Welcome And Colin’s Musical Roots

Greg Staffa 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host, Greg Staffa. My guest this episode is talented sound designer and editor Colin Ryley. He uh works in the world of what we hear, creates a sound and atmosphere that completely changes the way we experience the scene. Colin, thank you for joining us today.

Colin Ryley 0:43

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

Greg Staffa 0:46

So tell us a little bit about yourself, where were you born, and a little bit about your upbringing.

Colin Ryley 0:51

Sure, yeah. So I was born uh here in Vancouver, Canada. Grew up mostly in in Calgary, Alberta. Had a very musical kind of upbringing. Both of my parents were musicians and played in bands together. So I was kind of I've been around sound and music my entire life. Started playing in bands, learned guitar when I was about 11, played bands ever since then, even to this day. Uh started recording a bunch of you know friends' bands and stuff around around town and studied recording studio. My high school actually had a recording studio program, which was pretty cool. So I got to learn kind of early on about the uh just about how to record and how to mix and and edit and stuff like that. And then uh yeah, slowly kind of just uh you know adjusted my my career more towards the film kind of world and post-production sound for for film and TV series. And uh I do a lot of music stuff still as well, both recording and performing. But uh it's yeah, definitely film has taken over uh as far as my career goes for sound design and that kind of thing.

Greg Staffa 1:55

And what was I mean, it's one thing to play a musical instrument, but then what is it to go from that to focusing more on sounds? Was uh I mean I guess all music is sound itself. So did you see kind of a separation, or did you see all of it as you know, the sound design that you do is its own type of music?

Colin Ryley 2:16

Yeah, for sure, in a way. When I first got into post-production sound for film, I actually kind of mistakenly thought that it was gonna be more scoring and and music. And and I think like many people in the world, I didn't even know that post-production sound was even a thing. I didn't realize that we replace and re-record, you know, almost every aspect of sound in post-production for for everything you see on on TV and in film. So, you know, my interest started. I went to school here in Vancouver Film School, kind of expecting it to be more of a music-based program. And it wasn't until I even showed up on the first day that I realized that wasn't kind of the the vibe at all. It was definitely way more about you know, recording fully, recording dialogue, editing dialogue, all that kind of stuff. And and throughout my time at school, I just completely fell in love more and more with the art of post-production sound. And and it's true, like you say, you know, it is kind of there is some musicality to it for sure, and there's a lot of parallel between the two worlds. But I think um, yeah, uh my interest kind of just kept growing and growing the more the more films I worked on and the more kind of experience I got in it, and and uh I really just loved kind of you know taking something that you when you receive from a picture editor, you receive the kind of onset sound that's just been cut chopped together by the picture editor, and it's you know, it's not not the best sounding at that point. So it's

Falling For Post Sound And Foley

Colin Ryley 3:40

I it's always really fun to kind of take that as a challenge to kind of you know create and immerse yourself in the world of of where you are in the movie.

Greg Staffa 3:49

How far in were you before you realized that A, this is something I really like, and B, this could be the right decision and the right path, versus I mean a lot of people might get spooked and say, I'm out of here. I this isn't what I thought. Why did you stay? And how far before that did you realize that you had come on to something?

Colin Ryley 4:08

Yeah, I mean, I I would say it was pretty pretty quick into the course, maybe you know, a couple a couple months at at the longest. I think one of our first projects was was doing foley for for some little animated short thing, and it was you know just taking a an animated two-minute animation that had no sound, and we just had to go into a recording studio and literally create everything recorded all from scratch. And like I said, you know, I never even expected that to be to be a thing. I think I think everybody obviously kind of subconsciously knows that there's post-production sound, especially if you're animated stuff, there's no production sound from animation aside from the the the voice over dialogue. But you know, and then I think I kind of almost started to like the fact that it was, I guess, a bit different. It was close enough to the world of music, but it was different also that it you know it piqued my interest in other ways that maybe I haven't felt in many years because I've been doing music for so long that you can eventually kind of get used to a certain musical thing, and then now this is like this whole other world of that's very adjacent to to music, but also its own completely different thing. And I think just learning about the magic of how this is all done, and I always find it very cool to kind of understand and be part of um something that is kind of like you know, it's it's very unknown, it's an unknown world, an unknown career, and it's kind of it's a job that you'd only people only notice that sound was done to a film if it was done poorly a lot of the time. And it's kind of if if you don't hear any feedback from anybody, that's a good thing. So kind of the uh there's something alluring to me about that kind of um I don't know, it's just a weird kind of mystical job in a way that that nobody really knows unless you know, and and it's kind of cool to hide in the shadows in that in that way.

