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perspective just for that reason, for clarity and rhythm. The entire mix was focused on the dialogue. It was almost like a mix with just dialogue, with everything else in there just to accompany it." The rhyming couplet is passed from one actor to another, making the script flow without drawing too much attention to the rhyme itself. Passing the rhyme around makes the conversation more believ- able, not hokey. "When I first heard of the film," says Paterson. "I wondered, how was this going to hold my attention for the whole time? The rhyme, is it going to become annoying? But there was just the right amount of humor that every now and then it grabs you and makes you laugh. You just end up watching it as a film, and you remind yourself every now and then that there is rhyme." The accompanying score was written by director/ writer Johnny Daukes. According to supervising sound editor Rhodes, Daukes is a music man first and fore- most. He wrote, composed and recorded the score in his studio. "Johnny had designed the music to be as passive as possible," says Rhodes. "So a lot of the scor- ing was just an introduction to the style of the scene, such as '80s-style or Chicago show-stopper-style, or rap-style. The rhyming couplets would become a musical briefly and then go back into the film. The writing, the rhyming couplets and the music all worked hand-in-hand — amazingly so. It's almost a musical in places. It's brilliantly done at times." Having the script and the music written by one person was the key to success. "It almost wouldn't have worked as well if it all wasn't done by one guy,' says Paterson. "It was one person's idea, and the music and rhyming couplets came together perfectly. It would have been a more difficult task if one per- son had written the dialogue and another person the character just starts bursting into song or burst- ing into rap, it was important to know how to interweave the two." To make the dialogue tracks sound more musi- cal, Paterson used a combination of reverbs and EQ to bring the dialogue out of the room the actors were in, and make it sound more like it was part of the music. After polishing the dialogue tracks, Paterson was able to pop in and out of the music without it sounding odd. "We could go back to character for a second and be back in the room, and then go back into music," says. "It worked out well that way. It was about having that discussion and understanding before we started mixing, and the trust that it's going to work. Johnny allowed us to experiment with it. Sometimes that's taken away from you by the time you get to the dubbing stage, but this time it wasn't." For Rhodes, the fluidity of the dialogue and music is what makes Act of Godfrey so unique. "It starts with the rhyming couplets, and then before you know it, the whole thing launches into a Chicago show-stopper number without missing a beat. And then it's straight back out again. The whole film is music. Even when there is no music, it's rhythmic. When a big song comes in, it's not out of nowhere. The music seems completely fitting." Creating the sound for Acts of Godfrey was a col- laborative effort by Daukes, the director, Paterson, and Rhodes. Left to their own devices, Paterson and Rhodes were able to expand on ideas, try new things, and then present their ideas to the director. "When the director would come into the theater to have a look, he wouldn't say anything because he knew it was a work in progress," reports Paterson. "He would wait until we'd say that it was done, that Introduing Our 24 Port 10 Gigabit Ethernet Video Editing Switch • Edit Pro Res 4444, uncompressed and 2k over affordable and familiar ethernet • Optimized for video editing, no compromise performance, low latency, jumbo frames, symmetric flow control, link aggregation with LACP, full Spanning Tree Protocol support • Fully Managed, Web GUI for easy administration, redundant power supplies for maximum reliability, advanced design and power efficiency techniques for optimal operation Goldcrest London's (L-R) Adrian Rhodes and Mark Paterson lent their talents to Acts of Godfrey, which was written in rhyming couplets. had written the music. They would have had to completely been on the same wavelength." Incorporating the music posed a challenge. How would they go from straight dialogue, to a polished music track with backing vocals, without it being an odd shift? By working closely with the director, Pat- erson and Rhodes were able to obtain the proper music stems that allowed them to work in the dia- logue tracks as smoothly as possible. "We talked about what sort of stems we needed and how we'd break it all up, how much control we'd have over the music in the mix, because if you're going from just the dialogue in the film straight into the music, this is what we are happy with. And actually, nine times out of ten, he'd go with it. He'd be happy with it. He realized that he hired people with experience and who know what they're doing, and to just let them do it before he has his input. That's important to independent filmmaking. You don't have the time and the budget to be a control freak. I don't think he would have gotten the most from us, or from the soundtrack, if he didn't just allow us to do our thing." As with most indie films, time was in short supply. In four weeks, Rhodes and Paterson finished the pre-dub and the final 5.1 mix, which included deliv- ery of some elements. For the final mix, Paterson www.postmagazine.com $500 OFF ANY ST 10G24 SFP Purchase ST 10G24 SFP Provide Code PM9000 Offer Expires 01/31/12 866.STC.4MAC granitestor.com • small-tree.com 7300 Hudson Blvd., Suite 165 Oakdale, MN 55128 Post • January 2012 39