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phases was a very mechanical, almost robotic, sounding creature.
At that stage, I felt we had lost the kind nature and essence of
the creature depicted in Shaun’s book. He had evolved way too
much into a machine during this process and I felt that this was
going to hinder the intended empathetic response we wanted from
the audience.
So, the third stage involved toning it back massively and using
the sounds we had made to tastefully colour, but not overwhelm, the
creature and using pitch and texture plug-ins on various elements to
take the edge off. I ended up using most of the sounds we recorded
at one point or another in the final mix, just not all at the same time.
DM: The film features a number of semi organic, semi
mechanical creatures. How did you combine the two?
JK: These creatures are the organification of discarded bits of hard
rubbish rejected by the ordered society. Finding vocalisations for
these creatures posed a number of creative and technical challenges.
I was really inspired by how the monster roars of the original
Godzilla (1954) were created. To achieve the mass and piercing
presence of the beast, the Japanese sound team lead by Ichirô
Minawa recoded the reverb created from the sound of rubbing
a resin-coated leather glove along the strings of a double bass.
This encouraged me to seek character vocalisations that sound
organic in nature but are sourced from inanimate objects.
I found that the most effective way of addressing this was to
explore sounds inspired by the texture of any given creature.
For example, many of LT’s vocalisations are linked visually to the
movement of his iron crab like eyes. In reference to the texture of
the creature, and in sync with the expressions on the eyes, we
were able to capture and compliment the emotion and character
of creature with sighs made by squeaking a rusted old door hinge.
DM: The idea boundary between Foley and sound design is
often vague at the best of times, though can be especially
true for animation – indeed, some question the ‘sound design’
label amongst Foley and Editorial.
JK: Indeed Foley played a critical role in the creation of the final
sound design and its input was priceless at pre-production.
Adrian Medhurst’s Foley performance on this film far exceeded the
feet, handling sounds and fabric rustles Foley artist are famous for.
Adrian was as keen as I was to experiment and explore the sounds
of the strange creatures, locations and vehicles depicted in the film.
It was during this collaboration with Adrian that most of the
recordings where made.
Our distinct roles of Foley Artist and Sound Designer respectively
completely overlapped during this recording period. Indeed, the
track owes a lot to Adrian’s incredible creative contribution. Lots of
little short experiments in both of our studios lead to big libraries
of sounds. As we were given a generous development period, we
had the opportunity to explore the minutia of every movement
onscreen – which is an extreme luxury given the unfortunate trend
of shrinking post production schedules.
I also see great sound design value in the experiments as
you learn a lot of new tricks about mics and props and in the
end that is what makes you a better film sound person period.
Although the track is a combined contribution of a number of skilled
crafts people, it is ultimately the Sound Designer (or Supervising
Sound Editor if that term appeals) who is accountable to the
production and listening audience. You have to trust your team
but you also have to trust your instinct about what will work and
what wont. If you do your job right, nobody notices its existence.
If anything is out, you’ve lost your audience, the illusion of cinema is
lost and it’s on you as the person who designed it to sound that way.
DM: What’s distinguishes the idea of Sound Design from the
other disciplines?
JK: ...I’m surprised at how popular this conversation continues to
be. Coming from the short film and Indie world, the term ‘Sound
Designer’ has meant only one thing for at least a decade. That is,
the person who works with the director to design the overall sound
track to helps tell his or her story. I think that the popularity of this
term amongst my peers in the underground and its acceptance of it
by rising directors and producers internationally will hopefully break
the wave of this discussion in the near future.
In the established feature film world, there seems to be a lot of
comfort and protection of this term ‘Supervising Sound Editor’ which
perhaps aptly describes the role of some practitioners and this is
totally cool if it works for everyone involved. Who am I to judge?
I tend to work with directors who really like to engage with sound
people and who can convey complex sonic ideas for story telling
and seek for me to collaborate on the overall aesthetic of the film
through my sound work. In this role, the Supervising Sound Editor’s
contribution extends further than just supervising a team of sound
editors. Many great directors have also been quoted to believe that
sound is 50% of the film going experience and subsequently give
this process a lot of attention in their filmmaking process. So as a
sound person, if your creative contribution to a film is at least that of
the Production and Costume designers, why not call yourself a sound
designer? It is what we are doing, isn’t it?
Like any designer in any field from town planning to building
robots, sound designers are hired onto projects, given a design
brief and are ultimately required to satisfy someone else’s creative
vision. Like all designers, we sound designers work with a team of
specialised crafts people who all contribute to satisfy this vision.
DM: Can you think of an example that illustrates that?
JK: The beginning of the beach scene is one of my favorite sound
design moments in the film. It established the environment, gives
weight and personality to the characters and guides the audience
hearing. This was all achieved during the pre-mix.
The atmosphere was layered using about a dozen tracks. I used
a number of distant sounds from factories, gentle winds and water
laps from an industrial beach and other small industrial highlights
as my core ingredients. Like almost every atmosphere in the film, the
sound pressure level of each element is in constant state of flux as to
tune the audience’s listening point of that of the character ‘Boy’ as
his listening focus changes.
With every step the boy takes we hear the grainy sand compress
beneath his feet and the jiggling of bottle caps the boy has collected
in his bag that day. These were beautifully recorded and performed
by Adrian. Whilst Adrian recorded a bunch of other layers and feet
options for this character, I used only these particular sounds for the
boy in this scene as they reinforced the narrative point of where he
is and what he was doing at the beach that day. ∫
AUDIO MEDIA JUNE 2011
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