Drive: Sound Design Challenges
Since my main goal in designing sound for this production is to provide an emotional context for the onstage dialogue through vehicle noise, I would imagine that my primary challenge would be finding the right ambient car noise. Firstly, it would have to be a series of very long cues, because looping noise would be too distracting to the audience, and wouldn't sound as random as a real car driving down the road does. Another challenge would be adding in the engine revs, idles, bumps, honks, and so on without overpowering the onstage dialogue.
Truly, the sound of the car getting more broken and driving slower over the duration of the play is a symbol of the relationship breaking down as well. To this end, I will have to make sure that the noise of the car varies subtly enough that the audience does not actively detect a change during each scene, and rather only notice a difference hopefully at the top of each scene. It's also important to have the noises of other passing traffic every now and then, and to key in the city noise heard at the top of the show at various points throughout the "Car noise" cues as well, all, once again, without overpowering the onstage dialogue.