Greg Staffa 5:55

Uh Steven Tyler of Aerosmith was doing an interview once, and they uh they had some equipment problems, and so and I believe this story is true. I think I heard it from him, and I think I have the right attribute, but he used sugar packets for the song Sweet Emotion to kind of represent um the uh Maracas. Now, as as a sound designer, have you incorporated because you said you still play music and you still perform in like bands and stuff like that. Have you taken anything of what you've learned from sound design that might be like a sugar packet or something like that along those lines where you've gone creative and incorporated into that music that wouldn't have been been thought of?

Colin Ryley 6:41

Totally, yeah. I I mean 100% in in both directions. I've taken many things from music that I incorporate into sound design and and vice versa. Yeah, you know, of things that come to mind, you know, just just enhancing things in post for music, even you know, adding more more kind of impactful sounds or any even like risers or whooshes into kind of into choruses to kind of build a little bit of like suspense or a little bit of a you know a riser into a big big section of a song. Um and then even kind of just you know, viewing, I've definitely viewed recording music almost more from a post-production perspective as well, as far as like not being afraid to replace things that maybe not have been recorded properly while recording you know certain instruments and stuff, or like just having more of a I guess more of a loose and kind of interactive way of working with the music, whereas in the past maybe I kind of would just take it as it is and try and make it sound as good as it was when we recorded it, but now you know it's kind of been like, no, we can actually we can keep working with this and we can replace whatever we need and kind of you know make it more cinematic here if we need to. The music I I play is actually, I mean, I I take a lot of inspiration from a lot of movie scores and orchestral stuff and classical stuff. So there's definitely a crossover there for sure. And then, you know, in the other in the other direction too, there's so much I mean, the original sound effects for any, you know, Disney stuff for back then, all the Foley, most of it was done with musical instruments, you know, using wood blocks or timpanies or or string bends and stuff like that. So there's so much world there to play with too, whether it be like just kind of a distorted guitar note that turns into like a drony, eerie, you know, tense tension kind of thing, or or whatever. I mean, the possibilities are as endless as your creativity, really.

Post-Sound Roles And Hidden Work

Greg Staffa 8:28

And just for people that don't know, foley artists, they're the people that kind of we think of in the cartoons, they use coconuts to make the horse sound as they're going along. And can you tell us a little bit about the hierarchy of you have the foley person, and then are you supervising that or are you also a foley person that does how what is like the hierarchy in your department areas or field of scope?

Colin Ryley 8:52

Sure, yeah. So it kind of depends on on the uh the size and the and the you know the budget and the production and that kind of thing. So for for any of the kind of the bigger quote unquote stuff I guess I work on for for networks like Crave or Disney, typically the studio I work with will it's very kind of separate as far as a designated dialogue out of there, a designated uh sound effects out of there, a designated foley out of there often. But I also work a lot in the independent world too, where where budgets are lower, which means it kind of just makes it so that I kind of have to take on all the roles and do all the hats. But uh, but I mean typically what you have like the top of the kind of food chain is is your re-recording mixer and then your sound supervisor who's kind of their role is to discuss with the director the kind of finished the sorry the vision and the sonic soundscape of the entire film, kind of what you know, what kind of story points they want to hit with different emotions or what kind of immersion they want to create with backgrounds. And then uh sound effects and foley is there's a total, there's definitely a kind of overlap between those two. Typically, sound effects almost deal with more of the I guess more things that you can't necessarily record in a in a Foley studio. So things like car engines or or uh you know, obviously magical sound design stuff or or any kind of um, you know, non non-diegetic sounds and that kind of stuff. And then foley, yeah, basically takes the three kind of the three families of Foley is footsteps, cloth, and then props. So kind of the Foley recordist and editor's job is to kind of cover, you know, basically replace all the footsteps in a film, anything that the actors interact with, picking up a you know, a cup off the table or holding kind of any object in their hand, they have to kind of re-record all that stuff in a Foley stage, and then all the cloth movements as well. And then aside from that, we have a background or ambience editor who kind of cuts anything you can't really see on screen, but it's it's kind of the world around you. So if you're in a forest, they put all the birds chirping, if you're in downtown, a bunch of traffic noises, pedestrians walking by and that kind of stuff. And uh so yeah, like I said, for any smaller production, for me at least, I kind of wear all the hats. But when you kind of work with a team on any of a higher budget production, then typically you only handle one of those aspects or or maybe two at a time.

