Essential Viewing: Audio Post Production

Posted by Travis Norman on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Those who find themselves immersed in the world of sound for picture are well aware of the demanding nature of the craft, on both a technical and creative level.  On offer here today are a selection of revealing glimpses into professional post production and sound design tactics which may serve as inspiration for individuals aspiring to become part of this exciting industry.

Matthew Wood, Supervising Sound Editor at Skywalker Sound

An interview with legendary Sound Designer Ben Burtt for the DVD of Wall-E

“I’m always on the alert…If a sound catches my attention, its probably going to be useful to me later on somewhere in a movie…” ~ Ben Burtt

Peter Jackson’s soundcrew recording SFX for King Kong

Randy Thom describes how the sound was designed for the ping-pong scenes in Forrest Gump

Gary Rydstrom knew he wanted to work in film…he found his passion with sound

“Dinosaur dialogue” in Jurassic Park

OK, this one is just for fun…though George Lucas has said that sound is “half of the picture”

Do you know of some good videos that I neglected to include here?  Feel free to leave  links in the comments section…

Tags: IPR, Post Production, Sound For Picture
Posted in Multimedia, Sound For Picture | No Comments »

DIY 360: Davina Sowers and Michael Cavale

Posted by Travis Norman on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Davina Sowers and her band-mate, bassist Michael Cavale, recently joined us for DIY 360.  Davina has a huge blues belter voice and amazing blues piano skills.  She and Michael entertained the rapt audience with their brand of New Orleans and cabaret influenced blues and soul.  Davina talked about managing the career of her up-and-coming, world touring band—doing everything from booking the band, doing web-design, writing the songs and networking with musicians and entertainment business all over the web and world. Michael taked about his transformation from heavy metal guitar shredder to jazz hipster. Davina left students with a great list of resources for up-an-coming musicians, managers and booking agents which you can get from Rebecca Buller at rbuller@ipr.edu. It was a great end to the Early Fall DIY 360 series.

DIY 360 is a weekly event hosted by Adam Levy. The goal is to introduce students to professionals in the field who have been successful, frequently by adapting to changes in the business where they make use of multiple skill sets. Guests share information about their careers, their philosophies about professionalism and their art.  Guests often give advice to budding artists, entertainment business professionals, producers and engineers.  DIY 360 is an opportunity for students to network with those working in the field and with each other as they work toward career success.

Tags: DIY 360, IPR
Posted in Newswire, Newswire Events | No Comments »

IPR At The Minneapolis Performing & Visual Arts College Fair

Posted by Travis Norman on Friday, September 25th, 2009

IPR is excited to once again participate in the Minneapolis Performing & Visual Arts College Fair. This is a great opportunity for creative individuals to speak directly with representatives from IPR regarding exciting career opportunities in the Media Arts.  Please join us!

The event will be held Monday October 12, 2009 from 7:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.

Coffman Memorial Union–Great Hall
300 Washington Avenue, SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0110
612/624-4636

For more information, click here

Tags: College Fair, IPR, Performing and Visual Arts
Posted in Newswire, Newswire Announcements | No Comments »

Five additional enlightening videos on videogame audio design and one text-based interview.

Posted by Kyle Stallock on Friday, September 25th, 2009

As I’ve very strongly implied in Five Enlightening Videogame Sound Design Videos, and Five More Enlightening Videos on Videogame Music and Sound Design, not only is the audio in this industry wildly varied, so is the way it’s implemented. But if you’re still not convinced, or are as hungry for industry info as me, here are five more videos and one interview with an award-winning indie audio team.

Oh, and about retail sound banks… They might as well not exist. The audio artists shown in the videos below prefer capturing and creating their own aural delights over dragging and dropping the same shlop used by first quarter animation students. Students, you have been warned.

One of my favorite pieces of audio-related advice comes from Randy Thom. In the article “Designing a Movie for Sound,” on FilmSound.org, the Academy Award winning  sound designer and mixer wrote “The biggest myth about composing and designing is that they are about creating great sounds. Not true, or at least not true enough.” The article’s one of the most useful pieces a budding post production professional can read – filled with dozens of quotes like the one above and this one: “…sound began to shape the picture sometimes as much as the picture shaped the sound.”

When Randy Thom talks, you need to listen. In the video above, the legend explains his involvement with the Scarface videogame, the main difference between videogame sound and movie sound, and what the former can learn from the latter. Here’s a quote from his response to the last topic:

“…the point of view of the characters, which has been explored very thoroughly in movies, I think is gonna be explored maybe even further in videogames.”

