Why is Sound listed as "On The Set " and not Pre-Production ?

Ahh sound, the bastard child of Indie movie making

I just watched a surreal trippy movie Tetsuo, The Iron Man and the sound design blew me away ! If I was blind and only allowed to listen to the movie, I would be impressed ! Sadly too many of us force sound to ride on the back of the bus. "Oh I will get a Rode NTG-2 and slap it on the cam" is the only sound many of us Indies think of in Pre-Production. My first efforts were not that well thought out.

I want to make sound my first priority when I write the script on my next project. I truly am jealous of musicians who get into filmmaking as I respect their skills. A sound designer / musician equally more.

My point is that film is a multifaceted art and I have limited myself as an artist by not thinking of every element of the experience in planning. I shall spend plenty of time in planning any project just going over the sounds, sound textures and music on all of my future efforts. I am hoping for better results. I will use a digital audio recorder and make funny noises like an 8yo or whatever as I plan ...

let's see what happens for me


What do you do in pre-planning w/ respect to sound ???
 
I was hoping some much more lurid and dark than Insects...sheesh another epic fail in my life. At least I have Crack, Meth & Tequila




EDIT....
ALTHOUGH...I get it NOW..All the buzzing, chirping, munching, flying and yes, mating sounds would be a gasser
 
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What do you do in pre-planning w/ respect to sound ???

You start with the technical issues, like hiring a professional sound team, or at least having someone on your set dedicated to sound. You carefully select your locations for how they sound as well as how they look. If you know there will be a lot of noise on the set, an action heavy scene for example (wind machines, vehicle crashes, etc.), you plan on doing dialog wilds immediately after the scene is shot; you may still need to do ADR, but you might get lucky*. You work with wardrobe to quiet down shoes (rubber, felt etc. on soles), and wardrobe plus the production sound folks on wiring up the lavs in the clothes worn by the actors. You work with your set and props people to quiet down the noisy things; wrappings on presents or newspapers are VERY noisy, so they are made ever so slightly damp to eliminate a large part of the noise. And a thousand other little audio details like avoiding leather furniture that will be used by the actors. But that is the technical side.

From the creative side when you put together the shooting script you have to think about the sonic world the characters inhabit. This is important to your B-roll team, your editor and sound designer. Just that two second shot of a grandfathers clock so you can have that ominous ticking all through the scene to create tension. Maybe a shot of the "nearby" church so the bells can toll the hours. A foot putting its weight slowly on a stair for that creak that alerts the protagonist of the presence of the antagonist. A shot of the rolling surf so there can be the sound of crashing waves or that lone flying seagull so you can have gull cries. You get the idea. By giving the audience quick visual clues that connect to sonic events you can continue those audio cues later on without the visuals because they have already been established. This is like a composer reintroducing themes (yes, I was a musician.:D)

This is why you want your Sound Designer/Supervisor involved in the preproduction; we tend to hear the script rather than see it.



*Get a rough cut done FAST; the longer it takes the more scheduling and other problems you will have with the ADR sessions.
 
Gonzo Entertainment is three people.

Me, my fiancé (Producer), and my audio guy. He is involved from the moment of every project's conception. He starts working on composing the incidental music and finding the songs for the practical music as soon as the script is complete. While I am going through the pre-pro on the video side he is doing the pre-pro on the audio side. If you count all the studio hours recording the music, all the post production on that music and all the post production on the regular audio I would guess he probably has more hours in the film than any person except me (who has the hours in writing the script).
 
I've done just enough sound design to know how really awesome people who do it well are.

Tetsuo is beyond awesome. One of my favorite films ever, and sound is a large part of that.

Related note: anyone remember the old Disney "Sounds of the Haunted House" records? They really bridged the gap between spooky soundscape and sonic narrative. I used to listen to that over and over. They really WERE movies without pictures.
 
I'm dancing today. Audio is such an important part of the production that most on the video side know very little about. Just found out today that a pro audio guy is joining the team with all the real gear for production and post sound and skills to match. God answers prayer haha.
 
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