Daisy Journal: Sound Design- The Sound and the Fury

The "fury" in the title of this post has to do with my frustration over learning a new software package. In this case, it was Adobe Audition, which I am using to design the sound for Driving Miss Daisy. It was a pain in the ass, but I managed to figure it out, and as I did I learned something more than just how to use the software.

Never had I thought, even as I took on the sound design chores myself as a means to shave costs from the Daisy production budget, that sound was such an integral part to making the show come alive. I'm talking about sound in terms of sound effects and (as its referred to in plays) incidental music, not the quality of the sound or the placement of microphones and such. (In our show, the later is the job of Chris, our Sound Engineer.)

I know that may seem silly coming from the director, but it's true. As a director, you have so much to keep track of that sometimes the importance of the non-visual, non-acting aspects of the production don't get your full attention. Luckily, because I was doing it myself, that wasn't the case with Daisy's sound design.

What started out as pasting together a few pieces of music to cover the black-outs in between the many tiny scenes in the show, quickly became more akin to composing a small symphony of sound effects and music clips. (The show's licensing agreement comes with a CD of incidental music that was employed along with other pieces.) In the end I probably mixed between 150 and 200 separate sound and music clips down into (I haven't finished counting) between 50 and 60 sound tracks for use in the show. With the help of my brother John, we also added incidentals like a news broadcast, a morning DJ and a few other dialogue driven ditties.

Here's an example of what I mean. There is a scene in the show where Daisy and Hoke are driving to Mobile to visit Daisy's family. They stop on the side of the road for lunch. I wanted to have them eating lunch while watching some ducks swim in a pond just out of sight. For this scene I needed the sounds of a summer day, birds, ducks, etc. No such sound effect existed in our library, so it had to be constructed (or to continue the musical metaphor - composed). I started with ambient sounds of a summer day, which didn't have very much to it. Then I added several layers of birds chirping in the background. On top of this I added the intermittent sound of ducks quacking. A separate sound clip allowed me to add the sound of the unseen ducks splashing in the unseen pond. And of course, since they are on the side of a road, I needed road noise, so I added clips of the occasional passing car in the background. Don't forget the music. We were coming into this scene after a blackout, so I stared with the music over black and as the lights come up, the music fades into the background sounds. I mixed all these at different levels, each starting out on its own track (sometimes on several tracks to get the right effect), all down into one sound file which will be played under the scene at a very low volume. In the end, this will be heard as just very dim background noise during the scene. The real focus of the scene, of course, is the conversation between Hoke and Daisy. But its very presence in the scene adds texture to the moment. In fact the absence of sound can have an impact as well. At one point in the scene all this background sound disappears completely for a moment as Daisy is drawn into a very personal memory of her youth, returning only when she emerges from her reverie. Adding this kind of background sound helps bring the scene to life for the audience on a subconscious level. And then it's brief disappearance during Daisy's remembrance, helps to add a subtle dramatic emphasis to her story. Yes, that was another lesson I learned. Sometimes silence is the sound designers friend.

I challenge you to listen to the show as intently as you watch it. As you do, remember this. Nothing you hear is an accident.