Inside the Sound of Doctor Who Dark Journeys Ends with Sound Designer Benjamin Barton
Doctor Who Superfan Anthony Anderson recently spoke with Dark Journey’s End Sound Designer Benjamin Barton. A transcript of their interview for Dark Journey fans follows.
Please tell Dark Journey listeners a bit about your sound design background.
I actually went to school for music and audio engineering/production. The music industry is very tough to break into, even for an engineer, which I knew going into college but you have to follow your dream! My program was great because although the main focus was music, they also taught us that in order to make it in the audio world, you have to wear as many hats as possible and not limit yourself to just one career path. I did a one year audio post production post grad course after graduating, which allowed me to delve deeper into the world of sound design and creative manipulation of audio for film and other media. By the time I was done school I was hooked on making weird noises!
How did you get involved in Dark Journey? Are you a Doctor Who fan?
I probably shouldn't admit this, but I actually know very little about Doctor Who haha. I mean I've been familiar with the franchise for a very long time, the cult following around Doctor Who is pretty hard to ignore, but I've never actually dug into it. I got involved in the project by responding to an ad MA Tamburro had posted online. It seemed like a interesting project and a great opportunity to do some really creative sound design work, and I figured maybe it was about time I ventured into the universe of the Time Lord!
Describe an 'audio drama' to those that have never heard of the term. I guess you can say the audio drama is really the descendant of those old radio serials from back in the day, just on a more modern media platform. They're usually episodic and often having fairly long series and story lines. It's a great form of media because anyone with an internet connection can listen to them literally whenever and wherever they please. What software and other tools did you use to mix Dark Journey?
All my work took place in a computer program (know as a digital audio workstation, or DAW) called Pro Tools. It's pretty well the industry standard when it comes to recording, editing, and mixing audio, to many an audio engineers chagrin haha. From there I used a whole pile of software plugins, sound effects, and sampler instruments to create the audio landscape of the scenes I worked on. There's one particular software instrument I used on this project called Spectrasonics Omnisphere that's just amazing for doing anything sound design related. What segments/sounds are you especially proud of in the episode you mixed and how did you go about achieving them? I'm definitely most proud of the memory chamber sequence in scene 31 of episode 7, Dark Journeys End. Even though it's quite dialog heavy, the way Andrew wrote it made it into such a cool opportunity to do some really creative sound design. I probably used about a dozen different reverbs and delays with individual automation moves to achieve the sound of the ghostly and surreal memories of the Doctor. What was the most challenging aspect of mixing Dark Journey? While I would't necessarily call it challenging, I think it's safe to say the process of all of us working as a team and staying on the same page was involving haha. I've never actually met MA or Andrew in person, so the three of us were constantly firing off emails and phone calls back and forth. I would do several different rough mixes of each scene and send them off, they'd reply with revisions they'd like done, then I'd pop an early draft of our composer Emily Kalssen’s score into the mix and see how it worked...it went on like that for a month or two until we got to where we were all 100% happy with what we were hearing. I think it's a testament to how powerful the Internet has become where a group of people who've never even met can create and collaborate on a project of this magnitude, it's actually astounding if you think about it! How does music play into the mix of creating an audio drama ? How did you and Emily plan out the overall sound of the episode and having your dialogue and sound effects fit with her music. I think music plays a HUGE role when it comes to creating an audio drama: it provides that extra layer of depth and dimension that helps drive the story and sets the mood and pacing. Emily is an amazingly talented composer who has a real sense of how to add a beautiful backdrop of music to a piece of media without it being overbearing and washing out dialog. When it comes to her music she really keeps dynamics in mind, meaning there are a lot of ups and downs so to speak; the 'low' parts provide a solid background (memory chamber sequence), while the high parts really help propel he action (witch burning sequence). Emily and I have worked together on a couple projects in the past, and we just mesh well together, there's really no other way to explain it haha. I think we both have an ear for what'll sound good on any given project, obviously there's always going to be a little tweakage here and there, but there have been times where I'll have a mix going while she's composing music, neither of us having heard what the other's been working on yet, and we'll put them together and they just fit like pieces in a puzzle. How do you balance out having both the sounds and the actors dialogue tell the story? Is one element more important than another or is it more of a partnership? In any form of narrative media dialog is always going to be the most important element; first and foremost it's what tells the story. However, dialog on it's own (when it comes to sound at least) is two dimensional, I like to think of it as a straight line that runs from beginning to end. That doesn't mean you can't tell a story without dialog, but it's what brings it down to ground level and provides the foundation. What gives a story depth and dimension is all the additional sounds: sound effects, room tone, ambiences, reverbs, and music are all elements (often stacked and stacked on top of each other) that intertwine and weave together to help set the mood, setting, and even emotion of a story.
Where do did you draw your inspiration for the general sound of the episode? It's rather dream like and mystical at the beginning and action/comedy oriented at the end. I don't know if it's a matter of inspiration or not, but the two final scenes I worked were very different in nature: the witch burning scene was pretty cut and dry with what needed to happen audio wise. Being very action driven with specific events that occur written into the script, it was pretty obvious what kind of sound I was going for. The memory chamber scene on the other hand was more up for interpretation on my end. MA and Andrew gave me an idea of what they wanted to hear, but it was up to myself and Emily to really create the atmosphere of the scene through the use of ambiences, creative dialog effects, and music. It was an interesting juxtaposition between scenes and really gave me an opportunity to run the whole gamut of sound design. Do you have any interesting past or upcoming projects we can share with our readers? I try to really do as much as I can when it comes to audio. Between mixing, sound design, recording location audio for independent films, and even making music myself, I like to be busy. One really cool project I've had the pleasure of working on in the recent past is a short film called Deadline Dawn by Toronto film makers Elvis Deane and Sara Miller. It's a 'graphic design horror comedy' that we shot last summer in Toronto with a talented crew and amazing cast. It's currently in the festival circuit but should be available for viewing very soon at milleranddeane.com. Emily also composed a killer score on this one as well! Where can our readers find out more about your work?
While I'm currently in the midst of officially getting my audio production company Earthbound Sound off the ground (no pun intended!), you can check out my work on my website ebsound.ca. You can also always hit me up on Facebook, or follow me on instagram @b_jammin88! Any other general thoughts about working on Dark Journey that you would like to share? It was a really great experience working and collaborating on this project. I may be a late comer to the world of Doctor Who Dark Journey, but I'm certain you can expect great things from Andrew, MA and the rest of the crew at AM Audio Media!