Greg Staffa 11:12

And I think that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have someone like you on, because it's just fascinating. We we take what we hear for granted, I think, because you guys, it's almost like you said it's an invisible job. I mean, if you do it right, no one notices. One of the things that I was listening to recently, I was listening to someone react to a movie. You know, they do those YouTube reactions to a movie and they watch the movie, and they were talking about how cars in movies always seem to squeal their tires, even though they're on dirt. And so for car lovers it draws them out of it because cars don't necessarily squeal their tires on dirt, they might have a rustic sounding spin to it, but they you always are a lot of movies they'll put that squealing so that way your mind knows that the tires are squealing, but it's not realistic. So for certain car lovers, it draws them out of it. But I don't think people realize how much goes into creating these things where you're almost re-recording the entire movie from something as simple as a footstep to picking up a piece of paper and hearing that, you know, people don't realize that there might be a hundred people in a room that they're shooting, or you're shooting on the streets of New York and your audio isn't gonna be crystal clear. And so all that goes into it.

Noisy Locations, ADR, Animation Choices

Greg Staffa 12:35

When you get a script and you see what you have to do, what's kind of like your biggest nightmare? Is there like a a street scene where there's you know crowds of people walking around, or what is your like, oh god, here we go.

Colin Ryley 12:49

Yeah, for sure. Outdoor scenes like that can can definitely be pretty tricky, especially if recorded in a noisy environment. Thankfully, we're we're at a kind of point, and every, you know, it we get to the technology so quick that we have there's so much magic you can do now with you know fixing troubled dialogue recordings and that kind of stuff. And you know, a lot can be done that definitely couldn't have been done a few years ago, even. So, you know, I guess at the end of the day, you kind of do what you can, and then we you know often do have to record ADR, which is uh automated dialogue recording, is what it stands for. And basically it just means we have to bring the actors into a studio and have them re-record any lines that we couldn't get on set due to you know quality of or noise in the background, or sometimes the director even wants to kind of change the uh you know the tone or the or the the way they kind of say the line kind of thing. Or so and that just kind of is what it is, unfortunately. You know, if you have if the dialogue just doesn't work out, or even on set, sometimes they have such tight deadlines that you know the sound is is kind of the least priority or one of the lowest priorities. So if the pictures have if the cameras are happy on set and the lights and the director, if if it's poor sound, they'll often just kind of move to the next scene and be like, whatever, we can fix it in post, you know. So that's what it is what it is, you know. You you do what you can with what you get, and if you have to record ADR, then that's you just kind of gotta do it, and you know, it's expected nowadays from everybody. Directors expect it, actors expect it. Um so it's just part of the part of the job.

Greg Staffa 14:22

Which is more fun for you? Starting with like an animator project where the actor is in a booth, so the sound is pretty pristine, but there's no sounds, there's no ambient you know, noise around it, or starting with a film where you have to kind of deconstruct everything. One you're constructing everything around it, the other one you're deconstructing. Do you have a favorite one that you enjoy doing more, or are they both a challenge?

Colin Ryley 14:49

Yeah, I I don't know if I have a preference, they both have their own, you know, pros and cons uh to both. But yeah, like you said, you get you get a you get a production thing and you are stripping back things, you know, you're removing a lot of unwanted sounds and you and from the production and that kind of thing. And then with but the bonus to that is that you know, oftentimes you do get some good production effects that were recorded on set, and that uh you know, if they were recorded well and and sound good, then that saves you a lot of time in the on the foley stage where you don't have to re-record everything because they're you know it it sounds good just coming from production. And then yeah, with animation, like you said, there's no production sound except from the voiceovers, which means you're adding every single, every single little thing. I think uh with with animated stuff, typically you do have a there's almost a little bit more leeway and room for almost more creativity and stuff, you know, it doesn't have to be as real world sounding, so you can have it definitely can be more fun in that way where you can kind of you know it's animated, so you can animate your sound more and you can make you can exaggerate certain things because obviously it's not you're not in the real world, you're in this animated world. Um yeah, and I was gonna I wanted to mention everybody you're saying about the car, the car tire squeal. It's funny you say that. My my uh my wife's uncle always complains he's a motorcycle guy and dirt bikes, and he can always tell the difference between two stoke, two-stroke engines and four strokes, and he always brings it up to me. He'll be like, Oh, yeah, that movie there, you know, they're using a two-stroke engine, but that's actually a four-stroke motorbike and that kind of thing. So, you know, it's it is what it is, but it could be an error on the editor's part, or it could just be, you know, it just sounds better and it's more cinematic for that scene. Because at the end of the day, you don't a movie is supposed to be cinematic, you want it to be an experience for the viewers and the listeners. So if you made a movie that just sounded like real life, it would oftentimes sound pretty bad because there's not a lot of excitement, like oral excitement that you kind of hear around you in the same way that you would hear in a movie. So oftentimes we kind of have to take these liberties to make things bigger than they would actually be in real life and more kind of captivating and more, you know, uh enhanced in a way.

