Eye on the Prize
Page 6 of 6
Sound and Sound Editing
By R. Austin
“If you boil it down to what a sound designer or sound editor does, it’s selection of the right sound at the right moment.” Simple yet true words from one who certainly knows, Skywalker Sound’s Ben Burtt, longtime sound designer/editor for the epic Star Wars series. In actuality, we all realize how difficult sound designers and editors jobs are on major motion pictures. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also takes notice, annually offering up awards for outstanding achievements in Sound Editing and Sound categories.
One to watch is Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. “Each Star Wars film requires 800 to 1000 new [sounds], if you include every weapon, every vehicle, every environment and every voice that has to be invented in some way,” explained Burtt. “On Attack of the Clones, I was also the picture editor on the film, which gives me an advantage, because I’m working right from the beginning putting the scenes together, and I can think in terms of visuals and sounds at the same time.”
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Burtt continued, “Because Star Wars is a fantasy universe, you can have fun in being very free to create things without too many ground rules. For example, I had to do an asteroid chase with sounds that I can invent out of almost anything.”
Burtt was clear to note that sound designer and editor jobs endlessly evolve through the life of a film, constantly adapting to the inevitable revisions in picture. “We are able to do a lot of experimenting up front with sounds, with the idea that George [Lucas] can hear things, like the Asteroid chase, which is kind of a highlight for sound effects in Attack of the Clones.” He continued, “I probably had a version that was fairly complete over a year ago, and yet the picture changed a lot, the sequence was longer, and it hadn’t been fully developed visually yet. But nonetheless it was a sequence that always required sound as a major component, because there is no music and very little dialog.”
In Doug Limans’ The Bourne Identity, Soundelux supervising sound editors Per Hallberg and Karen Baker tackled a high-speed car chase through the streets of Paris. Shot entirely without sound, it involved a Mini Cooper vehicle ‘flying’ though cobble stoned streets, forcing the team to create every sound in post. “It was a scene that was set up to have more of a European look than what were used to seeing here,” noted Baker and Hallberg. “We didn’t want to make it ‘as flashy’ or roaring as you would expect, but the setup of having the main character be in this old mini, and having him outrun Paris’ finest was a bit awkward to start with.” The pair continued, “The scene was not supposed to play really loud, but at the same time have a lot of character, and it had to try to help out the illusion that [the actor] was [driving] this with a pretty crappy car that was about to break down.”
Baker and Hallberg found the sound of the mini alone couldn’t carry the scene. “One of our effects editors, Chris Assells, was the one that was cutting the actual vehicle, which turned out to be a combination of original mini cooper tracks with a motorcycle. That was closest thing that we could get that would blend in and make it work. We had to work with the original sound of the car, and try to add sweeteners to that to keep the energy of the race up, without being overbearing.”
Baker and Hallberg were also quick to note that it takes an entire editing and mixing team to make a scene come to life. “We basically see this as the ultimate teamwork, and we work really closely with the effects mixers Bob Beemer and Scot Millan.”
Another ‘sound’ film worthy of mention is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with veteran Randy Thom at the sound design/supervising sound editor helm. “There were lots of challenges on this project, as you would imagine,” he noted. “The single biggest sound design consideration was the sound of the basilisk, because it’s very important in terms of the story and it had to do lots of things.”
Thom continued, “It had to sound like a snake, so we knew it had to hiss in some form, but it also has these huge teeth, so it had to bite like a T-Rex.”
Thom painted the visual picture of imagining what an 80-foot long snake sounds like when it’s in your plumbing. “The voice wound up being a combination of lots of things; my voice, elephants, horses, and big cats like tigers and lions.”
He continued, “In order to do that kind of creature voice, what you always end up doing is playing with crossfades of one element into another. So any particular vocalization may begin with my voice growling, but it has to segue into another element, then into another.”
“Also of interest on this film were the Mandrake sounds, these sort of infant plant animal things that get plucked from the dirt,” Thom noted. “I started with a baby crying, as somebody who was working on the film had a month old baby and we bought it in and recorded it. It was a real champ, crying non-stop for about 30 minutes!” He continued, “We didn’t want it to be immediately identifiable as a baby crying because it had to be more exotic. I then took various recordings of women screaming and combined them with the baby crying. You end up with these two common, immediately identifiable sounds combining into a third more exotic sound.”
Thom went on to mention a common theme that sound designers and editors must face, that of change. “The visual effects people are constantly improving on what they have, and inevitably the sync [with] the basilisk’s mouth changed from day to day.”
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