2012-13 Season Starts Here!
Here we go with the 2012-13 Season! Before I talk about the latest theme I’d just like to chat a bit about the new membership year.
The Club’s top contributors have already been given free membership for another year. For everyone else, and as a kind of rally call to get as many people on board as possible from the start of the season, I’m offering membership at half price until the end of May. After that, the membership fee will go back to the usual £20 for the rest of the 2012-13 season.
If you’ve contributed to the Club over the past year then you’ll need to renew your membership if you want to continue to have access to those themes. I’ll be making these adjustments over the next week or so, so please act now whether you want to renew your membership (and don’t want the hassle of downloading everything again) or whether you don’t (and want to download everything before you’re excluded).
If you’re new to the Club then now’s the perfect time to get involved. For the next couple of months, a tenner and a few of your own recordings can currently get you access to over 20 gigs of sound fx recordings made by sound professionals from all over the world.
Please bear with me over the next couple of weeks as the new membership year has coincided with me being in the depths of simultaneous temp, pre- and final mixing (don’t ask!) so chances to focus on the Club are few and far between for the next couple of weeks. Once that’s done, I’ll complete the transition from Soundcloud to Sugarsync which has dragged on over the last few months, focus on a bit more Club promotion and also I’d like to use the start of this new season to talk a bit about what the Club’s achieved over the past year and what goals I have for the 2012-13 season. Coming soon.
Right, back to the latest theme: Car Doors.
In any scene, film or tv, a car door open or close is one sound that is nearly always worth checking the production rushes for. Whenever possible, I use these real sounds from the location recordings as they sound more natural than using recordings from another time and place (ditto with any doors that aren’t part of a set). If necessary, I might beef them up or tighten them by means of parallel compression.
However, although this method offers authenticity and naturalism, sometimes it is necessary to add one more layer to infer more meaning in the sound than is inherent in it’s original state. Perhaps the car door needs to sound like more of a solid ‘thunk’ to suggest quality (and therefore wealth) or more of a hollow ‘clang’ and rattle to declare the vehicle as a complete and utter rust bucket.
So, in other words, what I’m after for this collection is car door sounds with character and meaning. Don’t share your bog standard clunks and slams; I’ll get those from the rushes and they’ll fit the picture better. Instead, please share interesting car door sounds that are descriptive of the vehicle and, by association, it’s owner.
Truck, lorry, van, etc doors are all allowed too. As I often mention, please try and get the door from different angles and intensities – namely harder and gentler opens and closes shot from exterior close, exterior wide and interior. Also, getting the boot / trunk sound is useful to complete the set. Please let me know what vehicle the door belongs to and provide a photo if possible.
Here’s to the next 20 gig! Speak again soon,
Michael
thesoundcollectorsclub.com 