Cinematic Realism And Layered Effects

Greg Staffa 16:58

And it may frustr it may frustrate the people that can actually recognize that, but for an audience, I've actually seen uh a video where they have real life sounds and then they have fully sounds that were created, and for the most part, the fully sounds to our ears sounded more like the real thing than the real thing yet. And some of that's because in film you have to kind of over-exaggerate or or create something that's different. And it's amazing that you know, for for like the fully design, they don't get a horse and have them walk across the stage. They use other ways, and so a lot of the sounds aren't just using the sound to get the sound, they're creating a sound from something else. It's never often really the you know the the item itself, and say we need a sound of this, and then they record it. They they manufacture a completely different prop to create that sound.

Colin Ryley 17:57

Definitely. Oftentimes, you know, the actu the what would actually create that sound in real life, funnily enough, doesn't sound convincing enough when you put it on to the picture, you know, it it sounds weak or doesn't sound sound right. So, like you said, you know, you kind of gotta break it down and and you kind of just break it down into layers. So you kind of think like what are the individual aspects that would be creating a sound, you know. I kind of I'll often use the example of a catapult where it's like you could easily just find a catapult, baked-in catapult sound effect, one file and drop it in there. And it might work for certain situations, but it it's so much more uh helpful to the mixer and to everybody involved. And it and if you have if you kind of break it down into individual aspects, so you can have the wood creaking, chain movement, rope stress, um, you know, kind of rolling of whatever wheels it's rolling on. And then that way you kind of you can design it kind of part by part based on what you're actually hearing. So you think about like, okay, well, when I hear, you know, a horse running, what am I actually hearing? You're hearing the hollow sound of the hooves, but you're hearing the the debris or whatever surface they're on. And so the more kind of you can think about that in a little bit more of like uh you know, break it down into this into individual aspects, it it gives you way more freedom over how you can control the sound. It also can control, you know, when a lot of the times the sound effects out of there has temp music or not even any music they're working with, but then you know they might create this huge, big, big sound effect scene just for the composer to also kind of make that their big moment. And then in the mix, the you know, you have to kind of work around that. So if you only have one catapult sound, for example, one file, you just turn the entire thing up or down. But then if you have different aspects, you can be like, okay, well, this low end of the catapult here is kind of battling against you know the percussion in the in the score, so we can kind of turn down just that for this section, but we can still hear these other aspects of of the sound, and uh just gives you more kind of control and freedom over that stuff. But anyway, like you're saying, yeah, a lot of the time, you know, if you just pick up the object and record it, it a lot of the time doesn't sound good or or right for the scene.

Working With Composers And Picture Lock

Greg Staffa 20:04

You you kind of brought up my next question. How much work do you do with like the film or TV show as composer? Because you think of like a movie like Jaws, or that dun dun dun dun dun. Yeah. It doesn't have the same effect if there's someone splashing because they're in the water being chased by Jaws and there's all this splashing noise. So, how much work do you do with the composer to say, like you had just mentioned, kind of tune it up, tune it down? You know, is that something that you're always kind of battling with to see whose sound is more dominant to the ear?

Colin Ryley 20:37

Yeah, you know, and and it's in a perfect world, you're kind of you're feeling you're figuring this stuff out ahead of time, you know, you you're in contact with the composer throughout the the edit and the post schedule. But you know, at the end of the day, it it you kind of gotta take a step back and both and if if I think that the composer's music um, you know, gets the emotion and feeling across better than the sound, then I have no problem taking the back seat to let to let them shine, you know. And oftentimes that is what it is, and it's an unfortunate part of the the work is you know, I might spend a couple days designing this amazing scene just for the director to be like, oh, actually, we just want this to be an only music uh you know kind of scene. And that's like a it's you know, in a perfect world, you'd you describe you'd go over that stuff ahead of time to save either person from the work if you know, like, okay, this is gonna be a strictly sound effects scene, or this is gonna be a strictly music scene, or they want to blend the two. And kind of knowing that is really helpful, and it's it can be helpful for sure to like send stuff back and forth to the composer uh and kind of be like, hey, here's kind of my idea that I'm going for, and then they'll send back their kind of thing. And then if you're able to kind of work on it together and make sure that you're kind of matching matching beats and matching tone, that can be super nice, but it doesn't always happen that way.

