Though it seems a tad premature to start thinking about the oscar race, this great blog covers all tech categories. Gerard Kennedy who runs this section of the "In Contention" oscar watch blog, did an awesome job last year during the award season(check out his archives). I am excited to see what he covers this year and I will be linking all of his sound related posts from here. So I guess this indicates that the green flag is raised...
I am going to see "Halloween" this weekend. I only was turned on to the 1978 original last year, so I am late to the party. Carpenter's version is great! Scary, intense, and the score is classic. I am interested to see what Rob Zombie does with the material. Since most of the scuttlebutt has been about the film's radical new vision, I am going to try and watch it with an open mind. I am always interested to hear about how young-in-the-tooth directors approach sound conceptually. It seems to me they would be a lot more open to exploring what sound can achieve in their films. I want to thank sound soup Perry Robertson for taking time for this Q and A and I can't wait to hear his crew's work this weekend!
FSD: Mike Myers is a character that looks frightening but never actually speaks so how do you help him sound scary?
PR: Believe it or not, his scariness comes from lack of sound. A lot of times in the film he appears without making a sound. When we do hear him move, because he is so large, his sounds are heavy; whether it is his weight walking down stairs or the large chains that are on him while he is in the sanitarium. The weight of the sounds just seems to make him that much more menacing.
FSD: Is there a lot of Myers POV in the film? If so, how did you guys approach these sequences?
PR: The POVs in the film all have his breathing in the mask. Through his evolution in the film, Meyers wears several different masks. In ADR we had Tyler Mane breathe for us through the different masks. Our Sound Designer, Scott Sanders, also did some mask breaths, so between the two, when it came to the mix we could pick and choose which breaths worked best for the scene.
FSD: This is your second film with Rob Zombie, who comes from a musical background. What is his approach to post sound?
PR: Rob is one of those dream directors. He knows exactly what he wants and can tell you. Rob and editor, Glenn Garland do quite a bit of sound while cutting the picture, which gives us a great template to go by. For the big sound scenes, picture assistant, Joel Pashby, will send us Quicktimes of the scenes they need help with. We will build those scenes, pre mix them, and send them back for use in the AVID. Rob relies heavily on music but, if we have an idea on something, we can play it for him and he listens with an open mind. Because of the schedule on this movie, a lot of the tonal design was from composer, Tyler Bates, with most of the scare hits coming from Scott.
FSD: What's so great about horror films is their reliance on sound for the scares. If you watch a horror film without sound it just doesn't have the same creepy impact. What are your favorite parts in this film that deliver those stereotypical chills?
PR: I think the most fun are the scares. Because we can make sound so big today, I think our sound combined with the picture can definitely make you jump. With the sub woofer we can actually make you physically feel the impacts. The challenge for us on a film like this is to make it have dynamics; make the quiet scenes really quiet so that the loud scenes and scares really have an impact. We don't want you to come out of the movie complaining it was too loud. Then you didn't enjoy the movie. We can also help trick an audience into thinking something bad is about to happen when it doesn't so that the moviegoer doesn't know when to expect a scare.
FSD: Did the sound in the original "Halloween” influence the choices you made for this remake?
PR: Not really. Obviously it influenced composer, Tyler Bates, with the theme but that was about it. If you listen to the original it was pretty sparse in sound. I go into every movie with the approach of making it sound as good as sonically possible and give the director exactly what he wants and more.
FSD: What was your first gig like?
PR: Scary, [because] I knew I had to prove that I could do the job, yet I knew I had a lot to learn. I was still in college and went to work as an intern for a Post Production company in Dallas. I soaked up everything I could from the folks there and was working full time for them and going to school with in 6 months.
