How Your Dragon Sounds

 
This week we bring you some insight into the sounds created for the animated feature ‘How To Train Your Dragon’.

I really liked this movie and also enjoyed the fact that the dragon sounds were very distinct and different than the classic dinosaur-like sounds usually used on creatures like this.

Here is sound designer Randy Thom talking about the film:

For further detail I highly recommend this insightful interview with Thom, Jonathan Null and Al Nelson, conducted by Designing Sound.

On a more colorful note, “Paco” a famous Chihuahua on YouTube was recorded by the folks at Skywalker Sound and used on this movie.

You can read more about it here.

Randy Thom’s Latest Adventures

Hello there. Again, sorry for the lack of updates. Let’s jump right into it.

Here is the featurette on Randy Thom’s sound design work for Ice Age 3:

Also, earlier this August, Randy was a keynote speaker at this year’s SIGGRAPH.

His speech entitled “Designing a Movie for Sound” dealed mostly about taking into account sound as part of a production of a film and not only as part of the postproduction. You can read more about it here.

News and Updates

Hello there! It would seem that Skywalker Sound wasn’t lucky on this years Oscars, but that doesn’t mean their work was anything other than awesome.

Let’s bright up things with some news.
 
Today it was announced that Randy Thom will be doing a keynote speech on this year’s SIGGRAPH.
SIGGRAPH is known as one of the most important events in which advances in computer graphics technology are showcased. This year however they decided to take on a much broader direction and include sound in the picture as well.
Here is a video of what to expect for the 2009 event:

The conference will occur 3-7 August and the exhibition from 4-6.
We will post the exact date and time of Randy’s keynote address as soon as we know.

Read the press release.
Learn more about SIGGRAPH.

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A new album recorded at the wonderful Scoring Stage was relesed on January 27. Zuill Bailey – Russian Masterpieces for Cello and Orchestra. With compositions by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. It really sounds quite intimate and close. It was engineered, edited, produced and mastered by Adam Abeshouse.
Here is a sample of the album:


And Zuill Bailey talking about it:

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Another album relesed around the same time, and also recorded at Skywalker Sound is Tim Gorman’s Cowboy. Do I need to tell you it sounds very nice? No, I don’t. Listen for yourself:

And while we are at it, here is some songwriting advice from Tim himself:

And that’s all for today. See you soon with more!

Randy Thom on “Sound Design”

Randy Thom is the Director of Sound Design at Skywalker Sound (a position that was previously held by Gary Rydstrom under the title, Director of Creative Operations). He is most famous for having won 2 Oscars and doing sound design and mixing for such films as Ratatouille, Contact, Forrest Gump, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. This year will have his sound design work on the upcoming Coraline.

He is also very eloquent when it comes to talking about his craft, which makes it always a delight to read his words.

Following is an e-mail Randy recently sent to his colleagues, which I think is very interesting.

An Argument For Reinventing The Term "Sound Design"