A COLLABORATIVE POST WITH INTRODUCTION BY JACOB COOK
ASSISTANT EDITOR, BOOM BOX POST
In this month's interview post we chat with Mak Kellerman, one of our talented sound effects editors here at Boom Box Post. Mak has worked with Boom Box Post on Future-Worm, Pickle and Peanut, Penn-Zero: Part Time Hero and many other exciting animated shows. Mak is expert at creating interesting sci-fi builds and today he was working on creating the sound of an evil haunted portal!
Tell us about the scene you were designing sound for.
The main characters in the show are at an abandoned camp essentially, exploring. They don’t think anyone is present, when a light turns on and the characters are spooked. It is sort of a haunted house type episode. Then all of the sudden a spooky, evil, magical portal emerges!
What was your inspiration for designing the “Evil Portal?”
I mainly wanted it to sound spooky, like really freaky. The clients asked for classic old school silly spooky, and just a little bit funny
And what was your process for creating the sound of the portal?
I looked around and found an app called Nebulous, which is like a Theremin. It has parameters for Echo, Shape and Filter. The interface is just sort of a picture of space, there’s not too much going on. I basically just performed and recorded while watching the picture, and did a few different takes to figure out what I wanted it to sound like.
To finish out the build I worked from the visuals, there are some sparks and blue glow so I put a few different types of electricity along with a power up and some low pulsing, and that’s an evil portal!
Thanks to Mak for the sound design insight! Click here to read more of our interview posts for a look inside the minds of our stellar sound designers and editors.