BBC Two ident sound design

On Friday, the sound designer on last year’s BBC Two OSP revamp project, Alex Baranowski, published a blog providing some fantastic insights into the thinking behind the soundtracks that accompany the channel’s new idents.

The ident animations are visually inspired by a mood. With around 20 separate idents in the initial batch delivered last year, Alex came up with a connecting thread and recognisable signature to link together all the moods.

Talking about the idea, Alex said: “Rather than producing something distinctly musical with a separate element of ‘sound design’ my immediate thought was to create something that would blur the lines between the two. With much experience working on theatre productions as a composer and sound designer, I was keen to experiment with techniques I’d learnt in that medium when pitching ideas to the team.

“We never wanted the viewer to recognise an instrument – or a sound – so much time was spent re-pitching and modulating recorded sound effects and foley into more ‘musical’ forms – and performing musical instruments in unusual ways to create our own ‘sound effects’ with a musical twist, ending up with an almost believable living soundscape for an environment you could nearly touch.”

EXTERNAL LINK: click here to read the full blog article.

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