Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/407863
44 CINEMONTAGE / NOV-DEC 14 one of the temp mix was actually day one of the final because the technicalities of the mixing room set-up were exactly the same all the way through to print master day. Thus, there was no temp mix. Naturally, the sound crew works closely with editor Lee Smith, ACE, a former sound editor, who enjoys the mixing process and knows all the key aspects that have to be communicated (see related story, page 34). "He knows when we have the emotional high points and when we don't," Landaker says. At the same time, there's a lot of dynamic range, including the absolute silence of space with quiet dialogue sequences inside the ship. "Chris asked us to keep it simple by staying away from a traditional NASA, sci-fi background," Rizzo says. "For long stretches, we only go with the production track inside the ship." The production track, mixed by Rizzo, had to create the complete reality inside the ship. At one point, when the McConaughey character is put through physical duress, the soundtrack wasn't believable. "The idea was to make it sound like a GoPro camera recording, so familiar to people of the YouTube generation that they would believe this peculiar event, which was entirely based on Thorne's theories, was tangibly happening to the character," Rizzo continues. "We got some good results by creating our own perceived flaws and cut them in to feel GoPro-like. It helped to sell the idea of struggle. You're inside his suit and helmet during a perilous and unfathomable circumstance; everything is inside. It's that awkward manipulation of a less- than-ideal point of view that we wanted to get." Also heard are some transmissions from Earth, a catalogue of voicemails that are stored on the ship's hard drive, according to King. "Chris wanted a particularly antique sound for those," the sound editor explained. "So we actually transferred the dialogue of the recorded, transmitted signals to 16mm optical, processed it, played the 16mm optical track back and recorded that — which gave it a compressed, distorted, slightly wavering sound. It sounds familiar and old and fits the idea that they've been sent from Earth years before but they're only being received now on the ship." According to the sound team, the biggest sonic game-changer overall in Interstellar was really making the audio experience more immediate by having the ship react to these various environments in space, buffeted by gravitational forces. "We wanted the sound to work in every theatre, but we didn't want to mix for the lowest common denominator," King continues. "It sounds awesome in the best theatres, but is still effective in all the others. It's like the Beach Boys giving a test pressing of a single to DJs back in the 1960s so they could hear it in their cars, in a real-world setting — the way the audience is going to be hearing it." f Top, Gregg Landaker. Above, Gary Rizzo. Left, Interstellar. Paramount Pictures