Sound production roles

Below is a list of all of the sound production staff who worked on the latest Dreamwork film, Meet the Croods. This is a great example of how many people it takes to produce all of the sound for a feature length film. From Foley artists to sound editors, mixers, interns etc ...There is a huge number of staff, all of whom need to be in sync with one another to create a fluid and brilliant piece. Even for a task such as Foley, which may seem like an incredibly minor thing when watching the film, in fact viewers are almost unaware that it is there though a lack of it would be significant, requires a number of personal. In this example there was 3 people who's main focus was on foley, though the editors, mixers, producers and directors would all have had their input.

Kevin Bolen	....	assistant sound re-recording mixer
Danny Caccavo	....	digital editorial support
Brian Chumney	....	dialogue editor
Blake Collins	....	foley mixer
P.J. Corvus	....	audio technical support
Ryan J. Frias	....	digital editorial support
Pascal Garneau	....	supervising foley editor
Steve Jamerson	....	sound engineer
Roy Latham	....	original dialogue mixer
Al Nelson	....	additional sound designer
Jonathan Null	....	supervising sound editor
Greg J. Peterson	....	foley recordist
Gary Rizzo	....	sound re-recording mixer
Tighe Sheldon	....	original dialogue mixer
Mac Smith	....	sound effects editor
Carlos Sotolongo	....	original dialouge mixer
Randy Thom	....	supervising sound editor
Corey Tyler	....	foley mixer
Bonnie Wild	....	digital editorial support
Kimberly Patrick	....	sound design intern
Qian Bai Hui Yang	....	sound design intern

Technology

Microphones -
There are three main microphones that are used when recording sound, some are better suited to certain situations than others and some are used very little in animation however dependant on the available resources, prodominantly money, some companies may only be able to afford very cheap all round mic's.

Handheld Dynamic Mic's (Handheld) - These Mic's are your standard, run of the mill, handheld microphones. They're good at recording the sound directly in front of them, this enables you to lose a lot of the irritating background noises. There are a number of very cheap versions of these mic's that do an adequate job of what they need to do. These mics are for recording voices in interviews etc... In relation to animation they'd be great for recording actors vocals, voice tracks etc...

Shotgun Mic's - These Mic's are the most useful and versatile, they allow you to easily pinpoint the source of the sound that you are trying to capture. With the addition of other pieces of equipment, including a Boom pole and a shock mount, all vibrations and other uneccisary sounds can be completely expelled. These Mic's are ideal for most situations and can be especially handy when recording foley as it's easy to pick up just the one sound you're after without getting background noise that will later require editing. 

Lavelier Mic - This Mic is a small, hands free piece that can be attached to an actor, or an object and will pick up a lot of sound both from the thing which they are attached to and any noise in the surrounding area. The application of this for an animation is probably fairly limited however it can be used to pick up ambient noise or room tone to make the animation more realistic, just picking up the sound of the wind, birds tweeting, a car going past, the addition of this, though subtle, could make a huge difference.

Technology

Software -
There is a number of various softwares available for sound recording and editing. There are however, a number of variables that affect what software a compony/studio/person uses. Naturally the first of these is price, a large company who produce animations on a regular basis may have the capital to invest in professional sound editing/recording software such as 'Sequoia sound editing software'. This programme is used by sound engineers, music producers and other members of the industry worldwide, examples of its use can be found in Major League Baseball and on German Public Broadcasting. Being so high end this software costs aroun $2,979, a cost that is simply not realistic for smaller companies or independant companies. At the other end of the spectrum is free software like Audacity, whilst it may be free, Audacity has many of the capabilities of larger, expencive pieces of software, it is excellent for both recording and editing sound. A very popular piece that falls somewhere in the middle of the two is Pro Tools, costing around $699 it is mid range software at a fairly affordable price for succesful companies. Pro tools is a complete product that includes recording and editing features along with virtual software instruments. Pro Tools isn't just used for sound production for films and animations but is also used when producing albums and soundtracks etc ...

