By Guest Blogger Nathan Madsen

This month’s blog entry is penned by my friend and colleague Nathan Madsen. Nathan is the resident composer-sound designer for Madsen Studios LLC as well as NetDevil. He used to work for FUNimation Entertainment on their trailers, promos, DVD and special features. He is also a book reviewer, author, teacher and lecturer. You can learn more about Nathan at www.madsenstudios.com.

I've noticed three common mistakes that young(er) sound designers often make. I made these mistakes myself when first diving into sound design, so much of this is firsthand experience as well as observations that I’ve made over the years.

(A note about my examples:  Open a new window in your browser so that the trailers are not super pixilated due to be stretched full screen. This method allows me to provide direct links to the trailers. All trailers were created during my time with FUNimation Entertainment and are used here from promotional and educational reasons only. Also, you can ignore the Flash Play Version 6 message. This is a bug with the video program I used and is currently being addressed by the company.)

1)        Don’t be too literal.  I’m using the word literal in two ways: the sounds themselves are too literal and the events supported are too literal.  When I first started at FUNimation I didn’t have much experience with sound design. I was mainly hired because my music was good and the team felt that I would be able to learn sound design quickly and become productive. At the start I would only support major events in the trailer: sharp contrasts in mood, pacing, large motions like combat, explosions and the end tag. I was being too literal with the footage. “Well, I only see three large events here, so I’ll throw in a subtle ambience bed and call it a day”. This type of approach is prone to leave gaps in the experience and can create uneven playback of the sound design, which will be covered in more detail in the second segment of this article.

Example: www.madsenstudios.com/Tsubasa%20Vol1.swf

The first thing you’ll notice in this trailer is the large amount of voice over. This forces both the music and sound design to take a back seat. There will be times, most often between phrases where the sound design can poke out and be more evident. I originally had a much more subtle sound for when the hero jumps up and grabs the princess but after speaking with the brand manager (i.e. producer) about the show I realized this is the key point to the entire story. Without giving too many spoilers away, this one event is what puts the entire, much larger story into motion so I decided to make the whole event louder. I didn’t make it more aggressive because the hero isn’t attacking the princess but rather trying to save her.  So when she gets interrupted and her memories fly away, this event was made larger and more magical than was first conceived. The final text slates are big moments that are meant to draw attention to the main slogan of the show: “Her soul. His sacrifice.” Also consider the use of silence towards the very end where the narrator issues her warning. “She won’t remember you.” The use of silence, in both the music and sound design draws powerful focus on this element of the story. He’s going to piece her back together and she’ll not remember anything of him whatsoever. That’s a pretty emotional element and to glaze over it with continually music and sound design would lessen its impact in the trailer.

In part two Nathan will discuss –Avoiding Islands of sound.