"Halloween" haunts theaters August 31st. Sound supervisors Perry Robertson, Barney Cabral, and Scott Sanders took a stab at the editorial. All linked to Earcandy Post (an editorial/design house in the valley), the two have worked together on Rob Zombie's last, "The Devil's Rejects" as well as continuing a working relationship with Jason Rietman, supervising his next, "Juno". Re-recording mixers Patrick Cyccone Jr. and Daniel J. Leahy dubbed the film at Widget Post on their ICON driven stage Cyccone one of Alxeander Payne's usual mixer's, dubbed the directors last 3 films including 2004's "Sideways". While included in Leahy's established mixing career, one of his first gigs was 1985's "Back to the Future". Production mixer Buck Robinson sleighed the sound on set. Robinson, another "Reject's" alum, splits his production mixing time during the year between features and television shoots. While staying true to the source, Composer Tyler Bates was charged with the monumental task of revising Carpenter's iconic score. Bates has had a big year already, composing for "300" and has been quoted as providing conceptual material for Zach Snyder's next film, "The Watchmen."
CHECK BACK LATER TODAY FOR A Q AND A WITH SOUND SUPERVISOR PERRY ROBERTSON!
WIDGET POST: STAGE D
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Perry Robertson
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Barney Cabral
SOUND DESIGNER: Scott Sanders
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Patrick Cyccone Jr.
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Daniel J. Leahy
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: Buck Robinson
COMPOSER: Tyler Bates
"Bee Movie" doesn't come out until this November but, there is already a fun little clip available online showcasing the kind of thing us sound effect folk have to deal with everyday. Recording bugs in an ADR studio. The guys over at gizmodo.com have a little piece about the clip HERE.
There have been two great articles on music editorial this past month: The Hollywood Reporter ran a piece on TV and Film Music Editors which can be found HERE and The Editor's Guild is previewing a piece from their current magazine HERE. I am going to do a Q and A in October with the Coen Bros. music editor Todd Kasow for "No Country for Old Men." The Cohens always populate their soundtracks with great licensed music and score, so I am excited to hear what they are like to work with! On a related and sadder note, the scoring stage at Todd Radford is closing soon. One of priemere feature scoring stages in LA, it has been around since 1945 and has tracked music for some of the biggest films in Hollywood. Variety ran THIS op/ed piece speculating the impact said closing will have on the biz and community....
Hey all. I wanted take this time to apologize for the lack of postage here lately. I was slammed at work last week and decided to just take a few days off to recoup and front-load the next month of film sound news. During that time though, I ran into a little bit of a slump. It seems it is still a tad difficult to get people in the community turned on to the idea of this blog. I want to reiterate that this thing is here to raise awareness of our craft(s) and celebrate all the hard work and creativity that goes into film soundtracks, period. So hopefully in the next couple months more of the people I try and contact will let me pass over the bridge to continue on my quest for the holy grail, er, on my quest to raise awareness of this thing I love, sound for film. That said, I have secured some fun Q and A's for every week this month and promise to cont. on! Break out the coconuts, we are in for a long ride!
Peace,
Filmsounddaily.com
Let us celebrate one of my favorite sound jokes...
" The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters" is a great documentary. It opens limited this weekend and expanses to a few more cities on the 24th. I wish I was going to the premiere tonight because, at the location of the after party while the audience is the theater watching the film Steve Wiebe is going to try to beat the world record for Donkey Kong. So best-case scenario when the after party starts, there will be a "kill screen" on the Steve's machine and new high score for the record books! Thanks to sound editor/re-recording mixer Nathan Smith for doing this Q and A...
FSD: Though documentaries differ from narrative features in terms of sound, a great dialog mix still helps the audience invest in the story. What was the quality of the dialog on this show upon turnover? How was it handled during the mix?
NS: On this show, the dialog was in fairly decent shape upon turnover. There were some typical problems, but nothing I couldn't work with. Most of the dialog was recorded indoors, so there wasn't much wind distortion, traffic or airplane sounds. Of course, a lot of dialog in “King of Kong” was recorded in arcades, which not only have ambient game noises but also background music. So one of my challenges was to extract the music whenever possible.
I can't recall if there was a production mixer on the show, since there was 600 hours of footage captured by the director and producers. But overall, they did a good job on the dialog recording which is not always the case with documentaries.
