Something I find entrancing

Sound editing. No, really.

When my friend Nezabeth and I used to watch the Oscars every year, I always guessed which movie was going to win sound editing and sound mixing. I’m sort of crap at predicting who will win the major acting categories – this is because I make my predictions based on what I want – but I am brilliant at getting the sound categories. I called Two Towers, Master and Commander, The Incredibles, and King Kong. Also Chicago, Return of the King, Ray, and King Kong again. Yes, I am awesome. You may admire me at your leisure.

I don’t know why I’m so clever with the sound categories. The only thing I can think of is that I just think sound mixing and editing is about the coolest thing in the world. I watch making-of things so I can find out how they made the sound effects, and if I don’t find out, I feel really let down and sad. They use the coolest things – by which I mean, the simplest. Like for the octopus beast thing in the Mines of Moria in Fellowship, they took a toilet plunger down to a stream and swooshed it all around, and that was how they made all those noises. Or this one old episode of Doctor Who that had a sewer monster, they made all its noises by putting a humongous amount of soap on their hands and squooshing it all around in front of a microphone. I was saying to my sister a little while ago that I wouldn’t want to be a sound person – because I wouldn’t be able to think up ways to make the noises – but I would love, love, love to be married to (or best friends with!) a sound person, so they could tell me all the things they were doing.

Last night I was just about ready to go to bed, but I wanted to finish up one little thing, so I put on a thing of Doctor Who Confidential, thinking that I would just watch it for five minutes while I finished up my project, and then I would go to bed. Unfortunately I put on the episode that goes with “Midnight” – a damn creepy episode – and the whole thing was all about sound editing! It was so fascinating. It talked all about how they use a bottle opener to make the noises for the sonic screwdriver, and how they made a set for the plane-thing and knocked on the outside so the actors really didn’t know exactly where the knock was coming from. Plus they all talked about how hard it was to get the dialogue right, because huge segments of the episode have more than one person talking at once. And evidently what they did was to have each actor record his or her own dialogue alone, while the rest of them mimed their dialogue; and that way, the sound people would have a clean track of dialogue for each character. (I didn’t go to bed after five minutes.)

Seriously, sound editing is mad fascinating. Maybe when I am rich I will go and hang out in a sound studio. I will be all “Oh, yeah, I’m researching for a book,” and they’ll be flattered because they’ll think I’m about to write a book about them, when really I will just be there to see all the cool and clever things they think of for sound effects.