Starbreeze designs crisp and meaty audio for the Riddick series. For a reference point, think Rocky fight scenes in a Star Wars cantina near closing time. Here, audio director Carl Vikman and company discuss and display how they designed the audio for Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena . Pay attention near the end to see how boosting the sound quality in the original Riddick improves immersion.

Battlefield: Bad Company didn’t revolutionize audio for military shooters, but developer DICE did raise their personal bar of quality. In this video, the in-house sound guys and gal are shown doing the “fire real weapons to get ‘real’ sounds” bit. Sure, it’s typical, but I like their reasoning: “Making audio for Bad Company began with a single question: ‘What can we do better this time around compared to our previous Battlefield games?’ For the sound designers here at DICE, the answer was simple: “Get out more.”

Okay, if the military shooter’s your type of thing and you really want to work on one, here’s a video from Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising. Just like the Bad Company video, the developers at Codemasters went running and crawling around some countryside firing guns, tanks, and who knows what else, all to capture a few realistic sounds. Like I said earlier, it’s typical stuff but the team here explains the process more thoroughly than most.

Now, for something different.

Calling Shatter “Breakout for a new generation” is too shallow and overly simple. The PSN title’s so much more than just a cheap rehash of a retro title. Thanks to composer Jeremiah Ross, a.k.a. Module and his “musical paintings” perspective, the title’s another videogame gateway to synesthesia, and probably one of the best. Oh, and apparently critics like it too. The title currently has a metascore of 86.

If you want something more text-based, here are a few quotes from an interview with Rich Carlson, co-founder of indie development group Digital Eel. Along with his colleagues at Eel, the team won three excellence in audio awards in the last six years at the Independent Games Festival.

” Sound and music are integral and integrated with design from the first moment we have something happening on the screen.  We feel it must be, and not just sfx but music, especially music which so often sounds like something….like dressing, something painted on, like makeup or apartment paint to help cover up the picture holes on the walls.”

” When we make a game, music and sound are in right away.  From the first couple of hours, the basic prototype is on the screen, so they began to shape the sonic style of the game immediately.

Because sound and music are growing up at the same time as the art and programming is, all these elements influence each other pretty equally, so you don’t get music and sound that sound “separate” or tacked-on.  You get sound you can’t turn off, and you don’t want to, because it’s actually part of the game.

Sounds can also influence and inspire and change things.  You might be after a certain sound effect, but then you stumble across something else that’s much cooler, so the animation of a visual effect is changed to match the sound.”

And for you audio geeks, Carlson explains how the sound design was assembled:

” Basically what you’re hearing is a series of loops.  Most of them are 16-second loops.

I knew right away that “music” with beats wasn’t the way to go.  The music had to create a soundscape, something that supports a mindscape, really — pun intended — rather than making you want to tap your foot.  It had to smoothly transition just as the “art” on the pipe wall and the speed of traveling through the pipe smoothly transition in the game.

I also knew that the music had to have a kind of primal power and evoke a sense of mystery about what is supposed to be going on and what is being revealed.  Bill was very much into this too.

At the same time, we wanted it to reflect the random thoughts floating through and bouncing around inside your brain.  One of the best ways to accomplish this was to leave conventional music behind, which is what Bill and I ended up doing.

It was important that the loops be seamless.  If you’re working with beats and grooves, that’s a very easy thing to do — it starts on one and ends on four.  You simply loop that, attaching the end to the beginning and it sounds fine because, for the most part, that’s how a bass/drums/guitar combo plays.”

Check out the full article at Create Digital Music.

Tags: audio, behind the scenes, brainpipe, breakout, chronicles of riddick, codemasters, independent games festival, module, Music, operation flashpoint 2, randy thom, scarface, shatter, sound design, starbreeze, video diary, videogames
Posted in Gaming, Multimedia | 2 Comments »

Jukebox In The The Cloud

Posted by Travis Norman on Thursday, September 24th, 2009

As options for listening to music online continue to proliferate, increasing numbers of fans are redefining their notions of what having a music collection means to them.  Looking beyond the indications that consumers are less concerned overall with having a physical product (falling CD sales), we see that, for many, ownership of any form has become a secondary concern to quick and ubiquitous access.  These perks, coupled with convenient ways of sharing new found discoveries with members of various social networks, have turned tunes that live “in the cloud” into the preferred choice for a growing amount of music enthusiasts.