Greg Staffa 21:54

And we're in all of that, because we're talking about you know, balancing between fill uh Sound and score, where does the editor then fit into does he have a say and how he wants it to be edited and and done that way? Is he kind of a third party in the I mean is there a lot of cooks in the kitchen as they say?

Colin Ryley 22:15

Uh typically on the stuff I work on, when when I receive it, it it it's picture locked, so that means they don't do any other edits or or changes to the to the video. Um but you know, and that's again a thing where if it has happened for sure in the past where you know a composer's done something or even I've done something and and the director or producer likes it so much that they do kind of want to change the pacing of the video edit to kind of to kind of complement that a little bit. Um again, this is stuff if there's any directors or producers or anybody listening, this is all and it stuff like this is great to kind of hash out in you know production if not pre-production, even where you kind of you know, kind of getting across what the idea of what the pacing of the scene is. If you want the pace to be uh, you know, um determined by music or or sound effects, then that can be really helpful too. And then that way you can kind of send stuff to the picture editor while they're still editing that can send the music to kind of pace out the the scene or or that kind of stuff. But nine times out of ten, when I when I get a video, it's completely picture locked, which means basically there's no more picture changes or video edits happening, so we kind of just got to work with whatever they did. Interesting.

Greg Staffa 23:31

You kind of took the wind out of my next question. You answered it slightly, but I'll expand on it. You had mentioned that you get something when the picture is locked, and what that means to anyone that doesn't know, it's it's when they basically most of it's there. Everything is the you know, the the scenes are all put together, they're not gonna make a major change and everything. It's locked, the the sound then is then added or adjusted. But that's when you get the actual files and stuff like that. But how early on are you involved in like getting the script? Are you giving a script in pre-production and you're sitting there going, Okay, I need to come up with these sounds? Or this might be a mystical mystical thing, so I need to figure out how to create a sound for this, or are you giving it late in the game where you go, we gotta come up with this fast? What kind of process is there for film and television for you at least to the knowledge ahead of time? You might not get the script or the finished product till later, but how much heads up are you given to start thinking of what you need?

Colin Ryley 24:33

So again, you know, in a perfect world, uh it would be great to have a script or any of that kind of stuff ahead of time. But in in the real world, I I pretty much just I'll get I'll oftentimes ask for like a rough cut or uh, you know, whatever kind of current picture cut that they kind of have um a few weeks before I'm kind of due to to start working on it, just so I can get an idea. And that way I can at least you know start designing sounds or designing ambiences and backgrounds and stuff like that. And then at least I have time to cut, I know what it looks like on screen. I know that the you know the picture cut it will or edit will most likely be changing still, but that way I can kind of design the sounds and design any of the big stuff particularly that I know will take the most time. And then by the time I get the picture lock, it's just a matter of kind of syncing it in and making sure that it that it lines up with with the picture. But yeah, usually, you know, it kind of is just it depends on the director, of course. It depends on their experience level and how much they've and I and I do reach out to, but a lot of the time, you know, in the independent world, at least uh going back to what we were talking about earlier about how sound design and post sound is such a kind of enigmatic thing. There's it's often that directors don't even think about post-production sound until they're in the picture edit, and then they're like, oh damn, we need to get, you know, they we need we didn't even think about that. We needed to get someone to clean up the sound and do a do a final mix on this. Um so that that is definitely one of the downsides of it being such a a kind of you know an unknown craft is that it does get overlooked often until it is a bit too late. And so from that, my my I guess advice to any aspiring post-sound people, and what I've done for me is like your best friend for networking and for any kind of job stuff is gonna be a video editor because they're always right before you in the you know in the line of fire there, and every anytime the director's working with them, it'll always often come up where they're like, Oh man, we need a sound designer, and then if you have a good picture editor you work with and they can recommend you, that'll get you way more work than than kind of any any other network, in my opinion. But yeah, so you know, yeah.

Digital Libraries, Foley, Recording Everywhere

Greg Staffa 26:45

So now you you're still relatively young in this, you've built an impressive career of the stuff that you've done already, but you're still relatively new to the game. I think that's fair to say. Is there a handing over the guard? Because I'm older, and when I think of you know, fully people, it's the guy in a room going click clack click clack with coconuts and stuff like that, but now things are so digital. Are you seeing kind of that you're almost stuck in a witnessing a transformation as more things become digital, or are you seeing loss of creativity when it I mean, because some of those fully people were just creative geniuses because they could they could think of sounds or a way to create a sound, but now we're so much is relied on technology and digital. Are you seeing a loss of one generation and the rise of a new generation, or is there still room for for both?

