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www.postmagazine.com 27 POST AUDIO FOR INDIE FILMS FEBRUARY 2017 ach January the Sundance Film Festival presents an array of interesting, unique and noteworthy independent films that cover all genres. From horror to black comedy, from ex- perimental to experiential, there's a film to fit every taste. The Sundance line-up is always top-notch. What the films lack in budget they make up for in character. Here, we look at a few films that have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival: Burning Sand, Band Aid and Life, Animated. Supervising sound editors Mac Smith, Penny Coghlan, and Pete Horner, along with director Roger Ross Williams, share their sound stories of these Sundance films. BURNING SANDS Director Gerard McMurray takes on the topic of fraternity hazing in his debut feature film, Burning Sands, which premiered in US dramatic competi- tion at Sundance this January. Set in a fictitious his- toric black university (HBCU) in the south, Burning Sands follows fraternity pledge Zurich (played by Trevor Jackson) through the harrowing final stretch of "Hell Week." Supervising sound editor Mac Smith, at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, CA (www.skysound.com), says director McMurray "based the campus in the film on his experience at Howard University. He went through the fraternity process, but it wasn't this extreme." Smith and Skywalker re-recording mixer Brandon Proctor were both invited to work on Burning Sands by producer Jason Berman, with whom they worked on Birth of a Nation (2016). According to Smith, director McMurray's ini- tial directives concerned the sound of the campus. "He wanted the campus to sound authentic, and wanted to make sure all the environments sounded correct, like the scenes during a big house party, and the exterior scenes where we hear a drumline and marching band warming up. The crowds need- ed to sound correct," Smith says. Smith layered crowd ambience effects with specific loop group recorded details — provided by loop group coordinator Barbara Harris, to craft a precise sound. This was particularly effective during the film's final hazing event where the pledges are led to a barn filled with fraternity brothers, many more than the handful that had been doling out the hits all week. The general crowd effects gave Smith the size he needed, and the loop group call-outs gave him specificity. "It's almost like a horror moment, where you hear all of these voices and all of this chaos. The pledges don't know what to expect. It's bigger than what they expected and so we really tried to bring that chaos with the vocals. The pledges are being pushed into different corners, and being abused violently," says Smith. The vocals were supported by sound design, effects, Foley hits, punches and wooden paddle impacts. Smith worked with Foley artist Andrea Stelter Gard to help bring the fight sounds to life. By manipulating the intensity of the chaos in the barn — creating high and low moments in the sound, Smith was able to build the activity up right before dropping out the sound during a critical event. "You have to ride those ups and downs. There's a lead-up to this very quiet, nearly silent moment. The floor drops out sound-wise, making the scene that much more intense," he says. Another standout sequence for sound was a pool scene. The pledges are blindfolded, linked arm-in-arm, lined up against a wall, and told to crouch. It's a dynamic sequence that starts out quietly, with the pledges making cautious exchang- es. They're interrupted by a metal bucket clang. Metal buckets filled with tennis balls clang together in a percussive, rhythmic sound. Off-screen is the sound of tennis balls bouncing around the big, re- verberant space. Then everything stops. The pledg- es are told to walk forward slowly. Eventually they fall in the pool together. Then, the sound explodes. Older fraternity brothers pelt the pledges with tennis balls as they splash in the water, bobbing up and down. To create this pool scene, Smith recorded tennis balls bouncing in a reverberant space of the Tech building at Skywalker Ranch. There, he used a Sound Devices 722 recorder and Sankin CMS-9 M/S microphone to record the ball bounces, as well as body impacts, which he created by clapping his hands and slapping his chest and stomach. "Those impact elements worked great throughout the film for some of the more violent moments," he says. For the water impacts and splashes, Smith searched Skywalker's extensive sound library that includes custom recordings, like splashing sounds he recorded for the bathhouse scene in Crimson Peak, and commercial libraries, such as a set from Tonstrum libraries called the "Sound of Water." Of the Tonstrum sounds, Smith says, "Some of those underwater impact sounds inspired me for the scene. It felt like the chaos was happening from all around. That helped me go in a different direction. I tend to build scenes very musically, so I layer sounds that cover the low, mid, and high fre- quencies. I like to build sound design in a musical fashion." There was also a percussive element to Smith's water design. "The tennis balls are attacking the surface of the water, so I put in the sound of bullets hitting water, and harsh splashes. Director Gerard McMurray wanted it to sound similar to the pledges being paddled in another scene, so I also included some of the elements I used in the wood paddling, like door slams, explosive hits and boxing punches," Smith details. For reverb, Smith works with Audio Ease's Altiverb. It was particularly useful when creat- ing the campus vibe. Director McMurray wanted to hear the off-screen sound of a drumline and marching band warming up. Smith, a former drum corps member and still an avid fan, directed the drum and bugle corps documentary Scouts Honor: Inside a Marching Brotherhood. He had access to a huge variety of drumline recordings. "I've been involved with drum corps and marching bands for the majority of my life. I know what those dis- tant drums sound like, so I was able to play with Altiverb to get that feeling of the drums bouncing off the buildings, and coming from a mile away." BAND AID Relationship problems may have some couples singing the blues, but not in director Zoe Lister- Jones's film Band Aid. The unhappy couple — played by Lister-Jones and Adam Pally, chooses garage rock as their particular form of music therapy. After a miscarriage, the couple forms a band — with actor Fred Armisen on drums — to help them work through their emotions. Band Aid recently premiered in US dramatic competition at the 2017 Sundance. Director/writer/pro- ducer/actress Lister- Jones chose all-female production and post teams. For sound post, Band Aid produc- er Natalia Andersen tapped supervising sound editor Penny Coghlan at Smart Post West in Santa Monica, CA (http://smartpostwest. com). Coghlan put together a female post sound team of dialogue editors Veronica Zabrocki and Lisa O'Donoghue, sound effects editors Arielle McGrail and Courtney Brown and re-recording mixer Karol Urban. Coghlan says her dialogue editors weren't able to rely on alt performances to clean up takes. "The story is all about the characters, their relationship and chemistry and the lines. And no line was ever delivered the same way twice. I love the challenge of cutting from alt takes, and can usually make them work without changing performance or flow. But on this film, there were no alts," she says. Coghlan found iZotope's RX 4 to be extreme- ly useful for cleaning up the dialogue tracks. She recalls one particularly challenging dialogue scene near the end of the film, a continuous shot of an emotional moment. "This was an intimate scene, with only our two main characters. Due to the nature of the scene, they weren't able to be fitted with lavs, and the camera and boom mic are following them around inside the house. It's a very quiet scene and so every little sound stood out, like crew footsteps and gear and sound reflections. RX E LISA O'DONOGHUE MAC SMITH