Ask practically any filmmaker about the most important elements for creating an immersive, unforgettable movie experience, and you can bet that right at the top of the list will be something that you’ll never actually see on screen: the sound.
Filmmakers want the kind of cinema sound that the audience can feel, both emotionally and physically, and achieving that experience is the job of a post-production audio house like OK Sounds Good, the OKC boutique film audio-focused production studio built from the ground up by engineers and educators Rob Derrick and Andy Hopkins.
But the world of recording, editing, and mixing audio for film is much more than just aligning the dialogue and cranking up the sound of explosions.
As Derrick explains, it can often be just as big a part of telling a film’s story as any other element.
Rob Derrick: What we really try to focus on is sonic storytelling.
We're interested in the vibrations that travel through the air and how they affect emotion and how we can use and sometimes manipulate those vibrations to tell better stories. And I don't think most people think about sound that way.
You know, every filmmaker in the world will agree that sound is 50% of the experience. So let us take it a little bit further. Let us add those big, roaring booms and you know, like, really dial up the sound to immerse the audience.
Brett Fieldcamp: As one of the very first studios in Oklahoma to be designed and certified for industry-leading technologies like Dolby Atmos, OK Sounds Good has been working to bring that kind of Hollywood-level aural immersion to our state’s own homegrown filmmaking community for years through their audio production work and also with Derrick and Hopkins both teaching and fostering those processes at UCO’s Academy of Contemporary Music.
To better serve clients, students, and most importantly their own constantly expanding interests and audio excursions, they’ve recently moved OK Sounds Good into a new standalone facility, designed with multiple studios and creative spaces where Hopkins explains their clients and collaborators can explore whatever musical, cinematic, or immersive audio projects spark their imaginations.
Andy Hopkins: The building is an extension of ourselves. So whatever we're doing, that's what the building is doing, like if we're music-focused, that's what the building is going to be converted to.
And that's what's kind of cool about our modular sort of system, you know. We're audio engineers and sound designers at the end of the day, so we can reconfigure and set this stuff up however we want to facilitate any workflow.
Brett Fieldcamp: That’s the giddy, excitable interest in all things audio production that’s helped the guys develop their skills and confidence in all areas of film sound, allowing them to act as a kind of one-stop audio shop for local filmmakers in a way that’s surprisingly rare in even much larger parts of the industry.
Rob Derrick: We’ve met quite a few people who have come from the LA workflow, and when we tell them that we edit the dialog, cut the Foley, add sound effects, mix the film, prepare for distribution, do the final deliverables, we do all of those individual roles just between us two, people are blown away, and they're like, “dude, that's unheard of out there.”
There was one guy who told us he didn't know any person who had finished an entire film by themselves. And it's like we do that 10 to 15 times a year.
Brett Fieldcamp: They’ve applied that holistic audio approach to a number of local films screening at this week’s deadCenter Film Festival, including some of the fest’s most audibly demanding films like the moody, atmosphere-heavy revenge drama “Reverence,” the piano performance-focused thriller “Bloodstained Ivory,” and “Ditty Bops: The Art of Listening,” from OKC’s SPARK! Creative Lab, exploring the experiences of a Vietnam veteran through the rhythms and sounds of Morse code.
As the state’s biggest showcase for local film, deadCenter has become an annual opportunity for theatergoers to hear Derrick and Hopkins’ work at the level at which it was created, but it’s also a chance for them to sit in the theaters themselves and to feel every crash, every boom, every word, and every quiet moment as it vibrates through the hearts, minds, and ears of the audience.
Andy Hopkins: Those little moments, you know, that's what we live off of.
If we can get a reaction out of you, an emotional response, we're doing our job, and it's just something we're passionate about.
Rob Derrick: I mean, it is the biggest passion of my life, audio production and immersive audio.
I just want to be around people that are passionate about the same thing that I am.
Andy Hopkins: Yeah.
Brett Fieldcamp: For more info about OK Sounds Good, and for a deeper look at some of the projects they’ve tackled, visit oksoundsgood.pro.
And for more about this week’s deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City, visit the Events page at KGOU.org.
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