose musique concrète pieces, the process is entirely different in every way. I don’t have templates or folders inside folders and many more folders. I don’t work in Pro Tools. I don’t have templates. I don’t need the Internet. Apart from the technical necessities mentioned above, I just need a few things:
- A different DAW: Definitely not Pro Tools or Nuendo. Ableton for now. But also Reaper can be helpful.
- A Field Recorder: To go out and record sounds.
- A folder with sounds.
Whenever I place the recordings onto my DAW, the sound composes itself. It feels like I have little participation. I feel like helping sound sound itself.