The Sound Ideas Blog
This is the perfect space for sound ideas.

January 2023

We are delighted to introduce Randy Thom, a prolific and well-respected Director of Sound Design, Supervising Sound Designer and Re-Recording Mixer as the guest blogger for Sound Ideas. Randy is one of the best in the field with Oscar, Emmy and Grammy nominations to his credit; as well as receiving C.A.S. Career Achievement and MPSE Career Achievement awards. You can learn more about Randy here: https://www.skysound.com/people/randy-thom/

Sonic Beds Put Me to Sleep

Randy Thom Guest Author

Sonic Beds Put Me to Sleep

I confess I don’t like continuous beds of background sounds (ambiences) in films, unless there is a good story reason to have them in a sequence. I know this is a controversial idea. Lots of sound designers/editors LOVE creating sonic beds, and/or they believe that authenticity and naturalism demand sonic beds. I disagree.

My point is not that there should never be any background sounds. Of course there should, in most cases. The thing I try to avoid is having any non-stop sound element, one with no pauses. In many cases, that kind of relentless bed, usually composed of several continuous, non-stop layers, just clutters up the mix, and its constancy doesn’t contribute anything to story.

Approach sound design with an impressionist mindset

Movie sound design, in my opinion, should be approached in almost all cases with an impressionist mindset rather than an ultra-realist one. What we’re attempting to do is rarely to make a sonic photograph of a moment, where every detail is evident and exactly as you would expect to hear it. Instead, we try to give the audience a strong impression of a place or an action, an impression that will be made even more powerful by omitting or subordinating lots of details. Our tendency is to assume that everything in a scene that could be making a sound IS making a sound. But the way we experience films is absolutely not identical to the way we experience life. A film is much closer to a dream. When we remember our dreams, we don’t remember more than a few details, and they are almost always the most interesting/compelling ones.


The mixes I’ve worked on have received their fair share of criticisms, a lot of them justified, but one compliment I’ve gotten consistently over the years is that my mixes sound “clean,” “precise,” “uncluttered,” with “lots of detail.” That seems ironic, given that I’ve just said I believe in getting rid of tons of details.

The solution is all about choosing the details carefully, rather than splashing buckets of them into the speakers. It’s about featuring the best, most evocative details, and that includes background details. A distant-sounding bird, or car-by, or wave-lap, strategically placed between lines of dialog will read as a background.

But, you say, what about “air?” Don’t we need “air?” Sometimes we do, though less often than you might think, and less complex than you might think. “No Country For Old Men”, directed by the Coen Bros., is a master class in the use of simple, uncluttered air. Hats off to Skip Lievesay and the Bros. I think our team did a reasonably good job on the Bob Zemeckis film “Cast Away” of keeping the ambience on the island simple but powerful.


There are never more than a couple of sounds being heard at once, but they’re evocative and completely plausible as a sonic atmosphere.

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Obviously, you should give directors whatever they want if you would like to get hired again. But in my career, “too much sound” has been their critique a hundred times more often than “not enough sound.” Often, the dynamic will be that they will seem to want lots of simultaneous sounds initially, but as post progresses and the mix progresses, less becomes more, especially with those thickly populated background ambiences.

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Podcast Spotlight: Sound Secrets of The Bear Season 4

Tonebenders Guest Author

We’re thrilled to spotlight our sponsorship of the Tonebenders Sound Design Podcast, where the world’s top audio post-production professionals share their workflows & creative approaches. In Episode #317 – The Bear Season 4, host Timothy Muirhead chats with members of the Emmy-nominated sound team behind the show: Steve “Major” Giammaria (Re‑Recording Mixer & Supervising Sound Editor), Evan Benjamin (Dialogue Editor), and Scott Smith (Production Sound Mixer).


Episode Highlights

Emmy Recognition: The Bear Season 4 earned nominations for both Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, marking it as a standout achievement in TV audio excellence.

Production to Post Breakdown: The team walks listeners through key scenes, revealing how dialog is captured on set, then cleaned and prepped in editorial, and ultimately polished in the mix stage. This comprehensive process offers listeners a rare glimpse into the technical and creative decision-making of high-end audio post-production.

