PS260 Sound Engineer Nicole Pettigrew on the Inspirations Found in NYC

PS260's Nicole Pettigrew is featured in Little Black Book’s “Birds, Bugs and Water”: Where Sound Designers Go for Inspiration.

The sound designer’s job is a somewhat elusive one – for those of us who don’t pay too much attention to the sound and accidental music of daily life, it might seem impossible to describe anything through sound. And yet, like magic, sound designers are able to paint with what nobody can see, adorning your favourite film scenes (or adverts, or music videos) with the most unnoticeable of details.

Ambiance, dialogue, music and environmental soundscape all come together to build a more believable story – one that anybody can immerse themselves into. At LBB, we love the magic of sound design and we always appreciate what the magicians behind it have to say, but one thing that runs as a theme when we ask them what ‘good sound design’ is, is that they insist that it shouldn’t be noticeable. If, as you watch a piece of media on screen, the real world around you slowly disintegrates, then sound design has played its invisible role – to imitate life.

But while these media soundscapes should be invisible to all of us viewers, as they become an inseparable part of the story, sound designers are the ones that harvest the cacophony of daily life with great care. Carrying around Zoom recorders and paying close attention to what happens in the world around them is what these professionals put away as inspiration.