Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/51295
Audio for Indies really need to use a good crew, to have the best people, to make sure we specifically don't sound like that." Working with a small, intimate crew allowed Sullivan to achieve great results on a very tight schedule. The film was pre-dubbed in five days. The final Bosnian version with English subtitles was mixed in five days, and an English version, not for release, was mixed in six days. "Basically the whole film was cut with me, dialogue editor Glynna Grimala and sound effects editor/mixer Ben Wilkins. I also asked Jon Taylor to do this film with me. Jon is a great dialogue mixer, and we have worked on many films together." Sullivan saved a lot of time by having Jolie she was and what she was feeling." While many independent films forgo In the Land of Blood and Honey: Soundelux's Becky Sullivan made sure the sound of the prisoner's room reflected the emotions of the story. ADR, due to restrictions of time and budget, or just to keep the performances of the actors intact, In the Land of Blood and Honey required a substantial amount of ADR, says Sullivan. "We did ADR for line changes and story points that needed to be clarified. Also, we went through and decided on certain accents. Because it's very political, we had to make sure the accents were correct as far as the Bosnian, Serbian and the Croatian accents. They had to say things in the right way, and in the right tones. Our Bosnian pic- ture editor knew the tone the director wanted and there was a long list of ADR we had to do to make sure we had the tone and the accents correct." Since the film was shot mostly in Bosnia, in the Serbo-Croatian language, it was a bit of a challenge for Sullivan to cut the dialogue. "It was challenging to cut it when you can't understand the dialogue. We had a few inter- preters come in and out, and they joined me toward the end. The picture editor's first language was Bosnian, so that was a little challenging. But dialogue is dialogue, and you know where the background sounds are, and what trouble you have, and you fix it." The ADR was recorded in a variety of locations. The majority was recorded in the studio in Los Angeles, or over ISDN lines from Bosnia, but for a few lines, Sullivan clev- erly used the Voice Memos app on an iPhone. "There were two lines that we kept trying, and we just didn't like them. We wanted to do a line change, and there were some issues, and the lead actor, Goran Kostic, was in Bosnia. He was home and it was the 11th hour, so we couldn't get him to an ADR stage. We got a hold of him, and asked if he had an iPhone. He did. So I told him to go into the quietest room in his house, turn on the Voice Memos app, hold the iPhone at arms length, and speak the lines 10 or 15 times, in many different ways and then email 38 Post • January 2012 it to me. Within a short time, we had it back. I cut the dialogue and we threw it in the movie and it works." Another challenging aspect for Sullivan was creating a dinner scene from scratch using production dialogue and ADR. The scene included five or six characters at a table, which may or may not be discussing a conspiracy. The conversation was intention- ally ambiguous. "This wasn't a scene we went into knowing how we were going to do it," she explains. "We had production dialogue and ADR that we cobbled togeth- er to make a very interesting sound design of people chatting at a table, that makes the audience wonder what's really happening with these characters." Using an interpreter, Sullivan took notes on exactly what the characters around the table were saying, and from those notes, was able to cut the dialogue in a way that made sense. "It's in Bosnian. So I had to bring in someone to tell me exactly what people were saying. I was cobbling together pieces of words, pieces of sentences, and having it play and flow together even though I didn't know exactly what they were saying. I got the inter- preter and he gave me notes on each word, each line. I took those notes and all the lines and re-cut it together. Angie loved how we did the sound design on that and mixed it together; the audience really has to listen and see if it's a conspiracy or not." Sullivan's approach to the sound on In the Land of Blood and Honey was more documentary-style, as opposed to making it sound like a highly polished Hollywood film. "It's an intimate story, a love story about how a man and a woman get through the war when they're on opposite sides. So, I felt like the director's vision was to have it sound more documentary-style film, more realistic, and not a polished product. Even though it is a polished product, it doesn't have a slick Hollywood sound job. I was try- ing not to have that slick sound and you www.postmagazine.com approve all of the dialogue and sound effects before the final mix happened with Jon Tay- lor. "I brought Angie over here to Soundelux and set her up in one of the 5.1 design rooms, and we ran all the effects for her so that there would be no surprises. We changed things and did things here at Soun- delux, which saved time on the mix side. We got everything approved before hand. Angie was the last word. We didn't have to hear from a lot of other people in the room. It was just us. That was pretty freeing." For Sullivan, independent films aren't about the budget; they're about the film and the filmmaker. "There are times with the bigger features where there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, from the studio and that sort of thing. For this film, Angie was the say-so. It was her film. The process was extremely collaborative. Just because you're working on a smaller budget film doesn't mean that your level of creativity and artistry are toned down. I do the same job on an independent feature as I would on a big-budget film — I can't change the way I do things. Independent film gives you room to challenge yourself a little bit more, to get things done." ACTS OF GODFREY Re-recording mixer Mark Paterson and supervising sound editor Adrian Rhodes from Goldcrest Post London (www.gold- crestpost.com/post_london) completed the audio post for the indie film Acts of Godfrey. The film is expected to be released in the UK on January 27, 2012. It was vital that every single line of dia- logue in Acts of Godfrey be clear. The film is written in rhyming couplets and is accom- panied by a custom score, making it a musi- cal experience. According to Paterson, "Mix wise, the main approach was just to make sure that the dialogue took precedence over every- thing else, and that the dialogue was rela- tively un-dynamic. The dialogue was always up there in the mix. We played less with