Defacto Sound | Audio Post Production… Worldwide.

•• Thanks again to Michael Coleman ••

Randy Thom (Supervising Sound Designer/Mixer) discusses his work on Ice Age 3!

“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

The new Ghostbusters Game has come out to some great reviews!  Besides bringing back great memories from my childhood, it’s a really fun game!

Check out the official Ghostbusters Game Site here

For tons of Videos, click here for the Ghostbusters page on GameTrailers.com

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Kyle Richards (Audio Director) & Brian Fieser (Sound Design Lead) at Terminal Reality (Ghostbusters’ Developer / Lewisville, TX) were kind enough to answer a few Sound Design questions!

DS:  How long have you been working on the game?

Kyle:  We worked on Ghostbusters for just under 3 years.  We had a full year to prototype the game and an additional 2 years of production.

DS:  Did you have any access to the original archived sounds from the Movie, or did you have to re-create everything from scratch?

Kyle:  Sony and Sierra were very helpful in provided anything we needed for this project.  However, we determined early on that we wanted to re-create all the sound fx from scratch.  Sound design technology has come a long way since 1984 and we wanted to utilize these advances for this title.  Brian Fieser did an amazing job of dissecting the signature Ghostbusters sounds and recreating them with more clarity and punch.  Another advantage of creating our own assets was that we had more control over them.  We weren’t limited to someone else’s library.  We needed to be able to define head, loop, tails of the proton beam and call them freely based on the players actions.  I think a lot of people assumed we just used the sound fx from the movies, so I think that’s a testament to the great job Brian did on re-creating them.

DS:  There seems to be a million different “Slime Splats” in the game.  Surely you had some fun creating the “Slime” in the game?

Brian:  This part was really fun. We bought several large buckets of cottage cheese, yogurt, and cans of whipped cream into the foley room. We were the most successful when we whipped out the plunger and filled a large bowl with a mixture of the ingredients and plunged away.

DS:  How did you create the footstep sounds with all of the gear attached?  Did you use randomizers on this?

Brian:  For the footstep sounds, we recorded the same type of boot used in the films on different surfaces. For the gear, we recorded actual prop proton packs modeled in exact detail as the film pack. To further augment to audio for the gear, we filled up a large backpack with random items and jostled around in the foley booth. We also recorded foley of the flight suit. We ended up using about 5-6 sound effects for each material and applied a very subtle pitch randomizer using our in-house sound tool. The footsteps and the pack rustle sounds were kept separate, as there are times when the player is able to roam the environment without a pack on.

DS:  Do you have any advice on creating ghostly audio effects or any interesting “Ghost Vocalization” tricks you used in the game?

Brian:  This mostly depended on the ghost or monster. We brought in voice actors for the majority of our ghosts and monsters. Those sessions combined with animal sounds, processed children sounds, and some plug-ins gave a great result. Pitch shifting and offset duplication also helps.  The Waves plug-in bundle was primarily used. Doubler, Enigma, Morphoder, etc… One of my favorite sets of creature sounds is the venom/blackslime scuttler crawlers. They were made up of cicada hissing, toads, pitched up horse trots, pitched up raccoons, and processed/pitched sperm whales.

DS:  How will Sound Design vary between platforms?  Is there any difference between 360 & PS3?  Was there a different approach to the Wii Version?

Brian:  The 360 and PS3 versions are pretty similar. Terminal Reality dedicates an entire SPU from the PS3 for audio which handles all of the processing effects (DSP, reverb, etc…). Due to the visual and play style difference, Red Fly primarily used the 360/PS3 assets as a base, and applied their own treatment to them to fit their title. Terminal openly shared the sound directory with Red Fly for the Wii version.

DS:  And just for fun…  a non “sound” related question…  Who is the face of the 5th Ghostbuster/Trainee based off of?

Brian:  Ryan French, an associate producer who was employed with Sierra.

Thanks to Hollywood Lost & Found!

The history of the Wilhelm Scream.

Known films that have used the Wilhelm Scream.

History of the Scream (video):

Compilation Video:

•• Thanks again to Michael Coleman ••

Pete Horner discusses the approach he & Walter Murch (who serves again as both Film Editor & Re-Recording Mixer!) took with “Tetro“.

“Tetro” Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Very cool video from Wired about the inFamous Soundtrack.  Must watch!!