Sonic Boom: Exploring the Sound Landscape with Owen Shearer

Owen Shearer is a mixer and sound designer who has been with Sonic Union for 11 years working on commercial, film and immersive projects. His work has previously been nominated for both Outstanding Audio Mix and Outstanding Sound Design in the   AICP Post Awards and he has contributed to projects that have been recognized at the Tribeca and Locarno Film Festivals, and exhibited at the MoMA and The Whitney Museum. 

Sound adds an immersive dimension to visual media - think of it as the difference between looking through a window at a scene or location, and actually being IN that location. That is always the goal but the way we get there varies from project to project, which is part of what makes it such a rewarding process. 

My favourite way to begin a collaboration is to have a call with as many members of the creative team as possible (CDs, director, editor, etc.) where we can talk about their influences for the project, what they hope to have the sound design add to the piece, and if there are any stylistic choices or genres that they want to avoid. Ideally, I will have received at least a rough cut of the project before this, but these conversations are fruitful even with only a storyboard or deck. 

On the other hand, sometimes a team doesn’t have a strong perspective on where they want to go with the sound, and this can also provide an opportunity for a really fun exploratory process. In these circumstances, I can go a little wild and throw a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what works, and this can lead to some really impactful and unexpected outcomes. It also allows me to draw on my experience working on other projects that may have had a similar aesthetic to present them with a starting point that we can jump off of. 

After working in 5.1 (or 7.1) as the longtime standard, over the last few years, height, in the form of ceiling speakers in Atmos as well as fully spherical audio using Ambisonics has moved more into the mainstream. Atmos, Ambisonics, the advancements in sound for videogames and VR’s use of sound, helps us create an even more immersive experience for the audience to further support the story that’s being told. Add to that a new toolkit of plugins and software and we are really able to take the audience places like never before. 

Up until a few years ago, sound designers had essentially two options for creating a sound-scape - foley recording in studio and out in the “field” or using sound libraries. The former, rooted in cinematic tradition, is a creative process that with today’s tight timelines is becoming an increasingly rarified proposition. Sound libraries, on the other hand, offer a vast and deep palette but with some limitations, among them that the clips are a finite length and cannot always be manipulated to fit the specific timing or nuance needed for a scene. Over the last few years, a new option has opened up creative opportunities as a bridge between the two: software tools specifically designed for sound designers working in post-production that allow you to play sound to picture using a standard MIDI keyboard and the automation capabilities of your DAW. 

This innovation has many advantages, among them the ability to immediately experience the impact of that given “sound performance'' on the visual narrative. To use a music analogy, imagine you want to play a Chopin piano sonata. A sound library is akin to selecting and aligning each note on a timeline; whereas the toolset allows the designer to play the sonata all the way through with the desired performance details and style. The same is true for this approach to sound, where performance and sound unite in a fluid action. This performance can be manipulated further once it has been laid down, providing additional creative flexibility. The ability to provide clients with revisions and options is expanded significantly with this approach. While we have had access to synthesizers for decades, this new generation of tools is geared specifically towards the needs of post-production rather than music, where often we need to create distinctly un-musical sounds, or avoid or tone down the inherent pitch of the sounds we are creating (i.e., to avoid clashing with music).

But it isn't an either/or situation. Sometimes I use these tools when I cannot find an appropriate sound file in a library for a specific scene, like a footstep on a very specific kind of floor or a specific car passing the camera with the correct movement. It can be the key to unlocking an authentic or highly impactful moment. 

There are a few limitations that I hope will be updated in the near future. Currently, you have to buy sound bundles as the basis for your sound to picture performance. I’d love to be able to import sounds I have either recorded or sourced - a specific kind of car engine, for example - for further individualisation and bespoke options. When that happens, the creative realm of sound design will expand tremendously, fusing the best of each way of thinking and designing -  libraries, performance, studio/field recording -  in one. 

Check out some of Owen's work below

ANGI: This project involved a lot of specific foley - figuring out what props to use and how to set them up to be usable and interesting. It was both technical and rife with experimentation. One of the main challenges was to create the sound of water sloshing through the inside of a steamer tube. I bought a big shop vac tube to use as a prop, but the tricky - and fun - part was figuring out how to properly mic it up so that I could capture the sound of the water going through it while avoiding the sound of water exiting the tube and splashing into the bowl, I had set up to catch it. I ended up wrapping the tube around a barstool in order to slow the flow of the water, and lined the bowl with towels to mute any sounds other than the water inside the tube.

eBay: This spot involved a significant amount of UVI Whoosh (see below) for camera moves with specificity and dimension. I gave the large rain drop at the beginning some liquidity, with a viscous movement instead of an airy one. As the camera pulls back from the tropical scene and transitions into the bedroom, there’s a sequence of more traditional whooshes, but I had more flexibility to make subtle adjustments so the viewer doesn’t hear the same sound over and over in rapid succession. Sometimes, the best option can be found by pulling from our library: the swirling sounds around the spinning purse is one great example of that. The result was a combination of custom-made sounds that are unique to the project, without the intricacies and heavy workload of foley. A middle - happy - ground.