While mixing this film, I spent the bulk of my time ensuring that the dialog was of top quality. There is really no ADR option in documentaries, so you have to work with what you have. At NL3 Audio we have a Cedar Cambridge at our disposal, which is really indispensable when it comes to dialog cleanup and restoration. Sometimes you can cover up the flaws in a dialog track when doing a stereo mix, but for a theater release like this one the dialog track has to be particularly clean since it is destined for that center channel.
FSD: How does your mix room translate to the theaters? Do you have to compensate for mixing in a smaller room?
NS: At NL3, we first mix our films in a controlled near field 5.1 environment. This saves time and money, since we only have to do fine-tuning once we finish things up in a bigger mixing stage. Dolby will not certify mixes on near field stages, so you have to go to a bigger mixing stage regardless. On “King of Kong,” my initial mix was so good that I only had to adjust one fader move on the mix stage.
The technology has really come a long way in allowing near field mix rooms to be on par with the big theatre-sized mix stages. Plus, a documentary is ideal for this situation since it does not have explosions, heavy low end, or panning -- all of which are better handled on big stages.
FSD: Obviously, the doc revolves around video games, with Donkey Kong as its centerpiece. How much of the original sound FX and music from the game did you get to cut into the film?
NS: Unfortunately, for copyright reasons I wasn't able to use any custom recorded sounds from the actual Donkey Kong game. But I was able to use sound from the footage recorded during production. So in a pinch I would take B-roll footage, clean it up, and incorporate key sounds where necessary. So when you watch the film, be assured that all the Donkey Kong sounds are from the original game.
For strictly research purposes, I spent many hours playing Donkey Kong on the studio's arcade machine. This really helped me absorb the audio environment and style of the game. Never reached the kill screen, though.
FSD: Still frames play such an important role in documentaries with sound effects and music helping the narrative process along. What are your views on the role sound plays in documentaries?
NS: Sound is obviously very important in documentaries, but it has to complement and not overwhelm the picture. I try to avoid the big whooshes and other effects. Instead, I put most of my focus on creating a crisp and coherent dialog track, because it is crucial that the audience understand and enjoy the story.
On King of Kong, you must also put a lot of time into making the simplest effects sound right. The sound of Kong jumping at the start of the game, the sound you hear when your character dies, these are unique and identifiable sounds that cannot be faked. There were squabbles in the mix room to make sure the sounds were right, because a lot of Kong fans are going to be seeing this film and they will know if the game doesn't sound right.
FSD: Do you think sound's role has changed during the documentary boom in the last decade...?
NS: The use of new tools has definitely made it possible to have a better sounding film. But the real boom in documentaries is that the stories themselves have improved, become more engaging and original, and sound has been an integral part of conveying these great stories to audiences. As filmmakers use bolder techniques in their documentaries, sound designers get more leeway in creating an ambitious aural environment.
FSD: What was your first gig like?
NS: When I started NL3 Audio, I was doing the sound for short films and video games to build up credits and develop contacts. My first big gig was “The Incredibles” video game, where I was paid as a subcontractor but basically did all the sound. I learned two things from that experience. First, I would not do subcontract work again. You don't have a lot of control, you aren't paid very well, and quality suffers because you aren't always working directly with the main producers. Second, I learned a lot about creating a total audio environment from scratch, something that has served me well as I've moved into feature film work. Whether I'm working on an animated feature like Terra, where I have to create an entire universe of sounds, or a video-game inspired documentary like “King of Kong,” having that gaming experience has been indispensable.
"The Invasion" touches down in theaters August 17th. Sound supervisor Richard Yawn handled the editorial. He supervised last year's "Dreamgirls," his second film with Director Bill Condon, ("Kinsey" was the first). Sound designer Bryan Watkins helped with the aural scare telegraphing on the film. Bryan heads up Gametracks, a game-sound sister company to Dane Davis's LA based Danetracks, Inc. Long-time mix partners Gregg Rudloff and John T. Reitz mixed the show over at Warner Bros stage ten. The duo won the best Sound Oscar for their work on "The Matrix" with their recently retired third mixer David Cambell. Rounding the mix team out on "The Invasion" was Michael Herbick. Herbick, has been nominated five times for the best Sound Oscar including twice in 1995 for "Clear and Present Danger" and "Shawshank Redemption". Mixers David Kelson and Mary H Ellis headed up the production sound dept. I read there was extensive re-shoots on the film so I believe each of the mixers represented the two different filming schedules. Both established mixers, Kelson is hot off this fall's Owen Wilson led comedy "Drillbit Taylor" while Ellis helped the dirty south sound nastier in last year's "ATL". Fresh off this summer's "Fantastic Four 2," John Ottman composed for the film. There is a great little feature over at Soundtrack.Net on the scoring session.
