Thinking In Sound: Sonic Storytelling with Mark Camperell

Mark Camperell is the founder and creative director at Empty Sea Audio. His leadership and ability to assemble uniquely talented audio teams has positioned Empty Sea Audio as a leader in creative audio services ranging from sonic branding to original music composition to full service post audio packages.

Mark also sits on the board of directors of the Motion Picture Sound Editors, an organisation that is dedicated to improving the recognition of its worldwide membership by educating the public and the entertainment industry of the artistic merit of sound editing.

LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?

Mark> The first thing I’ll do is start scouring my sound library for material. I need to know quickly if I have what I need to complete the project or if I need to find source material. Having the right sounds for the job is the most important thing starting out. From there I like to hit the high points of the piece with punchy and impactful sounds. Filling in the gaps between these moments follows, but it makes it so much more believable if the big moments are correct.

LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this? Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?

Mark> We almost never have a choice in who the composers are on the projects we work on. A couple times we’ve been able to bring a composer along for the ride. Everything we do though is meant to compliment the other departments on a project.

Sometimes the answer is to mute what we are doing. Other times its to pull music back and push the sound design. At other times, I find we’re trying to tune our sounds to the scale of the music so it doesn’t clash and thus can be featured together.

If there’s a moment in the piece that I feel music may have missed, like a camera move for instance, we will sometimes do a “musical sound design” pass where we hit some of those moments with sounds that work with the music to better tie it to the images on screen. In the end though, we’re all trying to tell the same story together and these things need to work as a cohesive unit in order to do so.

LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why?

Mark> At the end of the day, it really is about two things for me. Telling stories with sound and putting together the puzzle with the sounds that I’ve chosen. Hearing it all come together in the mix is very rewarding.

LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?

Mark> That’s not an easy question. And I’m not sure I have the answer for it. We continue to be available to assist filmmakers and creatives in their quest to tell short-format stories. And, we’ll be doing it until the robots pry the keyboards from our hands. I think all we can do is attempt to work within the confines of what we are comfortable with.

There’s a certain point at which you can’t work any faster, and as a team leader it’s my responsibility to make sure my team isn’t burnt out or asked to do anything in an unreasonable amount of time.

LBB> Who are your musical or audio heroes and why?

Mark> I think there are just too many to list here. I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out. I appreciate what other artists put out into the world. Nothing excites me more than hearing an awesome car commercial, or a moment silence before obliteration in a film.

There are so many people out there doing so many incredible things with music and sound than who get the bulk of the attention in the media. More important than listing the usual suspects, I think it’s probably more important that we make conscious choices to support artists by buying their music or going to see films in theatres.

LBB> And when it comes to your particular field, whether sound design or composing, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do?

Mark> There are people that my clients will reference. When we’re given projects or scenes to work on, often times they’ll say “we want this to sound like (such and such scene) from (such and such movie.) We’ll do our best to get it into that vein, but we still want to put our own personal stamp on things.

Sometimes I’ll just want to get into the vibe of a film and the music isn’t done. So what I’ll do is I’ll pop on the soundtrack from a similar movie and just listen to that to get into a mindset. It’s less about who the composer is and more about what feelings they were able to evoke for that specific genre of film.

Having the right vibes going into working on a scene can really ground you in what you’re trying to do and inspire you to work through it quickly.

LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly sound design or music (lets say going through client briefs or answering emails) - are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on ‘background’ sound and music as you work?

Mark> I rarely have background music going while I’m doing more “admin” type of work. The reason being is that I’m usually fitting that in and around other projects that require listening. So those moments where I’m typing out emails or compiling bids are vital rest time for my ears.

As I’m typing my response to your questions now the only sounds I can hear are my fingers tapping at the keys, the refrigerator in my kitchen, and the occasional long swoosh of a car passing by on the nearby highway. It may sound boring, but it’s extremely important to give your ears rest.

LBB> I guess the quality of the listening experience and the context that audiences listen to music/sound in has changed over the years. There’s the switch from analogue to digital and now we seem to be divided between bad-ass surround-sound immersive experiences and on-the-go, low quality sound (often the audio is competing with a million other distractions) - how does that factor into how you approach your work?

