Sound Designer of the Olympics: Dennis Baxter

Hyper-Real sound design is used in more applications than just for film. One very interesting way this technique is implemented is in the Olympics. In an interview with NPR, Dennis Baxter, the official sound engineer for the Olympics, explains how he uses creative microphone placement to create a listening environment for the TV viewer that actually exceeds what is heard by the live audience.

"It is figuring out exactly what it is you want a sport to sound like, and then [develop] a microphone plan that delivers the highest possible quality of sound to engage the viewer, and fundamentally satisfy the expectations of the viewer," said Baxter in the interview. Baxter decides how he will design sound for all of the games based on what he himself would expect to hear if he was to close his eyes and listen to the sport . These expectations have been molded by film and video games and do not reflect reality. A creative approach at recording the games must be taken in order to appease the audience.

For the Archery event, Baxter recalled his childhood watching Robin Hood, and decided that he wanted to be able to hear the arrow fly through the air during the event. To accomplish this, microphones are set up under the archer, and then periodically all the way to the target in order to catch the sound of the arrow flying by. For gymnastics, the sounds we hear on TV are actually near impossible to hear as a live viewer, even if you were sitting in the front row. For the uneven bars and the balance beam, contact microphones were placed on and within the equipment that are able to detect vibrations. These vibrations are picked up in the microphone device, no matter how discrete, and then transmitted to the TV viewing audience allowing the view to hear every flex of the bar and footfall of the athlete. For rowing, Baxter had to take a completely different approach. After his first time engineering the games, a complaint was made that during the rowing event, the most audible sounds were that of the helicopters filming and the motors of the chase boats. The solution of removing the unwanted sound was to record the teams at practice, and then use that recorded audio synced to the live feed. What the audience hears during the rowing event  isn't live audio, but it does meet the expectations of the viewer to be able to hear the oars and boats cutting through the water, without the distracting sounds of support members.

With the winter Olympics right around the corner, pay attention to exactly what you are hearing. Odds are pretty good that what you are hearing is a unique experience to TV. Even though must of us can't be in Sochi next month, at least you get to stay warm and hear every little detail of the action. 

The Basic Understanding of Hyper Realism

Realism has been a primary objective of human art since the conception of the medium. Through the process of evolution, and thousands of years passing, the human race has been able to replicate and create reality at an increasingly higher standard.  We became adept at creating realistic art by employing a look that was rough and grainy. The images felt "unplanned and unpolished" which lead to the viewer to feeling that the image is closer to reality. By exaggerating certain aspects, this feeling can be pushed even further.

One way that realism approaches hyper-realism is by the introduction of artificial mistakes or enhancements. In film, this could include lens flare, bad focus, or under and overexposure. All of these artificially placed mistakes will make the picture seem grainy or unpolished, the same result artists  of realism historically went for.

All of these processes have found their way into the world of sound design. Today's sound designers, when taking a hyper-realistic approach, will exaggerate sounds in order to make them sound more realistic. Examples of this could be layering sounds of gunshots in order to make a gun actually sound powerful, layering sounds of actual planes with synthesized sounds to make a jet plane sound faster or louder but always larger than life, or using a wide arrangement of sounds to create totally new sounds that have never existed before (like Chewbacca's growl in Star Wars. The sound designers recorded the growls, roars, and calls of many animals, and then layered them together to create an animal sound that is both natural and other-worldly.) Another technique used to create a deeper sense of realism is abnormal microphone placement. Special types of microphones are used when broadcasting sporting events in order to make the viewer feel as if they were in the stadium watching. This becomes hyper-reality when one realizes that the sounds we hear on TV, would not be heard by the actual attendees of the sporting event.

Today, Hyper Realism is a common technique used to engage the audience and is used in complicated ways as stated above, or in even simpler ways like having an audible heartbeat at a suspenseful moment in a film. When you start to look for this type of sound design, you will find it everywhere and quickly realize that most of what we hear is nothing like reality, and a lot of the time the films we are watching or commercials that grab our attention sound more intense and even more realistic than what we actually experience in real life. 

Welcome to Hyper Realist Audio!

Hello, and welcome to Hyper Realist Audio! My name is Austin and I will be the main contributor to this blog.

Hyper Realist Audio will  feature various types of posts including: Film and Sound Designer Spotlights, reviews and over views of various techniques for micing and recording, explore what Hyper Realism is and why it is effective,  and most importantly, step-by-step guides to creating sound effects that can be classified as Hyper Realistic.  

The goal of this blog is not to teach, but to explore the genre of Hyper Realism and come up with ways that we all can record and create sound effects that can pull your audience deeper into your film.

I am a huge proponent of this style of sound design, if it is done tastefully and correctly. I think a fine line can be drawn between engaging and distracting, but an increasing amount of blockbusters have found ways to commit to this style with  huge amounts of success. (Think of all of the military movies that have come out over the last year. Each one that I saw was heavily invested in this style, and they all  relied on it to push their film over the edge and bring a sense of realism to war that most people have never witnessed.)

If you have read this far and have no idea what Hyper Realistic sound design is, (first of all thank you) then have no fear. The next post will give a detailed (but mostly basic) overview on what constitutes Hyper Reality, who is using it and for what, and why it is so effective.