editing Sound Suggestions - 1940's train

T

tallie

Hi guys,
So I'm working on post production audio for a film, and I would like some suggestions if you can guys can think of any. The film is set in the booth in a carriage of an Australian regional train post-WWII, so 1945 give or take a year. I'm wondering if anyone has a) any suggestions on how to go about creating the sound of the actual train, what elements should be considered in the sound, etc., and b) any suggestions on films to watch that would have a similar location (i.e., the sound of the train in that era from the interior) that could be used to inspire the sound as well.

I'm pretty new to these sorts of sounds, and am a bit unsure of where to start, or what might be good to watch to get an idea.
Any help would be appreciated :)

Cheers.
 
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Depends on the train. Based on your given geography and time period, it will be a steam locomotive, so you need to look at everything that combusts, spews, or moves.

For exteriors, you'll need to consider the "chug" of the steam engine, pressure release valves, the crank of the wheel mechanism, probably an occasional whistle, rocking and creaking of the undercarriage, wheels clacking over the joints in the rail system, and squealing of metal-on-metal (wheels on the rails). Interiors on the engine will need to consider the furnace, furnace door, and shoveling of coal. Interiors on passenger cars will hear the creaking and rocking, and distant/muffled sounds of the engine and whistle.

Consider your audience as well. Their are train enthusiasts out there who will call you out on gross inaccuracies, so do your research on train models. There were four rail companies in Australia in that time period, and each had its own signature locomotives.
 
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Does it have to be a specific locomotive? If not...

Research, research, research! First you need to find out what types of engines and cars were used in WWII era Australia. Here's somewhere to start:

http://users.nex.net.au/~reidgck/s-trains.htm

With luck there are some solid audio recordings as well as pictures/video/film.

Serious audio recordings of period machinery is time consuming and expensive. At the "Hollywood" level an experienced sound team will record multiple tracks from multiple perspectives to build a "construction" kit. This is probably way beyond your budget.

What you will probably have to do is use approximate sounds; after all, how many people really know how an authentic WWII era Australian train would sound?

Since your scene takes place in a railroad passenger car the most important sounds are going to be the "clacking" of the wheels & the track, and, as most trains in that era were probably steam, you would need the "chuff, chuff, chuff" of a steam engine & the "wet" whistle. Once you have a decent idea of what sounds you will need you can go to SoundDogs.com and start auditioning sounds to build your own construction kit.

You may want to add squeaks and other sounds of wear to the seats, doors, etc. as most of the world let their passenger lines deteriorate during the war.

BTW, locomotives have designations like "4-6-2" and "4-8-4" which, I believe, refers to the wheel set-up of the engine, so in your search for sounds that should help you narrow it down some once you know which engines were used in Australia back then.
 
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Period pieces are always tricky from an audio point of view because so many of the sounds we use to build both atmospheres and many of the more hard SFX in a modern film can't be used. You haven't mentioned what sort of film you're working on, I'm presuming we're talking about a tiny budget amateur film rather than a film with serious commercial intentions? If it is the latter though, then the film will need to be mixed in 5.1 and it will be extremely difficult (read; virtually impossible) to create a convincing mix without a fairly serious audio-post budget. An amateur stereo film is still going to be difficult, especially if most/all the film is set in this one booth/location. The difficulty is going to be in not just finding interior steam train samples but in finding enough of them, which are closely enough related, to provide variation AND be convincing. Finding just one or two interior steam train samples, which run for all/large portions of the film, would be hideously monotonous, even with a lot of clever processing.

If you've got a bit of a budget, then there are various steam rallies and a few operational "heritage" steam train services which still run in Britain and it shouldn't be extremely expensive to hire a British sound recordist to record a variety of steam train SFX. If even this is beyond your budget, the first place I'd look for vintage/period SFX would be the BBC's massive sound library, which is sure to have quite a number of steam train and related samples.

While I agree with AcousticAl that authenticity is very important, unless you've got a substantial budget (and luck!), I think you've got a difficult enough task obtaining enough usable samples of any steam trains, let alone a specific one/s. However, in these types of situation the first thing I always do is make contact with relevant enthusiast groups, for three reasons: 1. They are often the best source of information and are usually more than happy (even desperate!) to share it, 2. They often have videos and/or sound recordings of the equipment in question which might be usable and which they might allow you to use and 3. They are often willing to go to extreme lengths to help and sometimes even arrange events or do other things just for the love of it (and a "Special Thanks" screen credit to publicise their group's passion) which would otherwise be impossible or cost a fortune.

G

EDIT: For a film to watch, try "Brief Encounter". While none of it is set inside a train (from what I remember), quite a bit of it is set in a train station (in 1945, all steam trains). BTW, this film is pretty much required viewing for any film enthusiast/student anyway.
 
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