MPSE Wavelength

Fall 2020

Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316380

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 75 of 81

76 I M PS E . O R G all knew that this sequence was extremely important and it must be highlighted. Meanwhile, we started to work on the idea of additional music. It turns out that Darius did not want music that is more "musical" than the diegetic music of the film. He was looking for music that describes the inner mental universe of Ruben. We wanted the use of his music to be minimal—almost "invisible." I told Darius about the Baschet—an instrument that I practice with and which I really like. Baschet sound structures are for me like acoustic synthesizers or like phantom orchestral sounds. I played the Baschet for Abe and he loved them. We recorded some Baschet in their workshop which is a place I love. Our project was therefore to compose additive music which would be a mix between the sounds of the concert of the opening sequence and the Baschet. This was like a work on the decomposition of the auditory memory of the first scene of the film. As for the sound effects, I was a Foley artist for a very long time and as such was able to work on films such as The Pianist, Gravity, and Arrival. But it often happens that I no longer have the time to make the sound effects on the films that I am working on from A to Z. Moreover, I much prefer to make Foley on location—which is not always possible. But I haven't been frustrated since I met this wonderful Finnish Foley artist called Heikki Kossi. He is a great performer and I went to his studio so that we could discuss recording techniques. He knew exactly what I was looking for. I told him about experiences on Gravity of creation of intracorporeal sound points of view. Obviously, Heikki did an amazing job on the film. Three years ago, I made an album for Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith on texts by Antonin Artaud. At that time, the co-producer of the album Leo Heiblum brought me to the Splendor Omnia Studio and I was able to connect with its owner, the director Carlos Reygadas. When we talked about the mixing of the film, I immediately thought of this studio built in the middle of the silence of the mountains. This was such a great place to end this film in particular. Our decision was quickly made that we were going to mix at Splendor Omnia near Tepoztlan. Since we had to go to Mexico, we took the opportunity to make a detour through LA to spend a few days with my friend, music producer Mario Caltado Jr. in his Eagle Rock studio to work on the sound of the concert. We wanted to give it a brutal and somewhat dirty colour. After that, we went to Mexico to finish the sound editing and mixing at Splendor Omnia. It is important it in an extreme way to produce artefacts close to the descriptions of old hearing devices. In most of the films I work on, my first reflex is always to immerse myself in the real context of the situation of the film if possible. I like to document myself as much as possible. . I think the cognitive and physiological aspect of the sound is often underestimated. We think so much about storytelling, clarity, time, and space information. But I'm also interested by complexity, opacity, body memory, sensations, and confusion. I like to bring the audience to question the relationship between the picture and the sound and to try to deepen the classic sounding vocabulary. I also think that if you do something hyperrealistic, you put the audience in an inconscient connection with their own body memory. I think it's a way to put them in the reality of the film. I like the sentence from my friend, artist Philippe Parreno: "a reality creates a fiction, a fiction creates a reality." Sound editor Carolina Santana, who came to join me on the film, took charge of the editing of the live shows and the musical sequences. She spent a lot of her time on the opening sequence. We

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of MPSE Wavelength - Fall 2020