Randy Thom – a mountain bike and plastic dustpan finale

At the conclusion of his talk at the University of Edinburgh Randy Thom did a quick demonstration on how to generate an organic sound suitable for mixing. He turned a mountain bike upside down (I thought it had been left there by an untidy academic) and got the back wheel going.

He then put a plastic dust pan against the spinning tyre and showed how simple it is to create the sound of an interesting maybe even futuristic machine. Had he had more time I am sure he would have happily got in front of one of the numerous Macs in the room and mixed and filtered something down for the audience.

He made the point that this is a much simpler way than trying to create the sound digitally – the clip that he had shown earlier of The Incredible being chased by flying saucers had sound based on recordings from Formula 1 racing cars. It’s simply easier, quicker and cheaper to record the sound rather than create it in software. Though he did then qualify that by discussing a colleague who is simulating the sound of thunder and the crash of lightening.

Over the course of a couple of hours Randy Thom revealed a glimpse of what the world looks like from the perspective of a highly respected Holywood sound designer – it looks incredible but it sounds even better.

Randy Thom – Castaway waves and Polar Express SFX

The back catalogue of Randy Thom is best found on www.imdb.com but here are a few snippets that he dipped into….

Recording waves for Castaway – record a 90 degree wave to the land and reuse over and over again. Waves at angles are just continuos noise.

How To Train Your Dragon – he gave us an insight into how he was shaping up to create the vocalisation.

The Polar Express – used a midi to create the click of the train tracks.

What Lies Beneath – used sound of wind to make the ghost sound organic. Director cutaways helped the effect.

Forrest Gump – see earlier blog.

Wild at Heart – this David Lynch film took Randy a long time to recover from.

Apocalypse Now – his 18 month film school.

and he didn’t have time to mention Harry Potter, Mars Attacks, Star Trek, Star Wars, Rumble Fish (brilliant film), Jumanji, Contact and and and and …..

Randy Thom – a dragon vocalisation to influence the animators

Vocalisation of dragons and dinosaurs was a theme that Randy Thom returned to more than once during his talk at The School of Arts, Culture and Environment at The University of Edinburgh. He is currently working on the vocalization of an animated dragon and is clearly excited about his opportunity to influence the animators.

Just as actors are filmed during the recording of their vocal performance to influence the animators Randy sees this as an opportunity to invent a dragon vocalization that suggests how the dragon behaves prior, during and after the roar. His sound for the dragon is a work in progress but he explained the need to think about the possible body movement of the dragon pre and post roar.

One of his many soap boxes is to encourage sound to be considered at the start of the film not as an afterthought – so clearly the scope to influence the animators before the animated film is brought into life is of great satisfaction to him. I guess that’s akin to getting all the big risky items out the way before the start of a software project for us. But I’d rather be playing at being a dragon.

Randy Thom also worked on the vocalisation of the Martian Tripods in the remake of War of Worlds. During his talk at The University of Edinburgh he used the challenge to explain the need for serious consideration regarding sound at the beginning of a film. The challenge that the Tripods presented was that they had no obvious visual cue that they were communicating – Randy suggested that perhaps had they moved during the sounds that that would have made things more successful.

To reach a desired sound for the communication of the Tripods he regularly visited Stephen (that’s Mr Spielberg to me) and tried to get to a sound that seemed effective. Mr Spielberg didn’t want a copy of a dinosaur type sound for obvious reasons and instead wanted a horn type effect – in the end a combination of ships horn and brass instruments provided the desired result. How cool is that? - flying down to meet Stephen to come up with the sound for a Martian Tripod.

Randy Thom – a gracefully orchestrated shifting of focus

The clip that Randy Thom showed to explain how the battle scene in Forrest Gump was put together at his talk at The University of Edinburgh demonstrated the days/weeks of work that goes into the shortest of sequences. Layers of sound tracks…

1) Dubbed in vocals only…… “one day, we was out walking, like always, and then, just like that, somebody turned off the rain and the sun come out.”

2) Footsteps and body movements only

3) Gunfire only

4) Bullet sounds and ricochet only

5) Mortar whistles and explosions

6) And then it all together

Step 6 Randy described as “a gracefully orchestrated shifting of focus”. It’s all to do with leaving things out rather than cramming things in. Shift the audio focus to help the audience. It was an exceptional 20 minutes listening to the various layers and then seeing the complete piece – the gracefully orchestrated battle chaos as the end result more than the sum of the parts.

I’ve seen Forrest Gump a number of times – I’d never seen the work involved before all I had seen was a good film – I felt a bit of an idiot that I hadn’t noticed that every single tracer bullet had a sound attached. Or that the American guns all sounded the same while the Vietnamese sounded varied and scarier.

And I hadn’t even considered that you can’t record a battle scene live – of course you can’t – but that’s the ability of the good sound designer – you can’t see the joins. Software development is a skoosh compared to this stuff – I’m off to Holywood.

Randy Thom – it’s the broad brushstrokes that count

Walter Murch Sound Designer on Apocalypse Now was the man who gave Randy Thom his first big break. Randy recounted the story during his talk at Alison House at the University of Edinburgh ahead of getting an honorary degree from the University.