WARNER BROS DUB STAGE 10
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Richard Yawn
SOUND DESIGNER: Bryan Watkins
RE-RECORDING MIXER: John T. Reitz
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Gregg Rudloff
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Michael Herbick
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: David Kelson
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: Mary H Ellis
WB SCORING STAGE
COMPOSER: John Ottman
"The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters" releases limited August 17th and wider on the 24th. I love this documentary, not only for nerdy, nostalgic reasons but because this is a great story, essentially about good verses evil. I never figured I would find myself so emotionally invested in the subject matter of the film but the struggle of the main character is compelling and real. It is fitting then that while one man worked thanklessly to obtain the title of Donkey Kong World Champion, another man fought to make the film sound great. Nathan Smith, owner/operator of NL3audio in Los Angeles handled all the editorial and mixing on the film. Versed in sound design and implementation for video games as well as theatrical releases, he designed sounds for Atari's "Neverwinter Knights 2", and Microsoft's "Psychonauts". Nathan informed me that to the best of his knowledge there wasn't a production mixer on the film and moreover, the same was true for a few other doc's he has mixed. If anyone has any additional info please forward it! Craig Richey composed the original score for the film. An established independent feature composer and professor of music at Cal State Long Beach, Richey contributed his talents to 2006’s "Friend's With Money" among others in the last few years.
CHECK BACK THIS WEEK FOR A Q AND A WITH SOUND MIXER NATHAN SMITH!
NL3AUDIO'S MIX ROOM
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR/
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Nathan Smith
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: TBD
COMPOSER: Craig Richey
I am pretty excited about this Q and A. My first interview with a production mixer, I am happy to finally start to include some of the craftsmen who I, as a part of post-production sound, reap what they sew. Though I only dabble in production sound mixing at an admittedly armature level, I am humbled by the shear amount of obstacles these men and women have to overcome at work. Noise on set is ever increasing and devices like the wind machine in the photo to the right add to the sound dept.'s woes. It takes a very courageous man to stand with his back to his nemesis. Production mixer Jeff Wexler laughs at the challenge as he got his photo taken with not only Jackie Chan but in front of one of his biggest fans! Any who, enough of the corn-ball jokes. Hats off to you production mixers and on to the fun!
FSD: In your 2005 Mix Magazine interview, Maureen Droney asked you if "…You like to be involved in pre-production. Is that common for production sound people?” Now, two years later, what has changed with the production's mixers involvement early on?
JW: I think the situation in regards to pre-production involvement is much the same, possibly with the trend continuing to still be towards less and less involvement before shooting actually begins. I had about 8 days of location scouting on Rush Hour 3 in and around our Los Angeles locations, and this was very helpful. I did get the chance for a little bit of pre-production scouting in Paris but it was minimal. I still feel that it is very helpful for everyone on the production to be included in these tech scouts and the smart directors and producers usually demand it (even in the face of some of the production supervisors and production managers feeling it is a waste of money).
FSD: Although your presence may differ on set to that of a greener mixer’s, how is the sound dept. treated during production?
JW: For me and my crew, at this point in our careers we are treated with a good deal of respect and the respect and attention that the guardians of the soundtrack deserve. Again, those who have had the experience, particularly in those instances where they have had the experience of working with me, there is a clear understanding of the value, to the project, of holding the production sound team in high regard. There are times when someone on the set says something like "this place sound awful, Jeff's not going to like this!" and I have to say, as nicely as possible, that if I don't like it you have to be sure there are others far more important than me who also are not going to like it (the actors who may have to needlessly ADR a scene, the director who is going to have to get a good performance TWICE and probably 4 months apart, and of course the producer who is going to have to pay for it all).
It is a wonderful thing when the production sound department is treated properly and with respect, and this is something that can happen even with less experienced crews including the sound crew. I might add that even the weight of 35 years of experience, really outstanding work and several awards and nominations, does not insure decent treatment of the sound department.
FSD: As an assistant sound editor, production mixers are sometimes scapegoats in the post world. I feel that a lack of communication between prod. sound and post is the root of this evil.
JW: I think it goes much deeper than this. It is true that there is less and less communication between the production sound crew and the post sound crew in today's world, but this is also true to a certain extent of ALL production crews, not just sound. For many reasons (and I won't take the time to give an extensive analysis) there has been a trend towards a disconnect between those working in production and those working in post. This is in some ways even a conceptual disconnect. As we have moved more and more into the digital age, the old adage "we'll mix it in the mix" is being applied to more and more departments, most notably the camera department. Not to denigrate the tremendous advancements that have been made with the tools that are available, not only to "fix" things but to actually create things never seen before (e.g. “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy), the byproduct of this has seen a big change in the work that is done in production. Along with this there is the increasing departmentalization of the whole process. In the past when there actually was a lot of good communication amongst the production sound crews, picture and sound editorial and so forth, this communication was not as important as it is now. Today, with so many variables, real world problems on the set, technical issues with multiple ways to record sound, the lack of communication can have serious consequences. There is also the fact that with so many new people coming into our industry there are fewer and fewer people who have been doing the job long enough to know "how we used to do it". They get caught up in the current trends of practices and procedures without a fundamental knowledge of how we got here. You would be very surprised the number of people in sound editorial whose only connection with production sound recording is that they have heard a lot of production sound tracks. This fact also applies to the production sound crews, many of whom have almost no idea what happens with their tracks after they turn them in at the end of the day.
This disconnect has not always been the case. When I was starting out, production sound mixers would often meet regularly with post people, usually picture editors first and then sound editors, and after a few years of working with the same people you had a definite sense of community and no one would grandstand (or backstab) anyone who was part of the team (and the team was ALL of us, the production sound crew, the director, the picture editor, the sound editor and the re-recording mixers).
FSD: How much do you keep in touch with post?
JW: I am usually the first person who is calling for a meeting in PRE-production so we can talk early about what we think we're all going to be doing. It has been vital for me, certainly at specific times during the last 20 years, to have these meetings because I embarked on doing things differently in production and needed the support of those in post. I was one of the first to use a stereo 2-track Nagra and so I had to go into the transfer facility and help them gear up for making transfers off 2 track 1/4" tape with center track sync, something almost no one else was doing. I was the first to introduce DAT to production sound recording when it was a format that few had any familiarity with. Both of those things were fairly simple but the last one was a biggie: file based multitrack recording (I was the first to do this also on the west coast with the first Deva I). Now that non-linear file based production recording is firmly established, there are many issues with post that require extensive communication (with so many variables on both sides, production and post) at a time when this vital communication is going away.
FSD: What can we do as a community to insure that the two depts. (prod. and post) work together to insure the integrity of the production sound?
JW: I don't know the answer to this. I do know that the power resides more within the post crews --- if picture editors and sound editors could be more involved in the beginning, some of the disasters that are common in production could be avoided. Sadly, often the picture editor, and usually the sound editor, are not on the movie before we start shooting.
FSD: I have heard you comment once on how the role of a production mixer is getting more and more diverse; while on set, you as mixers have less time to focus on the track. Is there anything that can remedy this?
JW: Well, I don't remember exactly what context I made that statement. I do know that as many of the other departments, starting with Locations, do less and less of the things that help the sound crew have a fighting chance at success, we have had to be very diligent in many areas that are NOT sitting behind the sound cart. These efforts are, however, fundamental in our primary "focus on the track" --- without these efforts there will be no track worth recording.
FSD: Who dictates microphone set-ups on set?
JW: The SHOT and the SCENE dictate the microphone set up. With Don and me this is almost always quite obvious. Don Coufal (my boom operator) and I have been working together for 30 years and we have done about 60 movies --- there is little discussion of how to approach a scene and we rarely, if ever have a disagreement on how to do a scene. The two of us together have obviously made a lot of the right decisions, many, many times on lots of movies, so neither of us is about to change our process.
FSD: What motivates you as mixers to use lavs or booms or multiple mic set-ups? (I know this is a very broad question, so just let me know if it is too much to answer)
JW: It is a broad subject but it does bring up the primary and fundamental decision we have to make when approaching how to do a scene. The choice, microphones on the actors, boom mic, multi-track or not, will be different, even for the same scene, amongst different sound mixers --- there is a lot of variability amongst us even with regards to what constitutes good sound. Much of the technique these days will be dictated by the project and the overall style of shooting. The best example of this is what episodic television has become: put a mic on anyone that might talk and put them on their own track. Most sound mixers who have settled in to the television world, even if they may have different ideas personally, will be required to work this way. I might add that the byproduct of this approach, at least for me personally, is that almost ALL television shows sound horrible these days. Maybe it's just me.
FSD: “Rush Hour 3” marks your first gig with Brett Ratner. How is he to work with?
JW: Brett has a reputation for being difficult to work with and little patience for technical problems --- he just wants it to be good and doesn't want to wait for anything. Brett was surprisingly (at least I was surprised) good to the sound crew --- I think he fundamentally understands the value of production sound, on the day, particularly for a comedy. Even when I thought he might not be paying attention to some of the things on the set that he should be paying attention to, he was always very aware of what we were doing and what it sounded like. I also think he was pleased with the way our crew works --- we never came to him with a problem without also having a clear and workable solution in hand, even if sometimes the solution was something he did not want to implement. Overall, Brett was really good to work with and I think we did a reasonably good job on the movie.
FSD: Who has been your favorite director to work for?
JW: Hal Ashby, hands down, number one. Cameron Crowe is a very, very close second (and Hal is no longer with us as you know, so maybe Cameron is number one). Interesting side note: I think Brett Ratner hired me in part because I had worked so much with Hal Ashby --- Brett has stated publicly that Hal was one of his favorite directors.
FSD: What was your first gig like?
JW: My first gig in the Sound Department? Well, that would be "Cool Breeze" a non-union low budget black exploitation film in 1970. I had never done sound before. I showed up for the job interview (with the producer, Gene Corman --- Roger's brother) and said I was a Sound Mixer. I guess on the strength of my last name, Wexler, Gene thought I was telling the truth and probably knew what I was doing. Also, in those days, producers like Corman were pleased to just get someone who was willing to show up with some equipment and work unlimited hours for 3 weeks for $400.00/week. "Cool Breeze" was also the first movie for Andy Davis (who was a cameraman at the time, later to direct "The Fugitive", "Under Siege", etc.) and Tak Fujimoto (who went on to shoot many movies for Jonathan Demme and others).
I knew that I didn't know what I was doing but having been on the set all my life, I knew what I was supposed to LOOK like I was doing (and of course, the movie set was very familiar territory for me). At Andy's suggestion I hired a very old friend of his from Chicago to come out to L.A. and work as my boom operator. This was Tom Holman (Tomlinson Holman who later worked for George Lucas developing the THX specification for theaters) who was a schoolteacher at the University of Illinois. So, we started the job and although Tom was not a terribly good boom operator he was a terrific teacher --- everyday of shooting I would learn a little more about how to record sound ("Hey, Tom, on the Nagra what does this switch do?"). We got through the movie okay, they were pleased with what we did (and it was truly awful) and Tom went back to teaching and I went on to mix another movie, and another, and another.
"Rush Hour 3" hits theaters August 10th. Sound Supervisor Tim Chau man-handled editorial and design as well as mixing the FX. Chau has been with this series since the first case of gridlock and is currently helping Vince Vaughn rekindle his relationship with his estranged brother in "Fred Claus". Andy D'Addario rounded out the other half of the mix crew, which dubbed at Warner Bros on their Digidesign ICON driven stage 6. Also versed in TV sound re-recording, D'Addario has been mixing "CSI: NY", "Alias", and "Brothers and Sisters" for the last few years. Mixer Jeff Wexler headed up the production sound dept. A 35-year veteran of the craft, Wexler has worked on almost all of Cameron Crowe's films as well as mixing blockbusters like "Independence Day". Lalo Schifrin composed for the film and has also been with Ratner through all three films. One of my favorite composers, his work in the early seventies on "Dirty Harry" and the like, influenced scores in many a film, most recently with the "Ocean's" trilogy. Turning 75 this year, there is a great little feature over at Soundtrack.Net on the scoring session.
CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR A Q AND A WITH PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER JEFF WEXLER!
WARNER BROS DUB STAGE 6
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Tim Chau
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Andy D'Addario
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Tim Chau
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: Jeff Wexler
SONY SCORING STAGE
COMPOSER: Lalo Schifrin
Thanks to Sean Garnhart for taking time to do this Q and A. This is my first New York based interview and I am excited to branch out beyond my Los Angeles confines. The point of this blog is to showcase the talent that we sound editors, mixers, and composers work with and alongside. I again point to awareness and recognition as motivation of why I do this and I hope to continue to include more interviews and info on crews who don't have The Terminator as governor.
FSD: Rod's cycle is a great extension of his character's goofiness in the film. How did you go about achieving that aural representation?
SG: When I heard the moped in production I thought it sounded too good for such a goofy guy. It had a whine that made it sound too high-end. Believe it or not, the summer before I started working on this film, I had heard some kids riding a moped around my neighborhood. I remembered it having a great put-put sound. So, I decided to ask my neighbor if I could borrow his moped for this movie. My assistant Billy Orrico and I took it to a farm and spent a day recording it. It was perfect. Not only did it have a great pathetic sound, it was also spray painted purple and had a metal basket on the front. What's not to like?
FSD: The impacts in the film are great because they are over the top! They really add to the physical comedy. How did you decide to design them that way?
SG: That's interesting you find them over the top. I am not sure the filmmakers would agree. I think we found a happy medium. There was a lot of discussion between Andy, Akiva, and me about how "big" to play things. I wanted to play things big because I thought they would be funnier that way. Andy and Akiva often wanted to use production with no additional sound fx help. They thought production was funny enough. I agreed that what they shot was hilarious but assured them that with a little aural help, the scenes could be even funnier. We examined each impact, exploring every element and found a good place for each sound I think.
FSD: Rod's spill goes on forever! How did you guys keep it interesting and funny?
SG: I'm psyched you asked about the BIG FALL. That was shot MOS. I had a blast with that scene because I approached it just like it was an animated movie. Even though I had finished building all the fx I quickly realized it still wasn't working. It was missing the key funny element...Rod's vocals. I didn't have anything from Andy to work with so I opened up a mic myself and went nuts. As the scene progressed I made more over-the-top efforts. I thought it was hilarious but I had to run it by the film makers. This was the VERY first scene the pix department sent to me for sound. So, I wanted to make a good first impression. They loved it and played it the way I had designed it with my vocals for all seven of the preview screenings. As we got closer to the final, we all realized the challenge would be for Andy to keep the same insanity and silliness when he replaced my vocals. After a couple ADR sessions, Andy and my dialogue editor Fred Rosenberg spent a few hours finding just the right performances. It was an interesting process right from the beginning. The stick breaks and body falls made the fall down the hill real but the vocals took it to the funny place. Although it was hard getting there, Andy and Fred nailed that scene in the end.
FSD: One of the things I love about sound mixing is solving problems on the stage. Were there any instances where problems with the film were solved with sound?
