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

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Sound
• virtual reality
• 360° film
• cinema
• sound design

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge and thank Joel Douek, Roland Heap, Mike Lange, Tom Myers, Heath Plumb and Michael Thomas for generously sharing their expertise. I also acknowledge and thank Professor Trish FitzSimons, Dr Tim Marsh, Dr Leah Barclay, and anonymous reviewers for their work in improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation: https://facebook360.fb.com/spatial-workstation/.

2 Spatialiser plugins such as Audioease 360pan Suite: https://www.audioease.com/360/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alicia Butterworth

Alicia Butterworth is currently pursuing a PhD at Griffith Film School in Brisbane, Australia, while continuing her work as a location sound recordist for documentary, unscripted television and 360° film. She moonlights as a lecturer and became mum to a cheeky baby girl in 2020. Alicia is passionate about the transformative power of sound to move audiences through screen-based storytelling and loves nothing more than fantastic, clean, on-set audio.