Wayne:

Hi, my name is Wayne Pashley.

I'm referred to as a sound designer, re-recording mixer or supervising sound editor.

Okay, how do we approach sound design? The first thing that I do, is obviously read the script.

Now the script tells me a lot of things because you're not seeing the visuals, you're not like being led by anything but the written word.

So, what I tend to do first is, I read the script, see what is said in the script about the environments. What is the room like the characters are in? What is the forest telling me? What is the planet telling me?

If it might be, it might be a science fiction. And I start to think about the environment first of all and make notes.

Then I look at what the dialogues are and how the characters are interacting with each other. I mean, acting is kind of like... It's like a sport in a way where it's not about what you say, it's about how you listen.

So, it's all about the confrontation and the result of that confrontation. That's in terms of script.

So I'm always looking for not what's said, but what is not said. And then sound and how that will support it.

And whether it be the environments or whether it be the foley like we talked about and things like that. So, I make a lot of notes, first of all. So that's the first thing.

Then when I finally see the film, I see how much either the filmmaker has failed to present what was on the page or actually enhanced it.

Some of the best films that I've ever worked on are those that write sound notes into the script. That's already been thought about, because you can use sound as a way to tell the story without going to a large expense.

So, if you've got a car crash or that is happening in your story, it can be done by sound without having a bunch of stunt people and crashing a car.

It can be done off stage with sound.

If it's a visual effect of a visual sort of science fiction thing with a spaceship coming in and you've only got so much expenditure for the shot of the spaceship, the sound can actually lead you there very cheaply before seeing it.

So, to think about the sound, to think about how a character might portray themselves, how they walk, are they in a wheelchair?

So that's what I do. So, I look at all those things to get back to the question.

I look at all those things first and what do I do last? Well, the last thing we do is the mix.

And I try to always go back to what I initially thought and with my notes to mix all those food groups as we talked about those components together to try to get it to what I initially felt.

Because it's all about feeling. With sound, you're trying to make a visceral situations, like it's what you feel.

We talked about the ears being the most highly sensitive sense.

And from that, as you're looking to finish up with how you feel.

When you leave a TV show or a movie and you go out and you go and have a burger with your mates. You want to be the audience to just keep talking about it longer than just walking out the door and putting your popcorn in the bin.

So you're looking for that visceral feeling as much as possible.

With sound and music, as you tell a story, you also want to try to always keep the audience on the wave, to use a surfing analogy if you like. You paddle out, and here comes a swell, and you get on a wave.

And when you get up on the board and you're on that wave and you're telling that story as an example to tell a story and to stay on that wave and to keep the audience forever on their toes is what you're looking for.

If you wipe out, that's a problem. And generally, a wipe out can happen either in picture, in performance, and in sound.

It can happen that way, where soon as you fall off that rolling wave, it's like it's over and you'll feel it as an audience member. So, that's what I do. So in the end game, that's what we try to do.

Keep the audience on the wave, keep the ideas changing. Don't sit on anything too long.

Any sort of one sound, any one environment, if you sit on it too long, the audience will get bored. And you'll start to lose them.