Beyond Reality

In virtual reality (VR), a new language of sound design is emerging. As directors grapple to find solutions to some of the inherent problems of telling a story in VR—for instance, the audience's ability to control the field of view—sound designers are playing a new role in subconsciously guiding the audience's attention and consequently, are framing the narrative. However, developing a new language of sound design requires time for creative experimentation, and in direct opposition to this, a typical VR workflow often features compressed project timelines, software difficulties, and budgetary constraints. Turning to VR sound research offers little guidance to sound designers, where decades of research has focused on high fidelity and realistic sound representation in the name of presence and uninterrupted immersion [McRoberts, 2018], largely ignoring the potential contribution of cinematic sound design practices that use creative sound to guide an audience's emotion. Angela McArthur, Rebecca Stewart, and Mark Sandler go as far as to argue that unrealistic and creative sound design may be crucial for an audience's emotional engagement in virtual reality [McArthur et al., 2017].

To make a contribution towards the new language of sound for VR, and with reference to the literature, this practice-led research explores cinematic sound practices and principles within 360-film through the production of a 5-minute 360-film entitled Afraid of the Dark. The research is supported by a contextual survey including unpublished interviews with the sound designers of three 360-films that had the budget and time to experiment with cinematic sound practices - namely, “Under the Canopy” with sound design by Joel Douek, “My Africa” with sound design by Roland Heap, and Emmy award-winning “Collisions” with sound design by Oscar-nominated Tom Myers from Skywalker Sound. Additional insights are included from an unpublished interview with an experienced team of 360-film sound designers from “Cutting Edge” in Brisbane Australia – Mike Lange, Michael Thomas and Heath Plumb.

The findings detail the benefits of thinking about sound from the beginning of pre-production, the practical considerations of on-set sound recording, and differing approaches to realistic representation and creative design for documentary in the sound studio. Additionally, the research contributes a low-budget workflow for creating spatial sound for 360-film as well as a template for an ambisonic location sound report.