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50 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 with an idea we thought could work. On the stage, it was mixed differently, so it morphed considerably from the original version. The director heard the new version and liked it, but wanted to feature the choirs more in the section; they were already there, but not fully featured. So now, it has a more mythical feel to it." In addition to the remix of the Depeche Mode song, the movie features a hybrid version of a new Pitbull song, "Ocean to Ocean," which was written and performed for the movie, combined with a chorus utilizing Toto's "Africa" covered by Rhea, a female vocalist. The movie also offers an original new song called "Everything I Need," written and performed by recording artist Skylar Gray, over the end credits — with chunks of the song also woven into various parts of the score by Gregson- Williams. Rabjohns relates that the point of using the new end-title song this way was to make it represent a particular character. "That way, when you hear the song at the end, it has a lot of resonance because you've been hearing oblique references to it throughout the film." The process of adding "Everything I Need" into the movie was a massive collaborative effort, according to George. "Skylar wrote the song and played it on a piano, and then Rupert took it and orchestrated it," he says. "We demo'd it, played it for James Wan and the studio, and then it went through a few incarnations where it was sped up and slowed down until everyone was comfortable. We recorded the orchestra overdub for the song and a few underscore cues into which Rupert had incorporated her melody — they are mostly in small, suggestive bits for a particular character." To make it all work, the editors emphasize that they had a powerful technical infrastructure at their disposal. They both used ProTools 12 HD, and relied on several plug-ins they found highly useful. These include the Serato PitchNTime program and the ProTools' X-Form tool for time compression and pitch- shifting work, respectively. But in particular, they say the Izotope RX7 plug-in known as Music Rebalance was a crucial arrow in their quiver. "That was a game-changer for mixing songs into movies when you only have a stereo master with the vocal baked in," Rabjohns says. "It enabled us to bring down vocals that interfered with dialogue without having to drop the whole song down, and to mix stereo songs with a bit more finesse. I used the vocal isolator part of the plug-in for that." In particular, Rabjohns recalls using Music Rebalance on Roy Orbison's "She's a Mystery to Me" (written by U2's Bono and the Edge) because the director wanted the end of the song to be presented a cappella. "I had done the best I could with phase reversal to remove the stereo information, and EQ'd the best I could to bring out the vocal, but it was only a so-so result," he says. "But then I tried RX7, and it had an almost voodoo-like ability to isolate the vocal." Both music editors feel their Aquaman experience was an opportunity to push the envelope further than ever before, particularly since this was the first in a planned series of movies about the character. Therefore, there was no clear template for them to follow. "It was quite unique," Rabjohns explains. "I worked on several Fast and Furious movies, and they were all different to an extent, but there were always certain expectations and set pieces in an established franchise like that in terms of how sound and music work together. For that franchise, it's been evolving for eight movies now, so it's kind of like a James Bond film. When you see a Bond film, you know what you will get, what the big theme is and all that. "With Aquaman, this is completely original," he adds in conclusion. "This is the first one, and so everything we tried was, at the time, a new idea. That was quite exhilarating." f Aquaman. Warner Bros. Pictures & DC Comics CONTINUED FROM PAGE 48