Complex Challenges of Reality-Driven Storytelling: The Bear Season 4 delivers visual and emotional intensity that demands skilled sound work. The team candidly discusses balancing chaotic atmospheres and layered dialogue to maintain clarity without sacrificing authenticity.

Why Audio Pros & Fans Should Listen

This episode is a masterclass in how sound transforms narrative, from intense kitchen scenes to intimate character moments.

If you care about how sound elevates film and TV, this episode delivers technical insight, creative philosophy, and real-world problem solving from seasoned professionals.
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Tune in to the Full Episode

We’re excited to support this discussion as the official sponsor of the Tonebenders Sound Design Podcast. Get inspired by the craft that brings The Bear to life through sound.

Listen to the full episode here.

Whether you're exploring sound design, or simply love immersive TV, this episode is a must hear.

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Sonic Superpower of Fruits and Vegetables

Randy Thom Guest Author

A look at the superstars of vegetable manipulation...

Most of us know that vegetable manipulation, especially breaking and crushing them, is a frequent tactic in foley and general sound effects recording for simulating the sound of certain other things being destroyed like bones, chest cavities, and craniums.
But why do some vegetables and fruits have this particular talent?

It’s mostly not their wetness. Strawberries are among the wettest of fruits but kinda suck at producing interesting sounds.

It’s mostly not that they are alive. A carrot snapped in two is pretty boring.

But let’s look at one of the superstars of vegetable manipulation: the bell pepper.

Watermelons are among the most musically gruesome

A simulated bell pepper made of Styrofoam, definitely never alive … but hollow, with a thin but relatively rigid outer shell, would make a very similar sound to an actual pepper when cracked open, though admittedly a bit of wetness would add a useful layer.

The magic comes from the combination of a rigid layer encasing a hollow or at least soft interior. The internal resonance that happens when the rigid layer is cracked is a big part of the appeal, and the sonically delicious icing on the cake is that the resonant frequency changes dynamically as the shape of the cavity changes in the course of the destruction.

Another factor that favors these kinds of vegetables over a carrot, for example, is duration. A snap of only a few milliseconds in length, what you get when you break a carrot, is almost never going to be as interesting as a more elongated rip or tear that lasts more like a second.

That’s why peppers (the bigger and more hollow the better), and celery, and cabbage, and watermelons are among the most musically gruesome of veggies.

And why they’re so good at simulating and creatively exaggerating the fracturing sound of other objects with hard shells and soft insides, like bones and craniums.

Hollow things in general tend to make sounds interesting to humans, which is why so many musical instruments are comprised of at least one hollow component.

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Reptile & Bug Sound Effects | Sound Ideas

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Loose First, Precise Later

Randy Thom Guest Author

Here are some thoughts on why sound design should start with a sketch.

Let’s talk about getting messy on purpose. Not just allowing yourself to fumble around in sound design - but actually welcoming the fumbling. There’s unfortunate pressure we all feel to “get it right the first time.” You bring up a moment - say, a door slam, a car crash, or the slow, dreadful turn of a character’s head - and the impulse is to dig through the library and find the perfect sound; or to design something pristine and polished right out of the gate.
 
I’d like to suggest something different. Something looser. Something better for the process and often for the end result.  Start by sketching.

Designing audio for the Jodie Foster character is listening on headphones for alien beings…

The Creative Power of the Rough Pass
When I say “sketch,” I mean laying something down quickly, intuitively, with the understanding that it’s not final. You’re getting a sound idea into the cut that points in a possible direction without worrying about whether it will stand up to scrutiny in a dark theater with a thousand ears tuned in, or in an picture editing room with a critical director tuned in.
 
This isn’t laziness. It’s strategy. A rough pass gives you:
 
Something to react to.
Something to refine.
Something the rest of the team can feel, rather than just imagine.
 
And most importantly, it gives you the chance to surprise yourself.
 
Why Precision Can Kill Creativity (at First)
There’s a paradox in sound design: the more you chase precision too early, the more you limit what the scene can become. The “perfect” whoosh or the “ideal” gunshot locks you into a version of the moment that might not actually be the best one. You start designing for a narrow target instead of exploring the emotional space the scene actually needs.
 
