Audio for feature films: whether it's big-budget or independent, filmmakers have a thirst for quality sound

Post, Sept, 2004 by Christine Bunish

"We're at the point in film sound where we have so many fun, cool tools," notes sound editor Steve Boeddeker of San Rafael, CA's Skywalker Sound. "Now it's time to look at the tools and make sure we use them wisely, use them to tell a story. We have to constantly ask ourselves, 'Are we using this tool just to use it or to advance the story and emotions?"'

THE VILLAGE

M. Night Shyamalan's The Village takes place in a quiet town on the edge of a forest that's had a pact with the strange, unseen creatures who live in the woods. The villagers and the creatures have kept to themselves until one of the townspeople breeches the agreement, enters the forest and the village comes under attack.

But The Village is more than a thriller. "There's the idea of the subjectivity of fear that's very societal and almost has a political sense to it," observes Boeddeker, who served as sound designer on the film. "The village is very idealistic and perfect, but there's an undercurrent of tension and fear. Different people and age groups deal with it differently. As a result the sound design had to range from literal to extremely subjective. We played with entire scenes going both ways up until the end."

Boeddeker enjoyed a close relationship with director Shyamalan throughout the filmmaking process. "It's amazing to see how Night thinks about sound. Everything comes down to the story and emotions,"--he reports.

He also teamed with Frank Eulner, a veteran of several David Lynch pictures who was sound supervisor at the start of the project. "As the sound design evolved, our credits mushed together," Boeddeker reports. "Frank is really able to get abstract and bizarre, which is where Night wanted to go a lot of the time."

Boeddeker and Eulner worked on Digidesign Pro Tools in separate rooms at Skywalker Sound (www.skysound.com), swapping scenes, which would trigger new ideas from each other. They posted mixes to an FTP site so film editor Chris Tellefsen could load them into his Avid in the edit room of Shyamalan's Pennsylvania farm. Later Boeddeker spent time with them in a Pro Tools suite on the farm. "Early on we'd sent some very subjective and surreal stuff to Chris and he loved it; then when we sent another mix that was very literal he called and asked what happened. I realized he was really hearing what we had done and appreciating it."

Since so much of the sound design is subjective, the creatures do not have a single signature sound. "The woods are as much a character as anything," he notes. "We decided to rely heavily on organic sounds that weren't synthesized or heavily processed. A lot was playing with wind, creaks and snaps--sounds that as a child you found absolutely terrifying."

The team also used mono, stereo and surround for a "small-world, big-world feel" depending on the scene. "We found that things played mono from Avid had a more documentary feel--you felt right there with them, and that really appealed to Night," Boeddeker recalls.

At Skywalker Sound, David Hughes was sound effects editor, Gwen Whittle ADR editor, Marshall Winn dialogue editor and Jonathan Null Foley editor. Shannon Mills was supervising assistant, Lisa Chino dialogue supervising assistant and Jessica Bellfort ADR assistant. Academy Award-winner Michael Semanick was the effects mixer with Lee Victor and Rob Fernandez dialogue and music mixers at Sound One, New York, James Newton Howard scored The Village.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

Like Boeddeker with Shyamalan, Paul Urmson, supervising sound editor and sound designer at New York's C5 Sound Editing (www.c5sound.com), developed a close, collaborative relationship with The Manchurian Candidate director Jonathan Demme.

Demme already had strong ties with C5 partner Ron Bochar with whom he'd worked on The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia. With Bochar occupied with The Stepford Wives, Urmson teamed with Demme on Paramount's long-awaited remake of the classic political thriller.

As soon as production wrapped on The Manchurian Candidate, Urmson and an assistant moved to Demme's offices in Nyack, NY, where the picture editing department was already at work. "I set up a 5.1 room, toned out so it would be accurate, and started doing sound design and temp mixes on scenes," he recalls. He outfitted the audio room with a Pro Tools 6.3 with plug-ins, a Controll24 surface and outboard gear. A high-speed Internet connection enabled him to access sound effects from a C5.FTP site.

Urmson also did considerable sound design work in Logic Audio. "It's so flexible with plug-ins right now while Pro Tools only supports RTAS and TDM formats," he notes.

Urmson believes working in Nyack was critical to successful audio post. "It was important to be close to the picture department so I could create things for them on the fly; even discussions over lunch generated ideas for sound design. Jonathan has a tendency to work in a very nonlinear way. He'll say, 'I have this idea, let's work on this,' and it may not be specifically effects-related. He just wants to try to get a particular emotion across."