Designing Sound for Theatre

so a sound engineer um deals with the technical side of things so they make sure that everything works and that everything's closed in correctly and then they also balance sound really intricately where is sound design I actually make noise I build the noises and the sounds and so it's almost more musical in that sense my sound is often quite musical as I said and quite um flowing and you almost can't hear the end of one sound before the next one begins so I treated almost like a score so I composed the sound rather than just kind of pick silence to go in places with River and it started with just me and all one in the room so Owen is the performer and also it's her own adaptation of Finnegan's Wake she she's just so trusting and so confident in her own work and her own um aesthetic that she can kind of say to me right here are my ideas what do you think of these and she's happy to hand it over because she's not afraid suppose it's it's an amazing artistic bravery that I haven't seen in anybody else yes my boy extinguished a lot of sound designers would come from a more technical sound background so they'd be really experienced engineers or um kind of people who work on the technical side of sound um so the often their approach would be slightly different to mine in that you know their speaker placement and use of microphones and stuff would be razor-sharp and it would be really amazing often as I said I do quite a moody and long range sound scapes big and bacey sounds that just are around you so atmospheres whereas this is pretty much a cartoon and there's no talking and so I could solve my little boink sandbox and zaps and things because it's for children it should be you know it should be kind of big and bold and in-your-face while being cartoonish and while it's for a younger audience that doesn't mean it should be less vigorous or less excellent I think even even when the acting style is quite heightened we still really push for realism and kind of real intention real thoughts real kind of naturalistic psychology behind it otherwise I think it could become really kind of Hollow I think in the same way the sound design for the show is rooted in reality but sometimes the way it's used is in or at certain moments makes that more high angel makes that more funny we pretty quickly knew that we would need an Alma certainly a sound designer really you know inventive and then Toby had already worked with Alma on what was about Hansel and Gretel and he was excited about her responsiveness in the room and then that's something that's always really important to us when we're working that people are prepared to rehearse with us not come in and layer something on afterwards how about it if we really set up these these sort of slow mooie-mooie sparkly like thought thought out so yeah yes I think and what we could do there is even I don't know if this as possible are you able to change how languages even at that point so that it's not changing was playing but even just tiny down or indeed I could just play mine really loud yeah let's try that just you present when sparkly really loud let's not yeah we had sort of years checkpoints where we thought Sam would really really lead the story telling them actually what's been amazing Lin experience for me is our logo his Alma's sort of going well actually if he's doing that at that point surely he should do that they're there they're there and you realize how integral it is to the point where where the actors when we rehearsing it now they're making their own sound effects because they're so used to it being there and when I'm just busy working on something else they start to improve and you're like no you don't do that because it's gonna be there over the top of it this is a launchpad and rather than in Kula when you cue something up when you press spacebar it just goes on to the next cue which means that if you want to press something twice you have to link it up twice you have to have it in there twice to happen where is this every time you press it you can do it again and again and again so these are good for visual things like if someone's pouring a cup of tea or like suctioning something you can kind of have it as long or as short as you want I think having having Sam's line in the room if anything brings brings a lot more clarity lot more focus especially in a show without words it sort of you realized how much how much the sound can help throw focus to it to a piece of storytelling visually an object so personal in action you can't be too precious about us you have to kind of go with the flow and add what you can and let things fall by the wayside because it's it's for the good of the show so um it's okay for things you put work into sometimes they get they fall away but you never know when they might turn up again because technology has gotten better it's easier to make things sound really really good without necessarily spending a fortune so I think even fringe people and young theatre makers are now their ears are open a lot more to the need for sound so people start starting young are already thinking of it as a vital component I suppose it's it's a frame of mind really or it's a it's having that brief suppose and working with other people brings it to a more design point of view and always bringing back whatever sounds you use or whatever pieces of sand you compose and always bring it back to how does it fit with the whole how does this sit with my logic for this show or this world and composition I find you can be a bit more loose with it and music doesn't always need a y but sound design always needs one you

Channel: National Theatre

Views: 163,818

Keywords: ntdiscovertheatre, National Theatre, NationalTheatre, theatre, theater, London, play, show, stage, drama, The Elephantom, riverrun, Alma Kelliher, Finn Caldwell, Toby Olié, Olwen Fouéré, Sound, Sound Design, Adam Pleeth, composer

Id: MGtX9P8gDI8

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 10 2014