One thing I’ve learned in my painting hobby: if you’re painting a portrait, you don’t start with eyeballs and lashes, you start with shapes and shadows—a messy suggestion of what the thing might be. Then, gradually, as the structure emerges, you finesse the details. The same principle applies to sound.
 
Sound Is a Living Part of the Scene
Here’s the other thing: film is fluid. That scene you’re designing today? It might get recut tomorrow. The pacing could change. Dialogue might be swapped out. A close-up could turn into a wide shot. If you’ve already spent five hours designing the microscopic sound of a multi- faceted lock clicking into place, and the lock ends up off-screen… well, congratulations, you’ve just wasted a good chunk of your creative energy on a ghost.
 
A sketch lets you stay in sync with the evolving film. You’re not nailed down. You’re dancing with the edit, not dragging behind it.
 
How It Actually Works in Practice
Let’s say I’m working on a scene where a character slowly opens a creaking warehouse door. High tension, very little score, lots of room for sound to do the heavy lifting.
 
On my first pass, I won’t go hunting through libraries for the “cleanest antique door creak in stereo with natural reverb.” I’ll grab something—maybe a field recording I did years ago, or something wildly inappropriate. I may stretch it, pitch it—whatever makes the moment feel alive and sets it apart from things I’ve heard before. The goal is to capture a vibe, not perfection. Then I walk away.
 
I let the rest of the track build. I come back a few days later, rewatch the scene, and suddenly that creak either feels spot-on or like it’s wearing the wrong coat. Maybe now I know it should be quieter, or have something closer to a vocal-like groan. Or maybe the creak needs to begin before the shot cuts to the door. That’s when I start making more precise choices.
 
Letting the Scene Tell You What It Needs
Sound design is often less about what the object “should” sound like and more about what the moment wants to feel like. And guess what? You don’t always know what the moment wants until you’ve spent some time with it.
 
A rough pass keeps the channel open. It lets the scene start talking to you.
 
Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had in sound came from throwing something half-baked into a scene and realizing, “Wait, that actually works better than the thing I thought I was supposed to do.” One of the best examples from my own work is from the Bob Zemeckis movie “Contact.” The Jodie Foster character is listening on headphones for a pattern that suggests communication from alien beings. I needed to come up with something fast for that signal to put into an early temp mix. I quickly modified a series of recordings of metal impacts by minimizing the transient at the head of each impact and stretching the rest of it. I spent about twenty minutes on it, and that’s basically the sound you hear in the movie. I spent way more time later trying to improve on it, but Zemeckis loved that first try, and I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they thought it was perfect. I’m still not convinced, but I can’t complain much, cause it clearly worked.
 
Collaboration Loves a Sketch
In my experience, most directors and editors love to respond to sound. If you show them a sketch—something expressive, but clearly still in process—it opens the door to collaboration. They’ll say, “What if the sound felt scarier here?” or “Could we build more tension before the bang?” And now you’re building the moment together, not just handing over a product.
 
This is the way directors work with every other craft. They don’t expect to see perfectly rendered images immediately from VFX, Costumes, or from any other department.
 
Sound Is a Sculpture, Not a Snapshot
Think of sound like clay, not like a photograph. It’s malleable. It’s responsive. It wants to be shaped. But if you treat every new scene like a final exam, you rob yourself of that joy.
 
When you let yourself design loosely—instinctively—first, you give your own brain the chance to be a listener rather than just a technician. You notice where things land emotionally. You hear what’s missing. You allow space for the sound to evolve.
And isn’t that what filmmaking is, at its heart? A series of evolutions?
 
Final Thought: Do Go All Out on A Few Sounds Right Away
Not taking back anything I’ve said so far, but I DO advise you to choose a few strategic sounds to put a lot of energy into right at the beginning. If you can blow the director’s mind with a couple of sounds, then they’ll be even more open to your presenting most of the others as sketches. It’ll give them confidence in your ability to take all the sounds to that high level.

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