Category Archives: Sound Design By Sandy Milne

Radio Commercial Production From A Bit Back

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I’ve been pretty busy with my final semester at Monash Uni, doing assignments and trying to keep up with the workload while also finishing an update to the Aussie Lingo iOS app, working my day job, learning Spanish and trying to have a life. I think I may be my own worst enemy when it comes to spare time..
I’ve finally managed to get around to doing a bit of archiving of old jobs and have rediscovered some radio commercials I have worked on over the last couple of years while working at Risk Sound that were memorable.

1. RAA-WAIVE-Radio.mp3     

RAA – Waive Radio. I created all the sound fx and music using Native Instruments Kontakt. It’s great working on radio where there is a bit of scope for sound design and you’re not restrained by having to work to pictures.

2. Intraflora-Radio.mp3     

Interflora Radio – This was done quite a few years back but I can remember it being quite a fun process.

3. CGU-Plumber-Radio.mp3     

CGU Radio – This was one of a bunch of CGU ads the I worked on over a period of a couple of months.

4. All-Seasons-Gutter-Guards-Radio.mp3     

All Seasons Gutter Guards Radio – This was one of a campaign of three commercials in which I learned a lot of new words…

I’ve also launched a new show reel page with a video and audio show reel which you can access from the top page.

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Sound Design work of late

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Due to a holiday in the UK, a bunch of assignments for my Uni course, some iOS, java and ksp programming plus some short films I’ve been a bit busy lately. This is good although it was probably not the time to try to cut down of my coffee consumption.
Anyway caffeine addiction aside, I thought I would post a couple of the jobs I have been working on lately at Risk Sound.

Midnight Snack:

This I did a while back with the lovely crew from Active Motion but have just uploaded to my vimeo site so though I would repost it.

Bank of Melbourne TVC:

Santos World Tour:

 

 

 

 

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TVC Sound Design

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As I write this I am starting to realise that it’s a good thing that my sound design skills are more creative than my blog post titling skills….

I thought I would post a couple more TVC spots that I have created over the past couple of years while working at Risk Sound.

This first spot for Keno was done a couple of months ago. The voice over was recoded over ISDN with a studio in Sydney and the location dialog needed a bit of cleaning up with my new favorite audio restoration tool iZotope Rx 2. It’s pretty amazing what you can do with this plugin especially with the spectral repair where you can actually visualise sound and their harmonics then attenuate or remove them.

This second TVC I actually did a couple of years ago but I rediscovered it while doing some digital housecleaning on my drive at work. This spot was a bit of fun and enabled me to indulge my inner sci-fi geek. For the “kids-thought-a-screen” sound my tool of choice was audio ease’s speaker phone which is fantastic for creating speaker, telephone and announcements effects.

 

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Some more Radio Commercials

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I thought I would follow my previous post Radio Commercials with another similar themed and very creatively named….. “More Radio Commercials” post

ThiscommercialforConnexwasafinalistin the London International Awards acoupleofyearsback.

1. Connex-Radio-Commercial.mp3     

This was one of a set of commercials in which I spent the day traveling with the police and interviewing them about their experiences dealing with road accidents.

2. TAC-Radio-Commercial.mp3     

This commercial was one of a small campaign to promote the Puma Love Run. The actors were recorded in the booth (although I made them run around a little) and after a bit sound design and some reverb, care of my favorite convolution reverb plug-in Altiverb, it came to life.

3. PUM0002_T.mp3     

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Recent TV commercial sound design work

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Over the last year or so there has been some great TVC sound design work flowing through the studios at Risksound so I thought that I would post a couple commercials I have worked on recently.

The first commercial was done for the Suzuki Swift R1.  The background atmosphere  was created by using an automated eq to sweep down an audio track that contained white noise. This was then fed through a convolution reverb plug-in using an impulse response of a big metal tank.  The noise for the lights was created by processing two wine glasses clicking together with reverb and reversing the sound.

This second TVC for cars guide was a lot more music and voiceover focused but I still had some fun the sound effects.  I used a lost of whooshes and servo motor sound effects and a recording of wind with the the volume automated on the camera moments to give it a sense of movement.

 

 

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Radio Commercials

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Script 1:
Product: Radio Commercials by Sandy Milne

Person 1: Have you heard the radio commericals by Sandy Milne?
Person 2: Sandy Milne? no I didn’t know he produced radio commercials?
Person 1: Yes, Sandy Milne makes great radio commercials.
Person 2: Well I will have to get some of these radio commercials by Sandy Milne then.
Person 1: Great idea, call Sandy Milne on 04blahblahblah or www.sandymilne.com forward slash radio-commercials

Fast voice: offer not valid on weekends or public holidays
Faster voice: LMCT402932323/123/BLAH123

This is pretty much the format of 95% of the radio commercials you hear on the radio so it’s nice when I get to work on things that are a little different. I thought I would upload a some radio commercials I have worked on over the last couple of years starting with these four.

