Wednesday 5 January 2011

Split/Second: Hyper Real Sound Design for Powerplays

When creating the sound for Split Second's so called 'powerplays' (massive
environmental destruction)we soon established the concept of 'Hyper-Real' sound design. The idea, inspired by action blockbusters, is that rather than just representing the visual action literally with sound, we would employ sound also to provoke emotional responses. This would not happen all the time, but only when the player was close enough and fully focused on the powerplay.

In order to establish how this could work via a specific example, I was tasked to create sounds for the following video. The closer the camera gets to the exploding skyscraper, the more hyper-real the sound design becomes. When the visual goes into slow motion, the sound becomes even more abstract: