BoxOffice® Pro - June 2014

SPECIAL REPORT > AUDIO
SOUND
APPEAL
Sound designers talk shop
at the Tribeca Film Festival
by Daniel Loria
Oscar Isaac as a ’60s
Greenwich Village
folksinger in the Joel
and Ethan Coens’
Inside Llewyn Davis
n Dolby recently brought together top
sound professionals to discuss the importance
of sound in film at this year’s Tribeca Film
Festival. Titled “The Art of Sound Design
and Music,” the panel featured moderator
Glenn Kiser, director of the Dolby Institute,
in conversation with a pair of leading sound
professionals: Academy Award–winning sound
designer and mixer Skip Lievsay (Gravity, True
Grit, No Country for Old Men, Inside Llewyn
Davis) and music supervisor Susan Jacobs
(American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, Little
Miss Sunshine). The industry veterans screened
clips from some of their most celebrated
work, sharing with the festival audience their
strategies and techniques for using sound as
a storytelling tool and their insights on what
makes sound such a central part of the cinema
experience. BoxOffice Pro shares some of the
highlights from the conversation.
Skip Lievsay on the use of sound during
a pivotal moment in Inside Llewyn Davis:
“We got to a key section of the film . . . I
thought it was a major stepping-off point where
[Llewyn] basically has to confront his art, his
personality, his ability to always say the wrong
thing at the wrong time, and the possibility of
continuing to appear at the Greenwich Village
clubs of the day or go forward to meet this producer—which
is where he is traveling on the
road trip. When he decides to leave the cat behind,
to me that it is when decides to close the
door on that part of his life and go forward.”
Skip Lievsay on his process of working
with the Coen brothers:
“When they finish shooting, they take a
little trip—usually a week or two—and then
they start editing and we start editing at the
same time. While they’re cutting their very
basic assembly, we’re working behind them and
going through what they’ve edited and selected
and try to figure out what they have up their
sleeves, what’s on their minds. We work out
our idea then as well—my crew and sound
designer—we start our own process. This way,
when they get to the end of the edit, they say,
‘Okay, this is our first cut.’ Usually at that point
we’re getting ready to show it to Mr. Rudin or
Mr. Paramount, or somebody who paid for it
is about to be shown the film, so they’re upset
and full of agony—but at least we have a mix
track, and a 5.1 mix, so we’re ready to play the
music and sound effects.”
Susan Jacobs on being a music supervisor:
“As a job definition as a music supervisor,
I really oversee the music department and
help the director find a composer; I help
them find the source material. I am also very
responsible for coming up with marketing
ideas [on the soundtrack]. The record industry
has changed, so there’s not that much of it
in what we do now. And then all the licensing
and the rights, to make sure everything is
legal and clear. The whole department is
really about facilitating a director’s vision.
Julian Schnabel loves music and knows what
he wants in a movie, and we’re there to guide
him along. With Little Miss Sunshine I came
in because the directors have an idea that the
producers weren’t comfortable with, which
was using an unknown band that nobody
knew back then—Devotchka—and [the filmmakers]
wanted them to do the music and the
producers were like, ‘No, this is crazy.’ They
hired me to get rid of that idea, but what I
actually did was to make that idea work.”
Susan Jacobs on the difficulty of source
music and scoring:
“Source music is really, really expensive, so,
basically, if you know the song, or your mother
or grandmother knows the song, you can’t
afford the song. That’s why I love working out
of New York, the inspiration of finding something
or someone new. Knowing the financial
obstacles, we don’t need to spend this much on
a composer; let’s give someone the opportunity
to pour more money into the film’s budget. For
David O. Russell, score is very tough for him,
as well as for Julian Schnabel and Jean Marc
Vallée. I have a lot of directors that don’t use a
lot of score.”
34 BoxOffice ® Pro The Business of Movies JUNE 2014