Avatar - Audio Media

library second to none; we have an absolute cornucopia of
sounds to draw from. But even so, it's not everything: it's
the new material, the new elements, and the new sounds
that you've never heard before that, to me at least, are most
always the vehicles of the creative process. Hearing new
sounds gives me ideas that I would otherwise never have."
As creative as Boyes is, Cameron's provided script gave
the task of sound design a great jumping off point. "It was
very good at defining the world that was going to have to
be developed," says Boyes of the script. "Each creature had
its unique characteristics. For instance, the viper wolves,
which we meet early on in the film, when Jake has accidentally
become stranded out in the wilds of Pandora
– these creatures, a cross between a vicious canine and an
agile panther, almost demonic in their ability to communicate
and hunt together – had this communication path.
Jim described them in the script quite well, having 'hyena
laughs,' with 'hissing, snarling growls' that communicated
like a pack of wolves would. I guess that's what it comes
down to: creating a language for each animal; not a cry, but
a range of sounds to convey emotions and the intelligence
of the creatures."
Luckily, Boyes has a crack sound team that assists him
in his far-flung pursuits of gathering exactly the right
sounds for the script. "I don't get to go out in the field as
much as I used to," he says with the slightest hint of regret
in his voice. "So it came down to tapping a soild Editor/
Designer Addison Teague and my assistant, Dee Selby, to
record every creature they could get his hands on: raptors,
dogs, hyenas, you name it. One rich source of sounds
was at a hyena research center at UC Berkeley. He also
went to wildlife refuge center to record baby raccoon trills.
Oddly enough, for the banshees, I recorded babies of all
sorts. Oftentimes I find that when you hear newborn creatures,
they make sounds that are so unfamiliar; we rarely
hear those sounds. Literally, we recorded baby swine that
were days old."
For Boyes, "first things first" means "complicated things
first." "The creature things were really the big challenge to
have recorded right off the bat," he offers. "I approach any
film like this: wanting to do the most complicated things,
right now. Addison Teague, an absolute hero to me, has
been working with me for years now. He moved from northern
California to LA so he could work full-time in the picture
department of Avatar. Addison recorded everything from
the roots of a fallen tree to Coyotes hunting in his back yard
for months on end. He also did some jungle recording."
Once new sounds were captured, Boyes was on a mission,
anywhere and everywhere. "If you get really good
recordings, you're suddenly manipulating tropical sounds
in interesting ways," he says. "On my laptop, I would literally
bring a collection of sounds with me anywhere I would go.
If I didn't know what to do with myself, I would just make
jungle sounds because it was so much fun."
Of Languages And Lexicon
There's no denying that Boyes has a lot going on within
any given sound department of most major projects
he is involved in these days, and Avatar is no exception.
However, that doesn't mean that he wears all those hats
at the same time. "When I become the mixer, I take one
hat off, toss it, and become something else," he states
firmly. "More and more people are doing both {designing/
editing and mixing], but it wasn't always common. It's a bit
of a lineage that developed at Skywalker when Ben Burtt
started out. It was certainly not the path that anyone would
follow elsewhere in the industry, specifically Los Angeles.
Yet it is my lexicon; it is the way that I can do the best job
on a film. I've always said that it is easier for me to dump
a sound that I've made if it's not working – I'm absolutely
brutal to my own sounds. When I am mixing, I am looking
for a language to develop itself, that becomes one with the
image and story, developing along with it. No other idiom
can take place."
Speaking of developing languages, Whittle found the
capture of the fictional (yet detailed) Na'vi language a
unique example of a common theme throughout Avatar
production: unprecedented attention to detail. "The coolest
thing about the film dialogue-wise is the made-up language,"
she offers. "You'd think that no one would call you
on it as no one speaks it or knows it. I thought that it would
be simple as far as recreating it for the loop group or the
people speaking it. No. It's a made-up language, but it has a
dictionary, a vocabulary, syntax, and we were very, very specific
about that stuff. The main character, Sam Worthington's
Jake Sully – because he's not a native Na'vi speaker – they
were more forgiving with Sam on his Na'vi. However, with
the other actors, they were real sticklers about the pronunciation.
We had loop groupers on the set that learned Na'vi,
as well. The fighters/villagers became loop groupers, helping
the professional loop groupers learn to speak the language.
That was actually really fun. The person that made
up the language, Paul Frommer [a USC professor] would
come up with the words based on what was needed to be
said; he would send over an MP3 of him saying those words
so the actors could learn to speak the words. I now have my
own personal library of how to speak Na'vi!"
A Favourite Experience
As Boyes explains, "There's almost always a bit of tension
between the effects and music departments. As you can
imagine, music builds this incredibly complex track of
music. In their minds, there's really no need for sound
effects at all. Then here we come, the noise makers to
pollute their music!"
However, this was not the case on the mix stage for
Avatar. "I have to say that this is one of my most favourite
experiences working with a Composer and a music department,"
states Boyes. "Mixing, it was Gary Summers, Andy
Nelson, and myself. Andy and I had a great time; I found
him to be incredibly collaborative, to have great ideas, and
to listen to my needs as well. One thing that was a lot of fun
in that regard, for reel 9 – the second to last reel in the film
– James Horner, the composer, was with us for every day.
He loved our sound effects, which was such a wonderful
experience for me. Here's a composer, one of the greatest
composers on the planet, having a great time with our
sound effects." ∫
James Cameron – Director
Christopher Boyes – Sound Designer,
Re-Recording Mixer, and
Co-Supervising Sound Editor
Gwendolyn Yates Whittle –
Co-Supervising Sound Editor
Addison Teague –
Co-Supervising Sound Editor
Gary Summers –
Sound Re-Recording Mixer
Andy Nelson –
Sound Re-Recording Mixer
Juan Peralta –
Sound Re-Recording Mixer
James Homer – Composer
AUDIO MEDIA JANAURY 2010
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