For this commercial I managed to wrangle in all the people in the building and did several overdubs to create a chorus of people. It was great to pull out the Neumann u87s. This one also featured on http://www.bestadsontv.com

1. Salvos-Miss-Out-Radio-Commercial.mp3     

 

This spot for Victoria uni was highly commended at the siren awards.
Part of the challenge of an commercial like this is not only the sound design element but the direction that you give the voice over artist. I found some old episodes of the superman radio show on record on a shelf in the back of Risksound and played as a reference and played it to them before we started.

2. Vic-Uni-Save-The-World.mp3     

This spot was just fun to work on and was a reminder that when working with kids keep recording as you don’t want to miss out on a golden moment.

3. SPC-Fruit-Snacks-Radio-Commercial.mp3     

This was just a fun little sport for Melbourne Airport. I had both VO actors setup in chairs in the studio to simulate a car and had actually got a work colleague to record his kids the day before which was a great help

4. Melbourne-Airport-Radio-2011-.mp3     

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Some Short Films 1

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I thought I would post a couple of short films I have worked on over the last years or so.
The first two are the full films, the others have not been released online as due to requirements by film festivals. I always enjoy working on projects like these are they provide a lot of sound (and sometime workflow) challenges and it’s great to work on something a bit different.

Kevin is..

The Comedian:

The Comedian from Accidentally Sexy Films on Vimeo.

Little Brother Trailer

Little Brother Trailer from Callum Cooper on Vimeo.

Victoria, George, Edward and Thatcher (excerpt)

Victoria, George, Edward and Thatcher (excerpt) from Callum Cooper on Vimeo.

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Tough day at the office

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A couple of years ago we were approached by our good friends over at Active Motion asking if we would be interested in helping out on the sound of a TV commercial to raise awareness of the issues relating to the construction of the Wonthaggi desalination plant.
As the director and half the crew surfed, we drove down the day before and spent the afternoon surfing before retiring early to get up early to go for another surf but this time with pro surfer Tom Carrol and Nick Seymour from crowded house. We spent a couple of hours filming and recording the guys in the water and on the beach and luckily the surf was pumping. Afterwards we all hit the surf again before heading back to the city.
All in all, it was a fantastic project to be involved in although it was a little hard to go back to normal work afterwards. My location recording setup was pretty basic and consisted on a Marantz solid state recorder, Zoom h4 and a couple of Sennheiser mkh-416 with decent wind shield.

The red camera footage looks pretty amazing and this standard definition video does not do it justice.

Get Real On Climate Change – Sound Mix and Location Recording from Sandy Milne on Vimeo.

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Birds Eye Super Crunch – Animated TVC Sound design and Mix

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Working on a sound design and mix for an animated TVC is always a lot of fun but does provide some unique technical and creative challenges.
The atmospheres, movements, room sounds and sound effects all have to be created from scratch as there is generally no location audio. These also need to be given their own space in the mix so that they don’t overpower the music or voice over and need to be kept within the TV volume level guidelines (always the enemy of a good bass heavy explosion).
For this Birds Eye TVC I layered a lot of different sounds recorded by me and from the sound effects library at Risk sound to create the sound track.
The exploding potatoes were a good examples of this and were created by layering the sound of:
a lightning strike, snapping celery, crunching dry biscuits in my hands, crunching potato chips and a punching sound effect with the top end rolled off (filtered or EQed) for a bit of low end impact.
By EQing each individual sound effect, to make specific frequencies more or less prominent, and layering them on top of each other, the result is perceived single sound that works with the vision and is more sonically complex and interesting. It’s a bit like putting together a sonic jigsaw puzzle.
The internal oven sound was recoded by placing our Zoom h4 portable recorder in an oven and turning the oven on. Luckily I only needed a short audio snippet and I don’t recommend this at home in less you are after the sound of a melting Zoom h4!

Birds Eye Super Crunch TVC – Sound Design and Mix by Sandy Milne from Sandy Milne on Vimeo.

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Midnight Snack – Sound Design and Music

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Last year I had the pleasure of working with the talented crew at Active Motion creating the sound design and music on an in-house animation project called Midnight Snack.

I always enjoy working on animation as you get to start with a clean slate and can create everything from scratch. While I did use a few sounds from our sound effects library a lot of the sound I recorded in the booth and throughout the Risk Sound building. I found an old metal bread bin which supplied a lot of the running metal and metal impact sounds and spent a fair bit of time, mic in hand, opening and closing fridges. I also manged to record my own stomach rumble (after one too many coffees) and got to practice my spider voice over skills.

Here is the end result:

Midnight Snack

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