Sound for VR Research

February 3, 2023

In 2022, I designed the sound for a film made entirely in Unreal Engine for the Unreal Engine short film challenge. ‘Displaced’ was created with virtual humans, motion capture, and CGI landscapes. You can see it on the Unreal page here. Just scroll down to ‘Displaced’.

Beyond sonic realism: a cinematic sound approach in documentary 360° film. This is a paper detailing the insights from interviews I conducted with sound designers working in VR documentary – Tom Myers, Joel Douek, Roland Heap, Mike Lange, Michael Thomas and Heath Plumb. It was an enormous privilege and the insights gained from these interviews changed the way I work with sound.

In 2018 I created a virtual reality film called ‘Afraid of the Dark’ and wrote a thesis called ‘Beyond Reality: Bringing a cinematic sound approach to the development of immersive audio for an environmental conservation 360-film’. I also published a very short poster article, titled Beyond Reality, which details some of my findings from production of ‘Afraid of the Dark’ as well as a sound report template for ambisonic sound recording. 

If you are interested in sound for VR and want to chat, please get in touch.

Abstracts:

Beyond sonic realism: a cinematic sound approach in documentary 360° film.

Sound is often recognised as critical to the success of 360° film, but in a new medium fraught with technological challenges and time constraints, there is little research to guide sound designers in their creative practice. As practitioners engage with this new 360° format, the wisdom and techniques developed from decades of documentary sound practice promise more compelling viewing experiences; however, there are many differences between cinematic documentary and non-fiction 360° film. This article contributes towards a new language of sound for this medium by exploring the sound design approaches of four non-fiction 360° films that experiment with cinematic sound practices. The findings discussed were gained from interviews conducted with leading sound designers Tom Myers from Skywalker Sound (Collisions, 2016); Joel Douek (Under the Canopy, 2017); Roland Heap (My Africa, 2018); and Mike Lange, Michael Thomas and Heath Plumb (Inside Manus, 2017). The findings detail the benefits of including sound designers from the beginning of pre-production, the implications for sound recording, and the post-production considerations in the sound studio. The practice-centred guidelines presented in this paper can be used by sound designers, directors and screen educators in the creative design and development of 360° film soundscapes.

Beyond Reality.

In the rapidly developing field of spatial audio for cinematic virtual reality films, sound production practices from traditional cinema may have a lot to offer in terms of creative design and setting an audience’s mood, emotion and expectations. There are, however, some crucial differences between the two mediums (such as an audience’s freedom of view), and what hasn’t been covered in the literature is a practical exploration of how traditional cinematic sound practices and sound design principles can translate and be expanded for 360-film sound production. This research explores cinematic sound practices and principles within 360-film through the production of a 5-minute, live-action and animation, 360-film entitled Afraid of the Darkthat specifically tackles environmental conservation themes. My role in the project was as director/producer, writer, sound recordist and sound designer, and my practice-led research was supported by a contextual survey including unpublished interviews with a series of cinematic sound designers who have worked on high-end 360-film productions – Tom Myers from Skywalker Sound, California (Collisions), Joel Douek from Ecco VR, Los Angeles (Under the Canopy), Roland Heap from Sound Disposition, London (My Africa), and Mike Lange, Michael Thomas and Heath Plumb, who are a team of experienced virtual reality sound designers from ‘Cutting Edge’, a production company in Brisbane, Australia. The outcomes of this project make a significant contribution towards the adaptation of cinematic sound practices for the rapidly developing field of 360-film production and this approachable and practical research will be beneficial to virtual reality producers and sound designers who are shifting into immersive story-telling.

Tags: 360, 360 film, afraid of the dark, alicia eames, immersive, research, sound, Spatial sound, virtual reality