Behind the Scenes with Sound Design

What we hear in film, has a massive impact on the viewer's experience. From elevating a scene to building tension, or creating the details of the aural world, it can shape the journey for the audience in a deep and evocative way. Meet Josh Sellick, the man behind the Snatchers sound design, as we go behind the scenes and dig in to what it means to craft such a key part of the aural world.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES AND JOYS OF SOUND DESIGN FOR FILM?

Oh boy, what a Question. Its the whole thing! Specifically for sound design, if you're working solo or as part of an editorial team the challenge is the joy of creating an aural landscape, a character with songlines throughout the film. You can really weave themes and feelings into a film's sound designs, entrenching characterisation and adding life to the whole piece in a really subversive way. I'm usually working hard to fly under the radar, keeping things sounding just so. If you notice what a sound designer does you're in the biz or I haven't done my job right!I've usually worked either by myself or in very small teams, so my experience of working on film sound has seen me fill most of the post audio roles. The editorial elements of polishing the production audio is always a big technical challenge for me. I like to get dialogue sounding nice and crispy, making creative notes for sound design parts afterwards. Gotta treat yo self. Getting stuck into sound design and foley, making mundane things sound specific in a way that adds to the story is always a great time for me. With Snatchers being the type of film it is, it was really nice for me to play with the big vamping sound design sections.The Snatchers team let me have a good go at adding in little audio gags that were very fun to put together, Jay Cameron, the composer also absolutely crushed it. Loved getting the compositions back from him and mixing them in. Collaboration with other creatives always fills my cup. 

WHAT WAS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU WORKING ON SNATCHERS?

For me, it was the solo post editorial with the delivery time crunch. Having to be across all parts of post audio can be quite a challenge. You're always making notes and lists to make sure you don't miss something. Sometimes I would get a little manic and jump from dialogue, ambiences, SFX or little deep dives hunting for a specific sound. Which led to some pretty fun sessions, but ultimately had to be reigned in to methodically work through the different aspects of the Snatchers sound. You wind up just going a little crazy, fixing things you already fixed, massaging footsteps and atmos and spooky shit in a warehouse. I moved through a few different mixing environments during the project which was good and bad. A few test exports in different mix rooms saw the mix get slowly dialed in, just in time for test screen delivery.  Working with the production audio was also a big challenge on this one. Some difficult environments saw me pulling out all the tricks and tips to ensure we used mostly production audio. I think we ADR'd one scene, and only a handful of lines. Being a sound recordist and boom op myself, I found myself going through the production audio and doing a lot of comparison to how I work. Very important to have a critical think(and listen) about what we deliver from go to woe. A bit of perspective goes a long way, and I think we managed to put together a great Aussie film. 

WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST LEARNING?

I think working on Snatchers had me really hone in on editorial decision making, Being somewhat siloed for periods, only to emerge  with the next edits for notes created an environment where I had a lot of freedom to nut out the sound of the film. Professional development is always an ongoing process for me with these sort of projects. I got to expand my audio toolkit, working with some new tools to get dialogue where I wanted it to be for the film. I think also the blending of genres for sfx and feel was also a great learning opportunity for me. 

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR CREATIVES WANTING TO GET EXPERIENCE IN SOUND DESIGN?

Go forth and do!Find your community, your people. Creatives who are out there telling stories, foster those connections, and try can get involved as much as possible. Sound can be such a strong addition to image, and it can make or break a project. I think its really important to attack sound design with a sense of curiosity and play, especially if the project at hand can use a lil something, and with advancements in audio and film technology, its easier than ever to have a crack.If its something you like or are good at, go back and fill in your knowledge gaps. Learn the fundamentals and develop your craft.I used to get trailers and clips totally rework the audio, usually for comedic reasons... but it really helped me to develop skills in sound design, totally changing the feel and drive of the pieces I was working on. Ozark trailer with Arrested development audio, hilarious.

HOW DID YOU FIRST BECOME INVOLVED IN FILM?

I've always had a pretty keen interest in audio, music and making things. So it made sense that I would find myself in film sound whilst studying industrial design at university. I wound up meeting some great local film makers doing some fun projects, and I think I ran into a few students doing majors in media arts production. I dont think anyone who was doing that course wanted to, or gave much thought to audio or how to get that done. Most folks doing that wanted to be Directors, DOP's, VFX quaynes or not sound. I think I wound up doing location and post for most of the cohorts major projects. I had the head of the course asking who this Josh Sellick guy was, why he was attached to all his majors students work, and why was he never in his classes?

WHAT’S HAPPENING CREATIVELY FOR YOU AT THE MOMENT?

At the moment, I'm heading into production week for a big live event here in Canberra! Its the one year birthday showcase for a monthly event I TD, called The Noosh, Its a very chaotic showcase of performers and wild gameshow kinda thing.Then right after that, I'm heading up production for a lil homegrown, hardcore music festival down in Spence on the 25^th of Oct. Outside of that, I'm hoping to work on a few more sound design and film sound projects cough sequel. So if you like what we did with Snatchers, get in touch!