MPSE Wavelength

Summer 2020

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44 I M PS E . O R G on the weekend to do some subtle stuff for the movie?" He'll decide, "Are we going to hear it?" "I don't know, maybe, maybe not." He'll go, "Don't do it!" But just for my own satisfaction, I think I kind of have to do it. Like any artist, you do a certain amount of the work just for yourself. And when you see the whole thing, the effects pre-dubs, and it's all there, it's kind of cool, it all works. It's kind of like saying, here's this wonderful work of art, have at it. Do what you want with it. It belongs to the world now. SL: Daylight. We did all the stu› in the empty building across the street from the shop with an old car for Foley. RLA: We actually got a car, I think it was a Nova. Most times, Foley stages would have a car door or a hood—but it was great to have an actual car body that you can hit or bang and basically do anything you want, because it's going to become scrap metal when we're done. SL: And we set up a Pro Tools out there so we could do sync recording, we could do real Foley. RLA: Yes! We ended up doing all of the Foley, where they're walking on cars in that room. We did the rest of the Foley in the standard Foley stage. That was (John) Cucci and (Dan) O'Connell. But it really sounded like being in the tunnel, and they had a whole car to jump around on and play with. That was such a treat. SL: Anastasia. RLA: That was interesting because I remember there was one number, where it becomes a waltz, and they're on the ship, and I made the ship motor—it was like a steamship—and then we cut it in 3/4 time. And so you heard the sound of the ship and as the music picks up, the ship seques into the waltz rhythm, and then of course, the music takes over. And I think at the end, it goes back to the ship, coming out of the 'one two three, one two three!' The film was alot of fun—and that whole runaway train scene. Amazing!. SL: Being John Malcovitch. RLA: The hardest sound effect of that movie was the sound of the cassette recorder. There is a sequence where John Cusack is doing his puppet show, and presumably the music he's dancing to is on a cassette recorder. And at the end of the song, the recorder's mechanism—I don't even remember, I never owned one—but there's a sound where it puts tension on the tape when it runs out, and that causes the recorder to turn off. It was some sort of straining motor and turn-off sound. Well, Spike (Jonze, the director) had one of these when he was a kid or a teenager, and it was a sound in his mind. We tried so many cassette recorders to get the sound that was in his brain—this tape recorder from when he was 14 years old or something. Some of the effects design was done by Ren Klyce in that movie. At one point, I think Ren was supposed to do the movie. I don't remember why he didn't. But he had designed the sound of being in that tunnel, which the characters crawled through to get inside Malkovich's head. He had designed that, and they were happy with it, so we went with that. But I did everything else. SL: Brother Bear. RLA: That was kind of disappointing to me, because, again, it ended up being almost all music. And again, it sounded great in the pre-dubs! SL: That was another film where you gave me Reel 1, which had a HUGE avalanche! But I A rare picture of mythical sound effects designer, John Pospisil (seated) with Richard Anderson, June 1992. Photo courtesy the collection of The Hollywood Sound Museum

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