Colin Ryley 27:40

Yeah, I mean, I think for sure it's going more, you know, into the way of digital and and it could be anything from you know ease and tight, tight deadlines and low budgets, you know. Like oftentimes when I work on episodes for for series, we kind of will get the picture lock on on Friday and then it's due the following Friday. So you have basically a week to do the episode, and which is a fairly tight deadline, considering that you know you're depending on the the the show or the series of how busy the sound is, but so it is quite typical nowadays where you know people will often kind of go to sound effects first to kind of see what they can do with that, and then kind of put whatever they can't find, then they have to kind of record themselves in that way. But it it's I've you know, I've tried both where it's like you know, you you try and cut together this big thing that you you come you come from a sound effects library that would have oftentimes been quicker just to re like record yourself in sync with the actual picture, you know, because you're taking a file that was recorded completely, you know, wild and not to anything, and then now it's up to you to take that whatever that thing is and sync up all the points to make sure it fits properly. Whereas if you could just record it yourself, you could just edit it or sorry, record it and sync it up quicker to the actual picture than oftentimes. So, you know, it does there's definitely a balancing act with that. Um a lot of directors and stuff too, they will push for they want to have like you know very original sounding stuff, and they don't necessarily want to hear the exact same owl hooting sound that they've heard in every other movie, or the same, you know, screeching cat and that kind of stuff, or you know, and obviously stuff like that is hard to record on your own if you don't have an owl. But I think it's it's kind of it's at the end of the day where it's an art and you kind of you gotta take pride in what you do, and you you know, it should be you should want to create new and fresh sounds that have never been heard by anybody before, and and trying new kind of ideas of like, oh, okay, well that could sound like this or this could be like that. And you know, a good practice for that too is just pick up something that you hear and like just fiddle with it or whatever and be like, well, what could that be? You know, that could sound like anything if you if you're creative enough with it. I think there's always going to be a need for foley artists like to record record real sounds and stuff because at the end of the day, you know, you can't cut everything from a library, and a lot of sound effects libraries aren't even focused on foley stuff, you know. You can get footsteps and that kind of stuff, but it it's always sounds better to record foley, particularly from you know from scratch. But obviously, there's stuff like uh, you know, where are you gonna get a where are you gonna get like a whale to record or like uh you know animals or that kind of stuff, or even like a you know a Ferrari or something?

Greg Staffa 30:32

Yeah. Now there's a story about Billy Irish who uh was in Australia and they heard a crossing walk sound and they recorded it and used it for the sound bad guy that she sings. It was just a unique sound that they'd heard. For someone like you, do you walk around with a recorder and if you're out and about and you say, Wow, that is an interesting, unique sound, do you record that, or is that just something you put in the brain, or you know, are you always super unique sounds?

Colin Ryley 31:03

Definitely, yeah. I have a recorder on me pretty much like anytime I go out anywhere, and I'm always hearing things. Uh, unfortunately, I was just in Vietnam recently, and my recorder got ran over by a semi-truck. So, unfortunately, I lost a lot of a lot of the stuff on that uh recorder, but otherwise, you know, it's great to yeah, I'm always listening to stuff, and you know, I think even as an as as a sound person, you you know, you you want to kind of walk down the street without music and sometimes and just kind of hear what does the world actually sound like, you know, like what are you hearing? And if you're in a scene where you're in downtown a city, like what are the things you're actually hearing? You know, you're hearing and it kind of puts you into the perspective of that rather than and just training your mind, I guess, to uh yeah, to kind of be more aware of sounds and to kind of hear things, and and oftentimes I'll hear something and just record it and not even know what I want to do with it, but just kind of put it in my own library.

Greg Staffa 31:59

And are you able to I mean they're almost the the curtain's been pulled away? Are you able to go to a movie and watch it as a a fan without kind of dissecting, going, wow, they should have done this or they should have done that, or that sound didn't match what you know is going on. How are you critical or are you able to take your your profession away from it and enjoy film, or is it kind of an analytical study?