Fore those looking for an all you can eat style subscription, services such as Rhapsody and the reformed version of Napster have you covered (and if you happen to be a European iPhone owner, Spotify).  Alternatively, radio styled options such as Pandora and Last.fm allow users to create playlists generated around similarities to a favorite artist or song.  And finally, there exist a plethora of ways to embed the tune you are currently enjoying into your stream of social updates, thereby instantly sharing your tastes with members of your network and easily starting conversations based on the music.  Popular sites include Blip.fm, sort of like a Twitter for music in which members share tracks in real time, and imeem, whose huge library appeals to curious browsers anxious to discover something fresh.  These options, and many more like them, offer straightforward integration with social media, giving fans the ability to broadcast recommendations with a single click.

Posted in Multimedia, Music | No Comments »

Making a Living in Rock and Roll: Christy Hunt at IPR

Posted by Travis Norman on Monday, September 21st, 2009

Christy Hunt recently joined us at IPR for an installment of DIY 360.  She’s the singer-songwriter of the local band Ouija Radio and guitarist for the Detroit-based, internationally known indie rock cult band,The Von Bondies.  Christy discussed growing up on the Iron Range and coming to the Twin Cities rock and roll mecca. Described by City Pages as a “bubblegum Axewoman Barbie,” Christy Hunt is a rare post- punky guitar shredder in a mostly man’s world.  She discussed making a living in rock and roll as songwriter, club booker and for-hire rocking guitarist.

DIY 360 is a weekly event hosted by Adam Levy. The goal is to introduce students to professionals in the field who have been successful, frequently by adapting to changes in the business where they make use of multiple skill sets. Guests share information about their careers, their philosophies about professionalism and their art.  Guests often give advice to budding artists, entertainment business professionals, producers and engineers.  DIY 360 is an opportunity for students to network with those working in the field and with each other as they work toward career success.

Posted in Newswire, Newswire Events | No Comments »

Cutting costs to make room for PC (not console) gaming.

Posted by Kyle Stallock on Monday, September 21st, 2009

This economy sucks. Retail sales are down, the stock market’s trying (and mostly failing) to recover from the previous crash, restaurants can no longer afford to remain full-staffed, and, worst of all, the invincible videogame industry is currently experiencing a year to year sales decline! I’d contend a lack of tolerable content impacted the last one more than a stagnant economy, but the belief’s not popular (developers can do no wrong!), and pointing a finger better serves this article.

Whether money’s not coming in like it used to, or interactive entertainment never found a comfortable place to sit in the living room of your monthly budget, rest easy. You can still game. Together we’ll lift your financial exile from the land of videogames.

But before I start, please slam your face directly onto last month’s bank statement. Stay there. The ledger may be riddled with nasty little unnecessary expenses. Find them.

If you need help, consumer empowerment blog The Consumerist can assist. Crushed by massive credit card debt? The editors suggest going without cable television and to stop eating out, among others, in the article “5 Expenses You Can’t Afford If You Have Credit Card Debt.” Spending too much at the local grocery store? Stop buying pre-chopped food, suggests writer Meg Marco in “7 Ways To Save on Groceries Without Using Coupons.” Do you think you’re so smart you don’t need to read these tips? The Consumerist has an article for you. “10 Stupid Ways That Smart People Waste Money” suggests even those privileged with a larger frontal lobe can sometimes forget to pay bills, suffer excessive overdraft and ATM fees, and let food spoil in the fridge.

You may or may not have a bit more room to work with. Either way, there’s only one gaming platform option (if you only have one choice): PC.

No other offers greater return on investment. And the investment itself can be as low as $200 or stratospherically high in the tens of thousands. For this article, we’ll keep our budget under $400. But first, let’s take a look at why the PC’s so effin’ neat.

Open

Somehow, after all these years, console gaming still remains a very closed and restricted way of experiencing the medium. Mods are all but absent, Sony and Microsoft have made it clear their interest is waining in backwards compatibility, and every publisher and/or developer wishing to create and distribute a title for a major console must first submit said software to the platform holders. On the PC, anything goes. This includes nudity and serious adult relationships- two aspects of storytelling wholly not represented in today’s heavily filtered console environment. If anything, think of the PC as a free society.

