MPSE Wavelength

66 I M PS E . O R G GETTING STARTED Our sound work on Radioactive began early in the post schedule during the Director's Cut phase of the film edit. Our director, Marjane Satrapi, insisted on this, as she felt sound had an important role to play in shaping the film and saw the potential for it to inform the edit. This proved a really ideal way of working for us as the sound design and edit became part of the picture-editing process and was a collaboration between the sound department, Marjane and her film editor, Stéphane Roche. Our crew was small; Adele Fletcher was our supervising dialogue and ADR editor (Nigel Mills) took over later in the process, when our schedule extended and Adele had to move on to a previous commitment), Jo Jackson, our first assistant sound editor and additional FX editor, with me taking on the supervising, sound designer, and FX editing roles. I really like the idea of working as a smaller crew over a longer period of time. It gives each of us more of an ownership over the work and allows for a more hands- on approach to all aspects of the editorial. Most importantly, it allows the work to evolve and develop over time. We are always trying to figure out what will work best sound-wise for a film; time allows us to go on a journey with this, it gives space for exploration and experimentation, and, ultimately, gives us room to find the best, truest version of the sound for what we are working on. My first contact with Radioactive was the script, which was sent to me while they were shooting. Once I had read it and made many notes, I began to gather sounds I thought might be useful and made a list of things I would need to record, design, and potentially purchase. I then had a really good Skype call with the film editor, Stéphane Roche and the main producer, Paul Webster. I travelled to London for a screening of the first assembly, which was great as it gave me a real overview of what the film was shaping into. It was a real gift to get to see this early cut of the film to help me refine my notes and begin to think about the sound possibilities for the film. Our first official morning on the job (a few weeks later) began with a screening of the cut-in-progress at Working Title's screening room. Afterward, Marjane discussed several sequences she wanted us to focus on for her upcoming Director's Cut screening. These sequences involved some of the bigger design scenes and areas of problem dialogue. Her main focus was on parts of the film where sound could help this early audience experience of the film. Often, the hardest part of the work is the blank canvas in front of us on day one, so it was great to have such a clear place to start and a time frame to deliver in. The work evolved from there. We had three weeks to that DC screening, so needed to work quickly and present some ideas that we could develop in the time available. By the end of that first week, we were showing some of that work-in-progress, getting notes and feeling very much 'in' our sound work for the film. Over the course of the schedule, we worked through three temp mixes and two audience previews. We had a high volume of turnovers and kept conforming so that we carried all of our work through to our final mix. It was a very organic way to work and we feel like it really benefited the final result. CAPTURING THE SOUNDS OF OUR HISTORY The film itself posed many interesting and exciting sound challenges. The body of the story, a section of Marie Curie's life, takes place in Paris from the 1890s-1930s. It was an exciting period to tackle, as Paris was in the throes of Modernity. The cobbled streets were filled with horse and carts, but the Metro was also under construction (we see it behind Marie and Pierre, after he proposes to her) and cars were becoming more of a feature of everyday life. Electricity was becoming common in homes. Cinema, the telephone, and the gramophone were all part of reality. It gave us a broad range of traditional period film sound to play with in our backgrounds and

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