Colin Ryley 32:27

Definitely an analytical study, unfortunately. I uh but it's not typically it's not it's not criticism at all. Like oftentimes I'll be blown away by the stuff that people are doing, you know. Like there's so many talented sound designers out there, but it does happen very, very often where I'm watching a movie with my wife and I'll hear a cool sound and I'll just start thinking about how they did that, or you know, what kind of just anything that what could you know to how I could do that or and that kind of thing. And then 10 minutes later they're totally in a different plot point or whatever, and I have to be like, what's going on here? Like, where are we? And because I just kind of tune out. But it it definitely, you know, it it it enhances the experience for me because because I'm aware of it all, and I don't think it takes me out of it, it makes me kind of appreciate it from a different perspective. But it is true that oftentimes I go see a movie, I I will totally not even be paying attention to to the story often if I after I hear a cool sound or something, and I'll just kind of go off of my head about trying to think about either how they did it or what what it was, or you know. So yeah, but but very little. I mean, it's any new movie has such good sound nowadays, like the things that people are doing are are crazy with you know, it's they're pushing the boundaries of of really what we can do. So it's very little do I go to a movie and be like, oh, this doesn't sound good, this sounds terrible, they should have done this, they should have done that, you know. And I can yeah, it's more more praise and just kind of trying to figure out how or why they did a certain thing. Interesting.

Greg Staffa 33:58

I have to

Horror, Cartoons, Career Goals, Wrap

Greg Staffa 33:59

ask, and looking at your IMDB page, it has everything that you've done, and for a lot of people, you can see a pattern, and you have to have probably one of the most I don't want to say confusing IMDb pages, but looking at some of the stuff that you've done, it is like Dr. Seuss, Redfish, Bluefish, but then it's followed shortly later by Zombies, the reanimated series, and then Hamsters of Hamsterdale, and then car or Cardinal Evil came before that. Um, it seems like you either do horror stuff or children's stuff. Is that uh a choice, or is that how just how the cards laid that everything you do seems just to be one or the other? I don't see any kind of like romance movies. I mean, there's probably one or two in here, but for the most part, it's either murder and death or Dr. Zeus and hamsters. What's uh how do you go about getting these, or do you just take whatever comes your way?

Colin Ryley 35:01

Yeah, I wouldn't say it's planned at all. You know, it kind of just is how how the cards fall, like you say. There's a there's definitely a fair amount of rom-coms, and I've got a couple on the go at the moment, even. But yeah, it is funny. There was definitely recently over the past year, there's tons of a lot of horror stuff or a lot of kind of horror drama stuff, and then a lot of a lot of the animated stuff. So uh there was a writer's strike. Where are you you're in North America? Are you in North America? Yeah, I'm in Minnesota. In Minnesota, okay. So I'm not sure if if it reached that far, but the uh we had a writer's strike and a an actor's strike here a couple years ago that really put a huge stall on production. And at that time, I I was lucky enough to kind of I got involved with a studio in town that primarily does animated uh series. So it and which didn't, you know, it didn't seem to be as affected by by those strikes. Like it kind of kept me working throughout throughout those, where a lot of people I knew who worked in live action stuff were kind of out of work. So all those kind of animated stuff are primarily from the one studio, and and yeah, they they do a lot of kids stuff, you know, kids and preteen cartoons, and that's a totally fun and different different thing too. And I think the contrast between doing kind of like squeaky cute kid noises one week and then doing a you know a murder-death scene and a horror film the next is I don't know. I I I I love it, and I think it's really fun to kind of do both extremes and kind of work the entire palette of of what you know, everything is fun in its own way, and everything is challenging in its own way, but it's all great, and I'm happy to do any of that stuff. I would definitely take a horror film or a kid's funny cartoon or something like over over a rom com any day, because you know, rom coms are great, but as a sound effects editor, there's not a whole lot of creativity you can do that. It's just doors opening and cars driving and and that kind of thing.

Greg Staffa 36:53

Yeah, if it pays the bills. Yeah. There is uh a famous sound designer that most people, at least in the industry, know, Ben Burt. He is the one that came up with the the lightsaber, you know, the the hum of the lightsaber for the Star Wars films. Now I'm not expecting you to have like a Ben Burt answer, but is there something that you've done that is kind of like deep down the little kid inside of you that that's your lightsaber moment?

Colin Ryley 37:25

Huh, that's a good question.

Greg Staffa 37:28

Like some sound that you created where you see it, every time you see it, you're like, I pulled that off. That was me figuring out how to make a sound that I didn't I mean, is there that kind of moment for you, your lightsaber moment?