Post production - Mixing and synchronising

Once all the sound has been produced, edited appropriately and given some sort of shape, it's time to go into post-production. This is a very complex and sometime long process, however it's vital to get a professional quality. The mixing stage in essence is the stage at which the sound levels are altered appropriately so that things that need to be heard will be and less important things that need to be in the background are exactly where they should be. This stage includes the addition of features such as surround sound to make the sound experience as immersive as the visual one. This stage is taken on usually by a sound engineer and the 4 main elements that they will be mixing, are music, sound effects, ambience and of course speech. Below is a link to an interview with sound Engineer Ben Burtt who has worked on a number of high profile movies including Start Wars and Indiana Jones, in this instance he's talking about his experience of mixing sound for the film Super 8.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryVNG6WPCxg

The synchronising stage is the culmination of what has gone on throughout the entire process. Matching the sound to the animation, this is part of the editing process. Not only does it include ensuring that spoken word is matched perfectly to the lip synch animations, it also means that music kicks in at the perfect time. For example dark, angry music might come on when a villan enters the room however if it comes in too early or too late, it can give completely the wrong impression. Below is a good example of how poor dubbing, sound acting ... and animation, can make a video look amateurish.

That's it, the sound production is now finished and can be added to the animation to make the final piece.  

Animation and Dope sheets

An example of a typical dope sheet

Whilst animation is obviously not a key part of the sound production showreel it does go hand in hand with the sound track as synchronisation is key to producing a realistic animation. The main link between animating and sound is lip synching. This is the process of making an animated character look like he's speaking the words being read by the voice actor. This can be a difficult and long procedure, however when done right it can be extremely impressive. Some animations simply open and close the mouth in order to represent the movement of the mouth, whilst others look in detail at phonemes to get a true representation of speech. A necessity when producing a lip synch is a dope sheet, this is a sheet listing all of the frames and when each sound occurs, for example on frame 73 the voice actor may be pronouncing the letter w, therefore the character needs to be mouthing the letter w. With a good dope sheet and a good grasp of phonemes the lip synch can start to take place. With the addition of gestures suddenly the character begins to come to life. A good animator should be able to make even basic models look lifelike with good use of the animation principles and great technique for lip synching, the example below is one such example. 

Recording foley

Foley is, in essence, sound effects. With any type of film or professional video it is important to have a foley track to ensure crisp clean sounds are being produced, when on set they may have been muffled and inaudible to the microphone, a foley artist will recorde sounds using a range of props to take their place. Naturally this is a big job for a film, so in animation where you are given literally nothing, it's vital to recreate every single sound that might possibly be taking place. The whistle of birds in the background, the distant noise of a busy road, the breeze, everything must be considered and added. This website provides a brilliant insight into how foley works, where the name originated and a whole host of other useful information.
http://www.marblehead.net/foley/
Careers in foley are not a directly easy thing to come across, as stated in the website above, there are no degrees or schools in foley, so there are no direct routes into it, sound artists can take a number of different pathways to becoming foley artist. Below is a video from the one show looking at modern developments in foley and giving some good examples of traditional foley artists and how they do what they do.

Editing - review

Once sounds have been recorded, and though there is still a vast amount of the project to go, it's important to put the animation and sound together and to review what stage you're at. Music must be edited, foley must be moved around so that it's timed better, more echo needs to be added in some areas to create depth, a floorboard needs to creak a little louder. All of these little subtitles have to be reviewed, considered and appropriately altered. This is an important stage as it adds real finess to a film and can be the difference between a film being realistic or a badly dubbed flop. If the sound of hammer dropping on the floor takes place 2 seconds after it actually occurs and sounds like a stone being thrown down a well, something isn't going to fit. There are a number of jobs for sound engineers and sound editors in the film, T.V. and animation industry. This website shows a number of small jobs looking for people to work on the sound for their respective films, video projects etc ... Albeit in America, it still gives a good idea of the kind of jobs available.
http://www.indeed.com/q-Sound-Editing-jobs.html
As you can see from one of my earlier posts, the editing -review stage takes place twice in the pipeline, this is important to ensure that any alterations to the animation are taken into consideration within the sound of the piece. For example if they've removed a section in which a character is punching a punch bag, it's no good keeping the sound of the punchbag in the file. A website produced by Channel 4 giving a tutorial on animation said this about the second part of the editing process. 

'Post-production sound editing primarily involves preparing the sound track for import into the video editing software, this may involve adjustments to the sequence or occurrence of particular sounds due to changes made in the Editing stage. Many sound changes may take place simply within the Video Editing software itself and may not require much, if any, changes to made within the Sound Editing software.'