Antfood’s frenetic sound design reel

Antfood’s 35-second sound design reel is a frenetic, fun romp for the eyes and ears.

The Sound of LUX, OBEN

Amazing student work continues to pour out of French animation schools – this time from EMCA.

(Above) Juliette Oberndorfer creates an entrancing, enigmatic story in her grad film, LUX (check out her blog and portfolio for more imagery) – but this otherwordly, cyclical transit is really heightened by the clever sound design of N’gouda Prince Ba, who previously composed the ethereal setting for OBEN earlier this year (below).
 

Aside from the fact that these stand alone as impressive visual and conceptual works, my real interest here was the emotional gravity created in both by this sole sound designer.   N’gouda Prince was kind enough to elaborate on his contributions to these works, his background, and expanding portfolio:

“I began my education in mathematics, but then transferred to a film school near EMCA, so I know a lot of students there – especially Thierno Ba, who asked me to work on OBEN.

For OBEN, I tried to create a tension to reflect the storm. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to compose a simple soundtrack, but the emphasis was the transitions between scenes.  It’s a bit difficult to keep a musical coherence between the great outdoors and the hospital. For LUX… Juliette wanted ambiance without music, with a climactic ending. In general, it’s simple for me: I just try to tell a story with the sound paralleling the film visuals.

At the moment, I’m working as an interaction and scenic designer for a museum (dance, exhibitions, theater). I’m also writing a new documentary film, and am developing the sound for animated film called “Sillage”. I hope I will succeed in telling the right story with the sound!”

No doubt it will be a success!  We look forward to future work from N’Gouda Prince Ba and the students/grads of EMCA.

Credits

[Interview] John Kassab: “Childhood of a Circle”, et al.

As I was being transported back to my youth watching Childhood of a Circle, I noticed a thread lining several recent posts here…

Melbourne-based audio designer & deep sea diver John Kassab has been making a subtle but sound statement through a handful of featured Motionographer articles, notably: Callum Cooper’s Full Circle, Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing (exerpt + interview), and of course, Kadavre Exquis’ recently released piece above (among others).

As the sculptors of all things aurally beautiful, sound designers are not often given their proper due, so be sure to lend an ear to John & all the other artists here who routinely tickle our cochlea.

Additionally, Exquis’ fine work showcased above definitely deserves a hand – specifically, the backgrounds are just killer.  View landscape set 1 / set 2 + check out more behind-the-scenes work in his Secret Files. Kadavre is also a musician, and you can pick up the retro-inspired Childhood of a Circle original soundtrack here.

UPDATE: John Kassab provided us a discussion in which he extends some great insight into his processes, perceptions of the field, finishing work in the digital age, and the beauty of the imperfect.  Read more after the jump.

Interview + Credits

David Kamp: Sound Creatures

Who knows what kind of creature is making those snuffling noises in the bushes just behind you. Or the animal skittering for cover under that dock at the water’s edge.

Berlin-based composer and sound designer David Kamp recently took on the role of curator and sent some of his favorite illustrators and animators the sound of an imaginary creature and asked them what they think it looks like. The resulting (still growing) menagerie is on view at sound-creatures.com.

Thanks to David for sharing a little bit more about the project below.

How did the project come about?

In my animation projects I often get to define the sonic world of characters. The question I ask myself very often is, “How does this thing sound?”

I thought it would be interesting to turn that process around and ask people, “What does this sound look like?” But I didn’t have a clear idea how to approach this yet.

One day I posted a pretty weird animal sound on my facebook page and wrote, “I have no idea what this is.” My friend Joonas Utti replied that he wanted to draw it. That’s when it clicked, and I thought it might be a fun process for people to create an illustration or animation inspired by a sound I created. I then went on to record (or to be honest record/create/synthesize) quite a few sound creatures and sent them to the visual artists involved in the project.

Are the visual artist previous collaborators? New friends? A combination?

They are people I either worked with before or people whose illustration or animation work I admire.

I was lucky to get many very talented people on board. Soon there will also be a non-curated online version of the project where basically everyone can participate on a new set of sounds.

Are any of the creatures dangerous?

Not unless you connect them to loudspeakers bigger than yourself.

Collaborators featured at the top: Mark Verhaagen, Ian MacArthur, Nick Sheehy, Dave Prosser / below: Janine Rewell, Ville Savimaa.

Echolab updates

Sound design studio Echolab updates with slick work for Disney, Nike and more.

[AUDIO] Making the MGM Sonic Ident

[AUDIO] Radium Audio’s behind the scenes post about crafting the MGM sonic ident

Macro Kingdom

Ethereal images and engrossing sound design in Macro Kingdom from Clemens Wirth. (Audio by Radium Audio.)