Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1010948
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y S U M M E R 2 0 1 8 29 b y K a r o l U r b a n C A S M P S E Did you know right away that this story concept would require a custom approach? When I first read the script for Venom, I knew it was going to be unique for sound. So much of the storyline happens between our lead, Tom Hardy, and an invisible creature, called a symbiote, living inside him. I knew from the get-go, we would use an earwig system and, at this point, all I knew about Tom was that he was "particular" and "professional." How did you prepare on pre- shoot days to develop the logistics of this workflow? I had a couple meetings with director Ruben Fleischer to get his opinions and to see if he wanted the workflow to go a certain way. He basically left it up to me to figure out how to make it work technically … which is how I like it. I wanted to employ a Pro Tools playback operator for the days Venom would play, roughly 40 days in total, and have the sound department cue all of Venom's lines— basically setting the flow of each scene and allowing as many overlaps or pauses or ad-libs as the talent wanted. To test the workflow, I set up the VO booth in my sound trailer and brought down a new, young playback operator in Atlanta named Patrick Anderson. I told Patrick I would play Tom/Venom and read the script pages in the booth. Then I would send it through my cart and out to Patrick's Pro Tools rig. At this point, Patrick would have some time to cut all of Venom's lines and create individual files for playback markers. Once he was ready, I put the earwig in my ear and went back into the booth and did the same scene, allowing Patrick to feed the Venom dialogue. I put him through the ringer for this test … not only to see if he could handle it, this would be his first project, but also to make sure the workflow I would present to Ruben and Tom was tested and approved. Simply put, by the end of my session with Patrick, I was confident in how I wanted to proceed … but Tom had a different idea. My first meeting with Tom was to discuss ideas and have a little test session. My cart, as well as Patrick's, were set up in a small office with Tom and Ruben to flesh things out. Tom immediately came in and said the way he wanted to do it. [His plan] was to record the entire scene through and basically just mute out Eddie Brock (Tom's character). He said he would base the timing of his character on Venom in his ear, and to just play from the top of the scene.