Colin Ryley 37:41

Yeah, I mean I I don't know if anything particular, but there a series that that I've worked on for two seasons now uh is called Super Team Canada, and it's uh it's on Crave that it's just a big action-packed superhero show where every episode is just the most crazy stuff ever. There's octopuses with laser guns and and all that kind of and nothing particular is coming to my mind, but I know every every single week that I got that picture lock, I would watch through my my episode and and just kind of be like, How am I gonna do this? This is insane. It's just wall-to-wall of of insanity and and weirdness. And the last episode that we did for season two, which which hasn't actually been released yet, but it was I don't know how much I should say, but it was it took place inside of a brain. So there's a lot of weird brain sounds and a lot of weird, you know, mechanical computerized stuff. And it just it yeah, every for that show particularly, a lot of shows, for that show particularly, I'll get the episode and I'll just think, like, how am I gonna possibly pull this off in a week? And and then somehow every week it just works. You just kind of you know, slowly do it bit by bit and kind of work your way through it and find something that that happens to work, and yeah, definitely nowhere near as anything as legendary as the lightsaber. That that I don't know, that's a pretty crazy thing that probably can't be tough by much many people, but you know, it's just at the end of the day, you just kind of gotta sit down and do it and figure something out because you just kind of have to. And sometimes too, the the kind of pressure or the the deadlines for me at least can kind of make you more creative and more you know inspired in a way because you just kind of have no choice but to just figure something out.

Greg Staffa 39:26

And what does the future hold for you as far as you know, is there room to grow? Is there what I I guess I don't honestly know the kind of like the hierarchy structure of sound design. Is you know, are there other things that you can take on or tackle that you would like to do someday, or are you content in what you're doing, or how does that work out, or what does it hold for you?

Colin Ryley 39:49

Yeah, I mean I'm totally content, but you know, I would love to take on bigger and and better things, not not better necessarily, bigger and more, you know, I guess stuff more that you know, and any I would love to obviously work on, you know, any kind of feature that that would be, you know, premiered or or playing in like a Cineplex or a movie theater for something like that. Uh anything, you know, action-y, any, you know, Marvel kind of thing like that or or whatever. The uh live action is is always a different thing than animated. I love doing animated stuff a lot, but you know, I'm happy to take anything I can. But the uh I think a push towards doing more, you know, seeing yeah, I think I think every every artist or entertainer wants to see themselves on the big screen and their name on the credits of a you know a big blockbuster movie. But uh, you know, as you said, I I'm fairly I'm fairly young with this kind of stuff too. I've only really been actively working, you know, for five or six years. So I'm happy to kind of take it as it comes, and I'm very happy where I'm at, and the future seems promising. Uh also scary, but you know, I think mostly promising with with everything that's going on, and I hope it just keeps kind of getting bigger and cooler projects and more fun, you know, more fun work ahead, hopefully.

Greg Staffa 41:13

When you get you get locked in pictures, but you also see a lot of the behind the process. Is there any interest in directing? Are you gaining gaining a lot from seeing these productions and how they come in and being there kind of on the sidelines to watch the process? Is there any interest in directing something or are you happy with sound?

Colin Ryley 41:34

Not really, to be honest. I'm totally content with just sound. I respect and appreciate and I'm blown away by the other all the creative work, the directors and picture editors and colorists, you know, everybody has their own thing, but I've I've never really had much interest in life at all of anything other than sound and music. So I think just diving deeper into that and kind of finding new cool ways of doing things I've never heard before or never tried to do before. And I'm happy to leave uh leave everything else to the people who you know prioritize and specialize in that.

Greg Staffa 42:10

Wow. Well, Colin Riley, thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed talking to you. I think it's I think ever since the uh Justice League came out, where we had the Zack Snyder cut come out, and I know it's editing versus sound, but I think it really opened a lot of people's eyes how much of a film can be changed just by its editing and stuff like that. And I think something like that helped us kind of realize how much goes into films other than just filming it, from the sound to the editing, and how much someone's perspective of one thing can change. And I think that opened a lot of eyes to people of wow, there's a lot that goes on other than just filming a scene. It's how you put it together, how you add the sound. Uh Steven Spielberg is famous for um he had clips that he did without like the John Williams score and some of the sound effects, and he would play them side by side, and you could hear or see how different those films were without some of the sound and without some of the scores. And so I think having someone like you on is really important for people to hear these kind of stories and realize how much really goes into making a film or making a TV show where you know a sheet scene shot in New York looks easy because they're just walking down the street, but the hours and hours that goes into cleaning it up and going over the audio is just something that I think, like you said earlier, if you do it right, no one notices. And so I think that's why it's important to have people on you like you on this podcast. So I sincerely appreciate it coming on and taking time out of your busy schedule.

Colin Ryley 43:49

Thanks so much, Greg. I appreciate the kind words, and uh yeah, I totally agree. You know, it's great to bring awareness to all these different aspects, and it's awesome that you're doing that and taking the time to you know spotlight some lesser known creative parts of of the film world. So thank you so much.