 

Randy had heard Murch was a decent sort of guy so he called him up and said he would love to do film sound. With experience of sound effects in radio behind him he was invited along to watch Murch remix American Graffiti from mono to stereo. At the end of the day Randy was given a task – write an essay about the day. The essay he chose to write covered the interactions between the various people remixing the sound – it was enough to secure the job he wanted and enough to convince Randy that it’s the social skills that matter more than the engineering skills.

 

The 18 months that he spent on Apocalypse Now with Murch proved to be his Film School (sounds better than spending 3 years at Alison House to me … only kidding Martin) – he spent 9 months recording helicopters and machine guns and 9 months mixing. In total 7 complete mixes were done until they were happy. The experience drove his philosophy on sound design – it’s the broad brush strokes that matter – there are only a few big decisions to be made “the other 10,000 decisions could be decided by the toss of a coin”. 

That made it sound too simple for me….. and then he showed how the battle scene sound for Forrest Gump was put together. Easily 10,000 decisions in 3 minutes or so – and as far as I could hear every single decision calculated by at least one expert or a very very lucky coin.

 

But that’s the thing about doing something if your good – it comes easy. Decisions come easy when you know the overall thing you are trying to achieve – thats as valid in sofware design as it is in sound design.

Randy Thom – know how to use your mistakes

A craftsman knows how to avoid accidents, an artist knows how to use them – explained Randy Thom at his “Sound in the Movies” talk at the University of Edinburgh. He raised this thought to help discuss the challenge of coming up with good sound design. He explained that when working on any work of art it’s nearly always the accident that generates the best results.

 

He went on to discuss the difficulty in creature vocalisation and I guess that that was some indication that he felt his best creature vocalisations came about by happy accidents. This also gave him the opportunity to pass on a tip to the aspiring sound engineers in the audience at Alison House. Randy has never heard a demo CD that has impressed him – so he suggested re-dubbing a couple of minutes from Jurrasic Park. If you can come anywhere near the same effect then you’ve got a job. Don’t send in CDs of electronic sound effects – come up with an organic based sound that works and twist it, develop it.

 

That’s a nice idea for all CVs – we’d like to see somebody send us a new social networking idea with their CV when they apply to our software company (all rights reserved of course).

Randy Thom – dealing with the client is the hardest part of sound design

Randy Thom opened his talk at ACE at the University of Edinburgh with a clear statement of fact – “dealing with the client is the hardest part of sound design”. It can be good fun starting a talk with a polemic and given that Randy was in a School of Sound Design he started in polemic fashion saying that schools concentrate on the equipment but that that is the easiest part. There are thousands of good sound designers and sound engineers but the challenge is knowing how to handle the client.

 

His insight into film producers was refreshing. He explained that film producers are scared to death of making a fool of themselves in front of their peers and so seek out the team and the sound designer that they believe can deliver. He admitted that when approached by a producer that they believe that he knows how to achieve a particular sound or atmosphere – but in all cases Randy said he never knew before hand what he could do or how he would achieve the desired result. He see’s part of his job as giving the client the confidence they need to get on with the job in hand – their film.

 

That’s a nice business philosophy – makes sense for us on the software company side – give the client confidence – and then of course deliver.

Randy Thom – Sound Knowledge Transfer at University of Edinburgh

The projected backdrop behind Randy Thom at his “Sound in the Movies” talk at ACE (School of Arts, Culture and Environment) showed thumbnails of Forrest Gump (“my names Forrest Gump people call me Forrest Gump”), Apocalypse Now (“At first I thought they’d handed me the wrong dossier”), The Incredibles and Polar Express (haven’t seen them). 

 

 

His career has seen him secure 14 Oscar nominations and two Academy Awards for sound – so the thumbnails only hinted at the depth of his work (one of the awards was for The Inredibles, he was up against himself that year with Polar Express). See www.imdb.com the Internet Movie Database for more info than I give – Star Wars, Cast Away, Shrek, Harry Potter, Star Wars … endless.

 

As a software company Objective Associates have more than our fair share of Star War fans and Trekkies so I felt quite guilty at getting a chance to hear Randy run through his favorite soap box items and his tales from Holywood. A great “KT” event from the University of Edinburgh – more Scottish software companies and games co’s should have been there.

Randy Thom – The Most Important Sound Engineer In The World

Dr Martin Parker is the Academic Director of the University of Edinburgh’s MSc in Sound Design – he chaired the recent talk by Randy Thom ahead of Randy’s honorary degree presentation from the University.

 

Randy is the Director of Sound Design at Skywalker (yes that Skywalker …. Feel the force Luke) and his list of sound credits is significant. The event was well attended by the sound designers of the future and advertised on our free event publicity website Whats On Central. It was very much a Knowledge Transfer event for the University and was open to all – though I seemed to be the only chap wearing a tie. Martin introduced Randy as The Most Important Sound Engineer in the World. By the end of the talk and the various excerpts from his films – I knew Martin was right. 

Randy Thom – Talks at Alison House, University of Edinburgh

It all felt a bit alien for me. A feeling similar to that that Dr Who must feel when surrounded by Daleks.

But it was only the Atrium in Alison House at the University of Edinburgh. And the Daleks were only Apple Macs – lots of them all in white and all looking so much more sophisticated and stylish that the rather dull looking black Dell PC that was clearly there only on sufferance. Objective Associates are a Dell/Microsoft software development shop so the land of Macs is all a bit too coooool for us.

Alison House was the venue for the talk from Randy Thom – Sound Designer….. though that term hardly does him justice. An immense career that he touched on over two hours.