She Kills Monsters
Chico State Theatre, 2019
Director: Matthew Teague Miller
Sound Designer: Oliver Loll
Costume Designer: Tristan Knox
Scenic Designer: Jacob Brown
Lighting Designer: Mike Johnson
Sound designer for Chico State’s She Kills Monsters. This project involved bringing the fantasy world of Dungeons and Dragons to life. Manipulated sounds from the web, licensed songs, recorded our actors, and composed small music pieces.
Sample Highlights
Tiamat Approaches
Our heroes discuss their ultimate foe: Tiamat, the five headed dragon. One adventurer casts a spell that summons the sounds of the beast. As they recount the features of the dragon, roars from each of the heads swirl around the room culminating in a ferocious roar.
Dark strings act as a background while footsteps, flapping wings and various roars play. Each head was designed to sound distinct, as they each represent a different element:
Earth - Recordings of a lion, pitched to be consistently low and deep
Fire - A lion mixed with a snake, consistently has a hiss-like tone to it
Water - Roars pitch corrected and warbled to create the vision of gills
Wind - wispy roars mixed with the clicks of a dolphin; raspy
Lightning - High-pitched screeches mixed with thunder
Revive
As our main character is dying in DND, another adventurer casts a spell to revive them. Important to know that the caster is a dragon in disguise.
EDM risers, choir midi instruments and the underlying echo of a dragon.
Car Wreck
The narrator of the play tells the audience that one of our characters has died in a vicious car crash. Important to know that the character was a Dungeons and Dragons player, and was very emotionally invested in the game. As they finish, we hear the wreck, and the sound morphs into the snarl of a dragon.
Car horns, tire screeches, glass smashing, metal impacts and the echo of a dragon snarl.