Here’s another sound redesign promo I recently completed. The promo is titled “Indiana Jones Office Action” and was awarded best movie promo at PromaxBDA Europe 2011.
I’ve replaced all the sound from both promos, including the original Indiana Jones movie footage. It’s more satisfactory for me to use my own recorded sounds, but my personal sound library isn’t that big yet. So, to get things moving I have used mostly sample library sounds to complete the project and some from my private library.
Still, it’s how you process and superimpose the sounds that really matter. Here’s a a couple examples of how I got some larger-than-life sound effects.
The boulder
The boulder in “Indiana Jones: Raiders of The Lost Ark” is made of fiberglass and doesn’t sound anything like a boulder. Sound designer Ben Burtt explained that they had tried rolling boulders down a hill, to get an authentic boulder sound. However, boulder-down-the-hill-plan wasn’t giving the expected results, so they kept on searching. Later that day they discovered that their Honda Civic rolling on gravel produced the perfect boulder sound, and was used as the basis for the boulder sound effect in the movie.
I have also used rolling car tires as the basis of my boulder sound effect. I lowered its frequency somewhat to make it more rumbly and less reminiscent of car tires. I also added a sound effect of a gimbal. From the sound of it, the gimbal seems huge, and it also sounds like there’s small branches and twigs snapping in the background, so it fitted the environment perfectly. Lastly I added some clean LF rumble which helps to emphasize the sheer size and weight of the boulder.
The title logo
The title logo appears with a short library whoosh which I’ve kept untreated. The whoosh is shortly followed by the narrator, while the theme music is playing vividly in the background. The narrator is recorded with a large diaphragm tube mic at close proximity. It’s recorded using an SE reflection filter, but those things don’t work too well as soon as you start heightening your voice. Yet, at a low level, close proximity situation, it’s better than nothing.
The narrator is processed with eq, multi band compression and de-esser.
Next thing in line is the whoosh again, this time it is reversed and pitched down. I have also added a drone tone with Space Designer. Lastly, as this is an Indiana Jones movie promo, I felt obliged to include a whip crack and here it is, superimposed with the whoosh. I used Waves LoAir to beef it up a notch and it makes the whip crack a little more subtle. I tried using even more LoAir but then I ended up with a whip crack sounding like a heart beat! Maybe something for my next project?
For comparison please refer to the PromaxBDA webpage. Here you will also find other great promos.
Thanks for watching!
