From IRCAM to the Venice Biennale: the inspiring journey of Pierre-Marie Blind in immersive sound
Through a professional career spanning a decade, Pierre-Marie Blind, founder of Blind Sounds , has gained experience in sound design for video games, contemporary art, and audiovisual media. Today, he enjoys an international reputation in sound creation for immersive experiences.
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International recognition: two VR works in Venice
No sooner had he unpacked his bags at Plaine Images, or rather, barely had his sound design studio been set up within the Pictanovo , than Pierre-Marie Blind left for Venice to participate in the 81st edition of the International Film Festival. More specifically, this former Parisian, now living in Lille, joined the professional community gathered around the Venice Immersive : 26 immersive, linear, or interactive works from around the world.
An unmissable event for this sound designer specializing in VR content, especially since he is credited in 2 of the 26 works in this competition!
Two radically different works in artistic direction but which share the fact of tackling difficult .
Mamie Lou, directed by Isabelle Andreani and co-produced by Small Creative , Skill Lab , France tv StoryLab , invites the viewer to take the place of a spirit accompanying a grandmother in her final moments.
Battlefield , directed by François Vautier and co-produced by Da Prod , Digital Voodooh , Kwassa Films and, again, France Télévisions, is an immersive experience in the heart of the Verdun trenches in 1917, in the murderous madness of an assault.
In total, no fewer than 8 of the 26 films in competition were produced or co-produced in France. This concrete statistic serves as yet another reminder of the vitality of French immersive creation! *
It is probably this French dynamism that allowed Pierre-Marie Blind to develop a rather rare expertise in sound design for VR works. But it was originally his studies at IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, another source of French pride!) that taught him to consider sound from new perspectives.
“My studies at the Paris Conservatory in classical music gave me the art of articulation and interpretation, Ircam gave me the approach of a sound designer. That is to say that for any creation, we consider the user and their environmental context as much as the artistic dimension. Whether this applies to an immersive creation, the interface of an electric car or a video game,” says the IRCAM 2016 graduate.
From classical music to sound design: an atypical career path
These studies led him to consider sound design ("my job is to create sounds") rather than composition: "Sound is a very abstract language. Evoking emotions with sounds is even more complicated than doing so through musical creation ." And after assisting with sound design for contemporary art installations (such as Ghina at the Familistère in Guise) and creating sound for theatrical productions, he settled for a time in the gaming industry. He headed to Düsseldorf and the Ubisoft studio .
While Pierre-Marie joined one of the world's leading gaming companies and collaborated on productions like Far Cry 5 and Settlers , his two years in Germany (2018-2020) were primarily dedicated to working on immersive entertainment projects within a "separate team with considerable freedom" : Ubisoft Escape Games . This business unit was dedicated to creating immersive experiences around Ubisoft ; experiences offered to visitors of theme parks, arcades, and escape rooms. A team of around twenty employees worked in a startup environment, striving to offer franchises like Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia new ways to connect with their audiences… and generate revenue.
VR as a field for sound innovation
Overall, for a sound designer like Pierre-Marie, working on video games or immersive experiences means combining complexity and enjoyment:
“Video game development is more complex and abstract because all departments work in parallel and simultaneously. We progress brick by brick, whereas post-production for linear audiovisual content follows a more direct and defined path. Video games are a puzzle to solve. But it also offers the satisfaction of being involved in the project for longer. And in France, we have many excellent indie game projects, with producers who become aware of sound very early in the game development process.”
This is evidenced by his collaborations on successful indie projects like Blanc and Dordogne. Immersive gaming is the pleasure of a "medium that is both intuitive and extreme in its possibilities": "The headset is a much more natural interface than a computer: my grandmother used one of my experiments without a tutorial, even though she struggles with double-clicking!"
In his latest projects, Pierre-Marie Blind frequently mentions the 3D VR game Puzzling Places , whose marketing promises highlight immersive and unique sounds . It's rare to see the sound experience emphasized in this way: proof that for a sound designer, the future likely lies in immersion. Pierre-Marie Blind is probably in the right place at the right time!
It should also be noted that the two immersive works mentioned were co-produced by Pictanovo, the Hauts-de-France region's tool for developing audiovisual creation, through its New Media . These two works should be on display at the next edition of PIX .
