Sound Storyboarding /One part of designing a movie for sound.

I’m happy to hear more people are talking about sound storyboards for film and video in pre-production.

When constructing a sonic storyboard, it’ll help to imagine yourself in the shoes of the director and speculate about what kinds of sounds could be useful very early-on to generate concrete storytelling building blocks. For example, if there is a motorcycle in a scene, hearing it rev could be useful, but what might be more useful is to introduce a specific, quirky sound that this particular motorcycle makes that tells us something about the character who owns that motorcycle, or mirrors some frustration or joy the rider has. Revving could be that sound, but revving is generally pretty generic and doesn’t say much about this particular character. Something unusual about the bike sound could get the director thinking about how to use other crafts to build on that idea.

If the motorcycle makes an odd, godawful screechy sound when it starts up, that begins to really inform us about the character. Do other characters think the rider is weird or lost in their own world for being able to ignore this annoying sound? A jerk for exposing them to it? Is it a milestone when the rider finally gets the screech fixed? Could there be something interesting visually when the screech happens? Beginning with a speculative, eccentric sound can help build all kinds of connective tissue in the story.

It’s always useful to think not only in terms of “what sounds might happen in this given story context,” but also “how is each sound unique, how does it reflect, specify, and build human character, how does it relate to other sounds, and how does it change over time in a way that makes it a story-builder.”

If you can open storytelling doors of that kind by gathering speculative sounds in pre-production, then you’re doing something truly useful. It’s done on most animated films, and there’s no reason it wouldn’t be helpful in live action in concert with visual storyboards.