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AnEFXsound designs The Event bits & pieces B URBANK — AnEFX (www.anefx.com) is providing sound design for the NBC politi- cal/sci-fi thriller The Event.The project marks AnEFX's third job working with producer/director Jeffrey Reiner, having collaborated in the past on Caprica for SyFy Network and Trauma for NBC. Daniel Colman, who won an Emmy for his work on Battlestar Galactica, is the supervising sound editor for the show. Music is composed by Scott Starrett The Event centers around a government cover-up combination of sounds for the jumbo jet barreling in. In addition to the actual 737, I used the sound of a fighter plane and various metal scrapings. After the plane noise took hold for a while, I started adding in roaring wind, twister and thunder effects. I built the audio of the plane up higher and higher until it felt as if it was ready to explode; at which point the worm- hole appears and sucks the plane in. At the moment when the plane vanished, I took out all the sound for a split second and then hit it back in with a hard NECoffers new color-critical display C of an alien population and their integration among Earth’s population. In one scene, a commercial air- plane disappears into a mysterious wormhole, and the studio called upon guitarist Joshua Grange, who recently toured with the Eagles and Dixie Chicks , to create the sound effect.“The wormhole that sucks the plane away is made up of various sounds that Joshua and I came up with,” explains Colman. “We used his aluminum lap steel guitar and a bunch of effect pedals.We scraped and hit the strings of the guitar while sweeping the settings of the ped- als.We did not play the guitar in the traditional sense. Instead we used the guitar to produce strange noises in the same way as I might use any non-musical, sound-producing object.The idea was to get organic noises from physically playing a sound rather than editing or programming one." Long before the audience sees the wormhole, Colman began introducing sounds.“Then I added in a boom.The moment of silence is critical for the audi- ence to feel the shockwave. If you just keep on build- ing sounds louder and louder, even the most massive explosion will sound small because the ear gets used to the bombardment of sound.” The show relies heavily on flashback scenes to tell a story that spans over 60 years. "It is important to use appropriate sounds to match the time period,” says Colman.“When we showed the aliens arriving in Alaska in 1944, a P-51 Mustang flies over the crash site.While I had some nice exterior sounds of the plane, I did not have any interior recordings. I went on YouTube and found some first person videos of peo- ple flying planes. Using those videos as a guide, I lay- ered and tweaked the exterior sounds to match what it sounds like inside the cockpit." Colman edits elements in a Pro Tools|HD2 with a 192 I/O. He carries a Sony PCM-D50 flash recorder with him everywhere he goes to collect sounds. Sonyadds to XDCAM family P HICAGO — NEC Display Solu- tions (www.necdisplay.com) has introduced the MultiSync PA231W, a new 23-inch professional graphics moni- tor designed for color-critical apps.The display features a number of connectiv- ity options, including DisplayPort, two DVI-D inputs,VGA and a USB hub. The PA231W provides full 1920x1080 HD resolution and a con- trast ratio of 1000:1. Graphics pros will appreciate its 14-bit 3D lookup table (LUT) for precise color calibrations. Ad- ditionally, by using DisplaySync Pro tech- nology, users can control two comput- ers connected to the MultiSync PA231W with only one keyboard and mouse, each with its own color space. The AmbiBright ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness based on external lighting conditions. The MultiSync PA231W, which has been available since last month at an estimated street price of $679, ships with a four-year parts and labor limited warranty. ARK RIDGE, NJ — Sony (www.sony.com) continues to evolve its tapeless XDCAM line, having enhanced its PDW- HR1 HD field recorder with the addition of two SxS media slots.This update gives users the ability to record to solid-state media in the field,as well as to archive the SxS content to Sony’s Professional Disc media. The upgraded model has been renamed the PDW-HR1/MK1 and is available now.The compact unit offers 4:2:2 HD image quality and features voiceover recording capabilities, which are useful to ENG crews or documentary produc- ers.A microphone can be connected directly to the HR1 for recording of a narration track in the field and a rough cut edit.The final edit can be saved on the Professional Disc media or sent directly to mi- crowave via the recorder’s DVB-ASI output. In addition to 1920x1080 HD resolution and eight-channel 24-bit uncompressed audio, the recorder features a built-in up/downconverter, and provides multi-for- mat (1080i/720p) recording flexibility,as well as cross-conversion during playback between 1080i and 720p. It has 24p (23.98) record/playback capability for 4:2:2 HD content as a standard feature. 4 Post • December 2010 www.postmagazine.com