More more more

Go figure, the PC’s “free society” also allows for a greater number of playable titles and of larger variety. A multitude of sites and distribution channels cater to nearly every type of gamer imaginable. Into artsy games? Indiegames.com should satisfy. Feel like playing a violent old-school shmup infused with pop culture rerferences? There’s no better place to visit than Newgrounds.com.

Cheaper games

The PC version of multiplatform titles almost always retails for $10 less. On top of that, digital distribution services such as Steam and Direct2drive offer weekly sales for a plethora of new and old titles and sometimes reward those who preorder with discounted prices and free content.

Not missing much

The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PC each offer their own set of “exclusive” titles. PS3 most notably offers God of War, Uncharted, and Flower. The 360 has the Halo franchise, Gears of War, and access to many PC titles. The Wii has Nintendo, or, rather, Nintendo has the Wii, for better and worse (Nintendo’s nearly incomparable presence at market with quality titles makes it hard for third-parties to compete). But the PC not only has stellar exclusives like the Witcher, World of Warcraft, and Dawn of War II, free-to-play MMOs, the world’s (arguably) fastest growing genre and distribution model, only currently appear on the platform. Title exclusivity? Psh, that’s nothing.

F2p

Don’t associate “free” with “crap.” Riot Games switched the business model of their upcoming RTS/RPG hybrid League of Legends from pay-per-title to free-to-play this past July. Earlier, Dungeons and Dragons Online made a similar move. Even the second largest publisher in the world, Electronic Arts, entered the f2p business this year with Battlefield: Heroes. According to the latest research, the title’s pulling in a lot of greenbacks. For more titles, check out MMOHub.org. The news/previews/reviews site specializes in free-to-play titles, and just so happens to be one of the sites for which I freelance (PLUG!).

If you’re interested in the f2p market, its rapid rise in popularity, and how it fits in the industry’s future, keep checking back. We’ll soon run a piece covering those topics and many more.

Build it.

Now it’s time to get your own gaming rig.

Don’t buy a pre-built system. Build your own! It’s easier than you think. In fact, my girlfriend built hers last January with absolutely no prior knowledge of how computers work (before she didn’t know the difference between a hard drive and RAM). Try this piece-by-piece guide from PC mech, or google another. If you get stuck, or are unsure how something works, seek out YouTube videos for in-depth tutorials (I like the ones from How Stuff Works).

As promised earlier, here’s a build I pieced together on Newegg with a budget cap of $400 (ok, $405). It won’t kick visual king Crysis in it’s graphics junk, but it’ll capably handle everything else.

Now I turn it over to you. Would you add or subtract any components? Do you hate or love PC gaming? Let us know!

Posted in Gaming, Multimedia | 2 Comments »

Graduate Profile: Kyle Bylin – Connecting the Dots

Posted by Travis Norman on Friday, September 18th, 2009

S.O.N.G.S. (Stories Of New Graduate Success) is a spotlight on the paths IPR students pursue after graduation and the success they find along the way…

Kyle Bylin is Associate Editor of the highly influential music industry blog Hypebot.com, which is read daily by more than 10,000 music industry professionals.  He writes primarily about the impact of technology on the Recording Industry and developing trends in music consumerism.

In addition to blogging, Kyle has partnered with Jade Presents, a Midwest concert promoter, to create a free music event series called AMPED.  By making the event free for local college students, the goal is to lower the barrier of entry into the live music scene, collect key information on students who attend, and gain permission to market.  This is their way of connecting with college students and giving them reasons to buy tickets to future concerts.

Since Kyle is well versed in expressing himself in text, I will part ways with the traditional question and answer format here and allow the story of Kyle’s journey to be told in his own words…

Connecting the Dots

To pay tribute to a Commencement address given by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005, in front of would-be graduates of Stanford University, I would like to start off by saying that this story is “about connecting the dots.”  It’s about how a farm kid from rural North Dakota with a population of roughly 200 would come to be inspired by the live music scene in Fargo, 155 miles away, and decide that he would like to pursue a career in the music industry.  Most of all, it’s about an extraordinary opportunity I was given that allowed me to do meaningful work.

1.  The “Dream Job”

Much time could be consumed going into the details about what led me to decide that attending the Institute of Production and Recording was the next step in my adult life.  Between the trials and tribulations that grew out of that decision, there was constant negotiation between family and friends alike about what fate I would succumb to, but, in the end, I moved to downtown Minneapolis in July of 2007 and started school shortly after.  Needless to say, the events that followed would cause a dramatic shift in my perspective and take me down a path that I could have never predicted or even dreamed of.

