For Your Consideration: Sound Engineer Tom Boykin.

This Post is in a series of posts that is directed at the members of the IAWTV/Streamy Awards. The content will highlight different members of the Compulsions team. These are meant for both awareness and as a guide to showcase what each individual brought to the project.

Tom Boykin is an experienced sound designer  who holds quality at the highest of levels. Last month he won an Indie Soap Award for Sound Design for his work in Compulsions.

Tom has a strong set of beliefs when it comes to sound. He prefers to lean toward “natural” sounds. He believes that “sound should serve to AMPLIFY what is going on with the picture. It shouldn’t be expected to make up for any faults and should never, ever, detract from the visuals.”

From Director Nathan Atkinson: Here’s the truth, I didn’t find Tom. Michael Tohl did. I only wish I had – then at least I could take some kind of credit. Tom really is not only “that good,” he might just be the single nicest, easy to work with, most innovative, complete professional I have ever met. I met him for a coffee, called the Producers as I was walking out the door and told them to offer him the job. Initially, we only used him for Production Sound – but it quickly became evident to me that the man has the ear of a master musician, I was right. As soon as we found out that he did Post Sound/Sound Design, we fell over ourselves to work with him again. An amazing experience.

From Creator Bernie Su: They say that Sound is half your film, for a series like ours I feel that holds especially true. Going into pre-production, Producer Michael Tohl preached how vital the sound design would be to our show. He spoke of how the picture quality would take it to one level, and the Sound would take it to another. We needed to have some elite sound to make this series work, and for that we have Tom.

I’d like to highlight a couple of scenes below to showcase what Tom brought. (These clips are set to play at a certain timecode in each episode)

Episode 1: 0:00 – We start this episode with a long shot of  Mark circling Adam. In reality all this is, is one character walking around a still/bound 2nd character, but I encourage you to turn up the volume and listen to the details in this 30 second scene. What you’re hearing is 100% Sound Design, it’s meant to be subtle yet eerie, and it’s there to set the mood of our entire series. Throughout the episodes featuring the Interrogation room, Tom continued to keep this consistent feel through the space, this gave the set a distinction of almost being it’s own character.

Episode 2: 0:45 – In this sequence we cut rapidly back and forth between the Office and Interrogation scenes.  Here you have two scenes with two completely opposite moods and tones. Watch and listen for the swipes, strikes, and screams that were so expertly engineered into the sequence. If you want to really feel how much Tom’s work added, try watching the sequence again but with the volume off. You still may get the scene, but you lose so much of that added power that the sound design provides.

From a personal level I always like to remember the direct moments while working with various members of our team so I’ll add one more note. During the Episode 1 Sound Mix Session Tom paused the playback after our iconic “lemon on the pliers” scene and said to us, “You know that squirt sound… it’s a real lemon, I squeezed it myself.” – Awesome.

So please consider Tom Boykin in Compulsions for Best Sound Design in the 2010 Streamys.