Mark> I always try to work in a way that rewards the folks who have the best-quality playback systems. They deserve for the sonic experience to be incredible.

From there, I’ll check mixes on computer speakers, phone/tablet speakers and my Avantones to make sure we aren’t losing too much.

In certain cases, we’ve mixed mobile series that only exist on phones/tablets. In those cases you start think, oh it’s not a big deal if it’s not a big, bombastic mix. Clients get into that mindset a lot.

But what about people who have shelled out for expensive headphones? Don’t they deserve a great experience? They absolutely do. There’s a bit of a push/pull here.

At the end of the day though, the story points need to be audible for the majority of the audience, so you have to make sure you’re using frequencies that work on wide array of devices. But that doesn’t mean you can’t put in a little extra for the folks with good systems.

LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?

Mark> This is a tough one because you’re not always in control of what’s going on around you.

I’d love to be able to listen to more things just for me, but the reality is when you’re working a 10 hour shift, at the end of that you want a break. When I run or ride my bike, I don’t listen to anything at all.

Lots of people ask me how I can endure running for any length of time without music or an audiobook and my response is simple. This is my break time. It’s my chance to be alone with my thoughts and just listen to the world around me. It’s cathartic and a nice reset from the daily blasting your ears get as an audio professional. 

LBB> Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take?

Mark> My musical tastes are broad. I won’t begin to try to go through them all here. I have a Spotify playlist that’s titled “all sorts o’ crap.” Everything I like goes into there and that stays on shuffle in the car.

When I get into specific moods, I’m absolutely an album person though. I miss the days of cohesive albums rather than one or two great singles and the rest being filler. For that reason, I have a turntable and a bunch of old records that I was given by my in-laws. I love to pop on an album and listen all the way through. It’s a great experience. 

From a sound perspective, I started out with a pretty small sound library. It’s since massively expanded. From stuff I’ve recorded myself to things I’ve purchased for use, I think it’s well over a terabyte now. Might be approaching 2TB.

When I have nothing to do, I listen through categories of sounds to familiarise myself of what I have to work with. You get that one sound stuck in your head that you need to find for a project and it’s really helpful if you know your library beyond just what you can search for in your database. Being able to pinpoint it in your brain and recall quickly where to find it is important.

In order to do that though you’ve got to have well organised metadata and a capable sound library database tool. If you don’t it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The good news is that these days, most professional sound libraries that you can license come with metadata embedded into the sound files for easy searchability. 

LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do - I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?

Mark> I’ve never really been able to travel just for sound. I bring a recorder with me when I do travel just to get the occasional odd or end. Again though, I go back to listening. A lot of what you experience in travel, especially in countries that aren’t yours, is so different sonically. I’d rather be spending my time immersing myself in the reality of the experience than stuck inside cans.

It’s like which would you rather do, watch the concert or the ball game or football match with your eyes or would rather watch it through your phone’s screen while you record it? For me, I’d rather experience it first-hand. 

Obviously, there is a time and a place for recording things while travelling. Background ambiences in specific locations can be hard to re-create without having stood in that spot with a microphone rolling. Authenticity is tough to reproduce. But when I travel, because I get to do it so infrequently, I’d rather be in the world unencumbered. 

LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with sound and music changed over the years?

Mark> When I was starting out in my career, I was frequently criticised for not having enough bass in my mixes or sound choices. I think I probably wasn’t paying attention to those frequencies because my ears were distracted by all the sparkly high stuff I could hear. As I aged, that changed.

So, what happens? I started paying attention to different frequency ranges. My brain gained the ability to minimise frequency distraction. I started to focus my attention on bass and mid-range frequencies more. I started to get criticised for my stuff being “too big!”

You take all this information and you let it shape your choices for your next projects. You should be constantly evolving as a sound artist. You need to be training your ears and listening critically at all the times. Enjoy the story on the first watch through, but on subsequent screenings, try being more analytical in your approach.