“Reading for yourself and expanding on your curiosities is the most important thing that you can do if you want to learn this business”

Starting the Music and Entertainment Business program at IPR is a blur to me now, but, to be sure, it was filled with many moments where I would come to terms with the fact that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.  Later on, Scott LeGere would prove to be an excellent aficionado of showing not only I, but everyone who interacted with him, where the gaps in their knowledge presided, wherein, he would take it upon himself to fill those gaps with whatever it was that he was extremely excited about that particular day of the week.  Classes came and went, grades were given, and life happened, but there are a few moments I’ve pinpointed that changed everything for me.

Through an extra credit assignment set up by Eric Trelsted, I would interview Anna-Marie Ganje, who, at the time, was the General Manager of 50 Entertainment and 50 Records, and Drew Pearson, their Director of A&R.  It went well, I learned allot, but, most importantly, near the conclusion of our talk, I would ask them if they took on interns.  They did.  Followed by discussion about what they looked for in applicants and how one might go about doing such a thing.  Such news reignited my long-time dream of working for a record label and set me on a path towards applying to become one of their unpaid interns.

(more…)

Tags: Graduate Profile, IPR
Posted in Alumnus, Graduate Profile | No Comments »

Ready, Set, Rehearse: Regina Spektor at IPR

Posted by Travis Norman on Thursday, September 17th, 2009

By Trey Palmer

It has been said that when an opportunity comes your way, you should take it and MAKE IT WORK. On Tuesday September 8, 2009 it was my time to take that motto and put it into action.  I received a call from IPR’s Artist and Industry Relations Coordinator and friend Brian “CHAMPTOWN” Harmon and was asked if I could find and arrange a live rehearsal session for big time and successful recording artist Regina Spektor.  As soon as I heard the name I automatically thought opportunity, and without hesitation accepted the challenge. This immediately became my number one priority, especially since I only had a time period of 48 hours to have everything locked and ready to go.  Once specifics were given to me through her tour manager I hit the phones, got schedules, and managed to squeeze in 3 to 4  brief meetings in order acquire what I needed.

By Thursday 1:00pm I had all the gear that was necessary and a more than exceptional rehearsal space booked out.  At 4pm sharp I received the phone call that the band and crew had arrived and were ready to go. The band had everything in place and was ready to jam within the first 30 minutes. A couple of songs were run through and by 5pm Regina had pulled up and got to work.   Once they began I went to into to the control room and relaxed as Regina’s love and true passion for “the music” filled the performance area. The constant smiling and dancing to the multi-genre influenced tunes lasted for an awesome 3 hours. After all was singed and done I got to speak with Regina and am proud to say that her personality and work ethic are without a doubt the reasons why she is where she is today. We all took photos, and I also was given valuable information that will greatly benefit me as I continue to move forward in my musical career. This is an experience that will be impossible to forget.

Posted in Multimedia, Music | 1 Comment »

Innovation and Cross-Pollination: The James Buckley Trio at IPR

Posted by Travis Norman on Thursday, September 17th, 2009

The James Buckley Trio recently joined us at IPR for DIY 360.  The Trio is one of the young leading ensembles in the Minneapolis jazz renaissance.  The group played a few selections and discussed the unique Minneapolis jazz scene characterized by stylistic innovation and cross-pollination with other musical genres the twin cities like indie rock, electronica and hip hop—they described fluidity between styles compared to calcified jazz scenes elsewhere in the country.  Bassist James Buckley, pianist Brian Nichols and drummer JT Bates described their personal development and musical evolution in the Twin Cities and discussed networking, jazz music, songwriting, and recording with IPR students.

DIY 360 is a weekly event hosted by Adam Levy. The goal is to introduce students to professionals in the field who have been successful, frequently by adapting to changes in the business where they make use of multiple skill sets. Guests share information about their careers, their philosophies about professionalism and their art.  Guests often give advice to budding artists, entertainment business professionals, producers and engineers.  DIY 360 is an opportunity for students to network with those working in the field and with each other as they work toward career success.

Posted in Newswire, Newswire Events | No Comments »

Announcements

April 28, 2010

Al Kooper Plays Dakota Jazz Club, IPR’s DIY360

November 10, 2009

Jackie Lee Robinson Remembered

October 30, 2009

Mary Ann O’Dougherty Remembered

October 14, 2009

Networking at AES