Hey everyone its been a few weeks since I actually blogged
about something, just letting you guys know im still here and that this week I
will talk about a few Sound designers that I admire and talk about which films
they have worked on and their view on sound designing in general.
One of my favorite sound designers is Gary Rydstrom, his
best known sound designs are from the films Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan,
Finding nemo, Lincoln and many more!
The film I want to highlight a few examples of great sound
design decisions will be from the films saving Private ryan and Jurrasic Park. One
of the techniques that can be used to enhance the realism of the scene is to op
out of adding music. The beginning of saving private ryan entailed American soldiers
on boats heading to Normandy beach to begin their assault otherwise known as
D-Day. When you watch this scene you notice that there is no music playing,
this was a decision that steven Spielberg and Gary rydstrom decided to do. They
felt that adding music to the battle scenes would make it too “Hollywood”. Now back
to that scene on the boat…what do we hear that helps us as the audience forget
that we are watching a movie? We hear the ocean waves crashing against the
boats, the shaking and jittering of soldiers about to go to war the sound of
the boats motor, the silence of soldiers and we hear and see one of them throw
up, all of these details in the sound as well in the picture combine create the
tension that with music would not exist, its as if we are on the boat with
them. As you watch the clip provided below try to imagine it if there was music
involved. (the scene begins at the 3 minute mark)
Great sound designer. I really enjoyed seeing Saving Private Ryan in theaters because of the surrealistic sounds (and lack thereof). Throughout the movie, Rydstrom uses silence and quiet ambience to convey emotional context and propagate suspense. He used a similar technique in Jurassic Park notably in the scene where the convoy gets attack by the T-Rex. The soundtrack is stripped down to basically just the sound of rain on the windshield. Then slowly, the thud of foot prints are brought up until the scene climaxes. He uses this technique again in the main park building when Lex and Tim are eating. The sound track is stripped away until the shadows of the velociraptors are seen moving in the background. Good post man.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great scene to help make your point!
ReplyDelete