Audio Imagineering: Utilising the Four Sound Areas Framework for Emotive Sound Design within Contemporary Audio Post-production
Neil Hillman, Sandra Pauletto · The New Soundtrack · 2016
Digital audio took its first, tentative steps towards widespread acceptance over forty years ago with the adoption of the Compact Disc as a de-facto standard for auditioning music, with cinema embracing digital encoding and reproduction a decade later. Somehow, broadcast audio production and post-production processes managed to remain some distance behind. But coinciding with television broadcasters worldwide adopting radically new soundtrack loudness standards, sound for all moving pictures may now be described as being universally serviced in the digital domain. Television's place in this digital jigsaw has accelerated product development and the take-up of affordable audio technology by contemporary sound practitioners, and mature digital recording and production methods are being replaced by modern techniques, tools and protocols – along with a questionable assumption in some quarters of moving picture production, that irrespective of budget, experience or technical training, anyone can now create an acceptable soundtrack for film or television. So is it time to reflect and examine a new approach to sound design? In this paper we will look at whether next-generation mixers are less reliant on orthodox audio principles and more on their IT skills, and propose a new framework for sound designers wanting to express their creative sound concepts. While the ideas and reflections that we propose in this article are thoughts-in-progress, rather than fully finalised arguments, we hope that they can contribute and stimulate a debate on the complex relationships between technology developments and practice, and creativity and technical expertise.