Hose Sound Design

"Hose" is a stop motion animated short by Kevin Watkins. It is easily one of the cooler projects I've worked on and is technically amazing. It's a sound designer's dream when a project comes along that is visually impressive and contains some great storytelling and needs all sorts of unique sounds.
The project required recording and creating a lot of new sounds. I made numerous trips outdoors with...well...garden hoses, and threw them around all over the place to capture the sounds of the hose. I got some strange looks and numerous questions from people who passed by.
















Living right next to Prospect Park in Brooklyn proved very helpful. Even in the middle of a big city, one can get a bit of quiet - enough to record outdoor Foley.
Besides recording a hose moving over various surfaces, I also recorded a lot of the other elements the hose comes in contact with - chain link fences, drain spouts, ladders, buckets, tools, etc... Also, the actual "squeak" of the hose was important to create and involved a lot of experimentation to come up with the right elements.
A stereo mix is finished for now. Look for a 5.1 mix soon. Hose has started hitting the festival circuit.