SG: One thing I loved about my experience with Akiva was how willing he was to always make his film better. Even after he got to the stage he didn't want to be finished cutting if he saw a better way to do it once he heard the sound or music or both. One scene where sound really influenced the picture cut was the movie-within-the-movie scene. When Rod is listening to the crowd laughing at his stuntman movie we start going into his head. During one of the temp dubs, Akiva realized how that transition would work better if we played the sound a certain way. He asked us to mix the scene without paying any attention to the picture. He then recut the picture to match the sound.
FSD: "The Host" is one of my favorite films of last year . How was working on it?
SG: It was fun...but weird. I never saw any of the movie except the shots that had the beast. I was hired with Coll Anderson to design the sound of the beast. Coll took it upon himself to do the vocals and run them by me, and I decided to do the body, feet, and whatever other sounds the beast made and run them by Coll. He and I spent a few days recording things from animal vocals to yogurt slurps to vegetable splats. Then we went our separate ways and worked with the visuals. Once we were happy with our individual parts we sent them to the other for feedback. After some adjustments we turned over the "sound of the beast" to the film makers (who I never got to meet) who had no notes. They dug it the first time they heard it. You gotta love that. So working on it was painless and fun.
FSD: What was your first gig like?
SG: My first gig was as a transfer engineer on a movie called "Blank Check". I basically copied the sound rolls from 1/4" tape to DAT so the dialogue editors who were working on a digital workstation could have the production dialogue in a digital format. That part of the job wasn't fun but sitting behind some FX editors was a blast. I got so excited when I saw how people were making films sound cool. I asked if I could take a stab at a chase scene and I haven't looked back since. I still wake up in the morning excited to go to work and appreciating that I get paid to play!!
"Hot Rod" crashes into theaters August 3rd. Helping Rod and his friend's stunt filled adventure is Sound Supervisor Sean Garnhart. The definition of a renaissance (sound) man, Garnhart was also the sound designer and effects mixer on the show. He has bounced from mixer to designer to editor as well as dabbling in music editorial during his career in NYC. At The Sound Lounge(where the film dubbed), VP of the New York City based sound house, Tony Volante, mixed music and dialog. An established NYC Re-Recording Mixer, Volante has mixed three academy award nominated documentary films in the last few years. Filmed last summer in Vancouver, Michael McGee shot production dialog. For the past decade, McGee shot sound on multiple TV movies and at least one theatrical release per year. Though the test screening I saw had a lot of 80's songs filling the musical quota for the soundtrack, I have heard rumblings that the final score will pretty bombastic! Trevor Rabin composed for the film, tracking the score at the Todd-AO Scoring Stage. Trevor is currently working on "National Treasure 2" and is going to compose on next year's "Get Smart".
CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR A Q AND A WITH SOUND MIXER SEAN GARNHART!
THE SOUND LOUNGE'S STUDIO J
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Sean Garnhart
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Tony Volante
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Sean Garnhart
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: Michael McGee
TODD SCORING STAGE
COMPOSER: Trevor Rabin
Jason Bourne breaks back into theaters August 3rd. Helping to sell all the close-quarter sounds are sound supervisors Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg. The film was mixed at Todd-AO WEST in Gary Summers, David Parker, Bob Beemer, and Scott Milan's dub stage. production mixer Kirk Francis shot the location dialog while composer John Powell scored the film at Abbey Road. Sorry for the brief entry on this film but you can get your film sound fix with the recently published Mix Magazine article HERE. There is great coverage on the LA based foley stage "One Step Up" which foley artist Dan O'Connell(brother of mixer Kevin O'Connell) shoots feet and props on some pretty big films...
"O'Connell says that when possible, they'll try to match the feeling of existing production tracks: “If we can fall into that area sonically, it helps the dubbing mixers in the long run because if they have to match something we're doing into a scene that exists, it's an easier time for them.” Adds Baker Landers, “The art of great Foley is that it sounds like it was recorded on the day [the visuals were shot].”--Mix Magazine Aug 2007
TODD-AO STAGE 2
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Karen Baker Landers
SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Per Hallberg
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Scott Millan
RE-RECORDING MIXER: David Parker
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Gary Summers
RE-RECORDING MIXER: Bob Beemer
PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER: Krik Francis
ABBEY ROAD
COMPOSER: John Powell
