[All Episodes]
#7: Footsteps
#6: Series in Decline
#5: Sex, Death and Morals in Horror
#4: The Loudness War
#3: The Rule of Threes
#2: Bad Translations
#1: The Drums From "Be My Baby"
Did you know? Almost every footstep, every chair creak and every rustle of clothing—really all the non-musical, non-dialogue sounds you hear in a mainstream, notable box-office movie are painstakingly re-recorded, in sync with the video, by a ‘foley artist’ in a recording studio.
On the new season of Sounds Familiar (starting 9/7) we’re going into the studio with the foley team behind The Life Aquatic, The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Cloverfield, to find out what it takes to be the discreet (and not-so-discreet) sounds of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Join us!
Stream the show | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe on iTunes
This may or may not have something to do with the premiere of the podcast on May 4th.
John Lennon - Be My Baby (Cover)
(via scout)
I might just use this visual aid for a story I’m working on about compression and the loudness wars.
Sounds for dummies with bunnies.
(via jimdewitt)
Leading up to the May 4th premiere of the Sounds Familiar Podcast, I’m going to highlight a few of the podcasts and radio shows I listen to. Being a podcast acknowledging the hypertextual nature of media, I feel it’s only appropriate to acknowledge my influences, admit that I life more than a few stylistic cues from them, and give them due credit.
In no particular order (oh, wait… except alphabetical):
99% Invisible
BBC Global News
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn
HowSound
Public Radio Remix
Radiolab
This American Life
The Truth
Vinyl Cafe
Wiretap
Word of Mouth
WTF with Marc Maron
Kicking Giant’s “She’s Real”
I’m researching songs that use the drum beat from the intro to “Be My Baby.” This is my favorite so far.
Sounds Familiar on Facebook
Sounds Familiar on Soundcloud
Sounds Familiar on Google Plus
First episode premieres on May 4th!!
Like other human beings I’ve met, my brain is biologically trained to seek patterns. Patterns help us stay alive… they help us understand the flow of traffic and avoid dangerous predators in the jungle.
Call it a gift and a curse. Because I don’t live in the jungle— I live as part of a culture that generates more and more media every day. So every time I hear a new song or watch a new movie it seems like my mind can only determine what I’m experiencing based on similar things I’ve experienced before. Sometimes it feels like I can only see the jungle for the trees, if you will… I can only see the patterns.
Sounds Familiar is an audio podcast about patterns. The episodes are shorter, ten or fifteen minutes, and each explores a pattern that has emerged in culture over the years. I emailed people I admire, people who are really smart and successful, and asked if they would talk to me. Despite having no real incentive to do so, many of them did, and their insights reaffirmed the hypothesis of the project: that the same old patterns we’re all so bored with aren’t boring at all. A familiar drum beat, poorly-translated dialogue from a video game… just because we’ve seen these things a thousand times doesn’t mean there isn’t more to know, if we just dig a little deeper. It turns out, there are surprising connections everywhere, within the patterns and to the greater world and the people living there.
On May 4th, the podcast will be available on iTunes, and here, and on the Facebook page and pretty much anywhere else I can host a link. In the meantime I’ll be blogging a little about the topics I’m researching and looking for feedback and personal experiences on some of the topics. You can post feedback here anytime, or like the Facebook page and do it there.
Hopefully we’ll all learn something surprising. The patterns are here to stay, after all… why not get to know them a little better?
-Blake
