Post Magazine

or some studios that handle audio post, game and DVD titles repre- sent a significant por tion of their workload. And for others that find them- selves doing sound for commercials and films, games and DVD projects rep- resent a welcome form of new business — one that they'd like to see grow. DVDs might require restoration services or offer the oppor tunity to cre- ate unique content, giving studios the chance to truly par tner with a client and pitch original ideas. Games also offer creative oppor tunities, as well as management challenges that come from the huge number of audio cues that make up a soundtrack. Here's a look at a hand-full of audio post houses that regularly work on both. N E W WAV E E N T E RTA I N M E N T The content development and production division at New Wave En- ter tainment (www.studio-nwe.com) in Burbank produces DVD special features and direct-to-DVD work, as well as new media and interactive projects. The studio is home to six Digidesign Pro Tools-based audio suites, including a commentary production suite that hosts talent when creating bonus content for DVD and Blu-ray releases. The commentary room can be used to record eight or more people as they view material from any of the room's four monitors.The studio is equipped with Sennheiser 416 microphones and a Pro Tools|HD work- station. New Wave uses Fairlight consoles for mixing and manages assets via Avid's ISIS solution. According to executive director of interactive media Andrew Carlson, the studio has seen an increase in the 5.1 and 7.1 soundtrack work that's being linked to bonus content."Back in the [standard definition] days, a lot of those things — they would not have taken the money and resources to have done that," says Carlson, of the more elaborate soundtracks. The commentary sessions the studio handles goes beyond a typical in-studio recording session. "With Blu-ray we've been doing a lot of vi- sual commentar y, so the commentar y is moving outside of the commentar y room and is becoming fully produced video pieces. We're placing them in a sec- ondar y video, on top of picture. Sometimes they are just a talking head of the filmmaker or somebody that can speak on the film. If it's comic book based, we might have the original illustrators along with the director and production de- signers all sharing their experiences." New Wave regularly works with Warner Bros., Universal, Fox and Sony. They are also seeing growth in work from Paramount and Disney. At any given time, as many as 100 projects can be in the works at the studio — some for as little as a few months, and others, much longer. "The Dark Knight was in here for over a year," Carlson recalls."The studio asked us to start coming up with our best ideas [because they expected] it to be really large." One unique piece of bonus content focused on sound design and the work of Richard King, who was recognized with an Oscar for his work on the film. Other recent projects include the Bourne Trilogy box set, Wanted and Get Smart, along with a steady stream of catalog releases from studios such as Warner Bros. Constantine Nasr is a DVD producer in the home enter tainment division of New Wave and has been putting his love for classic features to work on releases for Warner Bros and MGM in recent years. Over the last six years, Nasr has provided restoration services as well as cre- ated bonus content for six Looney Tunes box sets, three Popeye collections and a classic animated Superman release. "We tr y to create special features that bring anything we can find from the archives into the open for fans, and to promote these classic films," says Nasr. One example of New Wave's special feature work is what Nasr has done for Looney Tunes; he's restored scores from the '40s, '50s and '60s, and matched them to the visuals, creating music-only soundtracks. "It takes a lot of time — not only to make sure they are in sync,"' he says. "We would recreate these music-only scores as well as music and sound effects tracks, because the sound effects on these car toons were very, very extensive. It would take days to line up a six-minute score. We worked with a number of restoration houses outside of New Wave, and did a lot of the clean up here to make it sound as pristine as possible." These catalog titles are par ticularly challenging when it comes to creating commentar y because many of the directors and animators originally involved are no longer living. "We find historians to do commentary and have found interview bites — vin- tage videotaped interviews from the '80s — incorporated it, cleaned it up and did some inter-cutting just to get the actual voices of the people who did the produc- tion. That's a key for us and a lot of work goes into it too. That's really something that I pride myself in: getting the people that made [the originals]. We clean those old tapes up — things that no one ever thought they were going to use.You are hearing them for perhaps the only time." Nasr worked on a more recent title with director Terry Gilliam for the 2008 Blu-ray release of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. "There were 20 pages of script that were cut from the original film and never shot," notes Nasr,"so I asked Terry and his co-star to perform an audio track of the deleted scenes. Not only did they read the script, they improvised with sound ef- fects and songs that he made up while we were recording, and we visualized that with storyboards, which he provided." Another new title features the Tom and Jerry collection, with bonus content that includes interviews with the now deceased Chuck Jones. "Somebody happened to have it and let me use it, so it's in there," says Nasr of the Jones audio. "Maybe you put in a little subtitle because it is so poor, but you have to take it for what it is. At least it's the opportunity to hear the artist talking about his own work." C L AT T E R & D I N Seattle's Clatter & Din (www.clatterdin.com) was celebrating its 15th anniver- sary at press time, as well as the recent opening of its new facility. According to Peter Barnes, who's a partner at the studio with Vince Werner, the company pur- chased space in a 100-year-old, six-story, brick and wood warehouse last year, and called on Dallas-based designer Russ Berger to create two high-end 5.1 surround rooms on the floor that it calls home.The building is in the area near Seattle's new sports stadiums, which is in the early stages of development. To succeed in the Seattle market, Barnes says Clatter & Din has to keep costs down and be able to do many things. "We're not LA, where you are able to niche yourself and do 'mono Foley' and that's it," he jokes. The studio handles sound design, ADR, independent films and music, and is see- ing growth in its audio-for-games services because of the hot-bed of activity taking place in the northwest. "We decided that it was impor tant for us to take the company to the next www.postmagazine.com May 2009 • Post 33 Andrew Carlson (front) and Constantine Nasr in New Wave's Commentary Suite. The studio spent a year working on The Dark Knight DVD release.

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