Workshop: sound effects

What to do with a small bowl of flour and your fist? Nothing at all. Or rather if: do it right and you will hear someone walking in the snow.

And the salad spinner?….. close your eyes, turn more or less quickly… and the subway train will arrive more or less quickly.

Do you want to be “gore” and crack a bone? Take a plastic cup and squeeze it.

Do you scratch your beard with perplexity? Easy, it’s the green side of Mom’s sponge that will do the trick!

Are you trying to make it look like you broke a glass? A plastic cup, a transparent film, a key and you’re done.

A bird will fly away very well if you shake like a gardener’s glove.

You can watch if you want this video of a real master of sound effects, Gary Hecker. It’s an enchantment.

Below two French, also specialists in sound design.

Workshops like this one, a theatre has every opportunity to offer its audience – young or old.

And this is an opportunity to enter the theatre through the back door.
To play with very common objects
And to learn one of the basics of the performing arts profession: listening.

Dissociating what we hear from what we see is the fundamental principle of the noisy profession.
Once you can do that, and you don’t wring the salad anymore, then you can “stick” the noise to that of another movement.

When we give a show like Piletta Remix, based on sound, where all spectators have headphones on their ears, we MUST invite our spectators to a workshop: sound effects.

And everyone is very happy to have learned something fun
All the spectators become aware of the very thorough work of the artists they have seen or will see
And all the artists are very happy to share their art in another way.

Morality: these workshops are just essential to the good life of a theatre!

If you want to know how to imitate the sound of a Star Wars Blaster….
Well… a plastic cup
a slinky

For more information, look at the one who “gives” the trick: his name is Joseph Sardin, and he’s just great! Le labo du Bruiteur

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Featured Image : from the wonderful website of Julien Matthey, Sound Designer