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www.postmagazine.com 33 POST AUGUST 2017 pervising sound editor Eric P. Sherman and chief engineer/supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Patrick Rodman. They're currently working on the upcoming Lost in Oz Season 1 episodes, which are slated for release late this summer. In building an updated Oz, Sherman and Rodman wanted a soundscape that was mechan- ical and magical. The Emerald City is alien to our own world, filled with new objects for which there is no real-world equivalent. Yet, it's not so far from our reality that it should sound overly sci-fi. It had to sound natural and organic. "We were creating a whole new world, but you can't just go to your normal sound effects library, so that was a chal- lenge," says Rodman. For example, when Dorothy arrives in Oz, she's greeted by a giant man from the Bureau of Magic. The thing is, he's made of bricks. Sherman and Rodman had to develop a collection of sounds to articulate each movement for the brick man. They started by recording brick on brick sounds, but found the higher frequencies to be grating. Using a low-pass filter on the Waves eMo Q4 plug-in, they rolled off the harsh high-end frequencies. They also sweetened the sound with heavier rock sound effects, like granite, to add weight and texture. Rodman says, "He's really big, so we needed him to sound heavy but we didn't want him booming around like he's a 50-foot giant." Sherman adds, "The sound is very detail oriented. He drinks cups of cement as if it were coffee. His character is quite unique." Another challenge was designing a distinct sound for each piece of magical element that Dorothy collects. According to the show, there are over 100 magical elements. Each type of magic has its own property. There is Feathospherous, which enables levitation and flight. For that, the sound team designed a light, airy sound based on light wind effects. The opposite is Lardonium, which creates a gravitational field. Since that element increases gravity's pull, Rodman and Sherman cre- ated a weighty sound with prominent low-end. But the most powerful and rarest of magical elements is Ozonium. Work on that began with Rodman and sound designer Eric Paulsen tak- ing a field recording trip with their ZOOM H6 to collect a large resource of unique material. Back in the studio, Paulsen manipulated the recordings using tools from SoundMorph, Waves and Native Instruments Kontakt 5 to develop an overall Ozonium sound. Then he transferred the result- ing sounds into Pro Tools and blended them with pre-existing sounds from the Bang Zoom! Sound effects library and other third-party sound librar- ies to help solidify the final sound. "We wanted Ozonium to be the most likable magical sound. It sounds like it's vibrating as if it's this bunch of energy ready to release," says Rodman. On Lost in Oz, Rodman and Sherman often have the opportunity to build off-screen events using sound. For example, Dorothy's discovery of the magic journal is caused by an overflowing sink. She hears the water running in the bath- room and runs down the flooded hall to turn it off. Rodman reveals that they tried numerous water effects for the overflowing sink sound. They recorded trickling water on their Foley stage and even captured field recordings of wa- ter before finding the perfect sound. "It was a lot of trial and error. The process just takes time, but when you find the right sound you know it right away," he says. Rodman adds, "There is so much happening on- screen and you have to take the viewer's attention off-screen. The sound has to be subtle but strong enough to do that. That can be very challenging." A L I AS G R AC E Margaret Atwood novels have become a popular resource for streaming series. Her dystopian nov- el, The Handmaid's Tale was successfully adapt- ed into a series for Hulu, and now her historical fiction novel Alias Grace has become a Netflix Original series, which will be released this fall. On both adaptations, award-winning supervising sound editor Jane Tattersall at Tattersall Sound & Picture in Toronto, ON (www.tattersallsoun dandpicture.com), part of the SIM Group family of companies (www.simgroup.com), was called on to lead the audio post team. (L-R) Tattersall and McCallum Netflix will release Alias Grace this fall.