Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
48 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 Part of this challenge was the fact that Aquaman is a big visual and sound effects film; there are over 2,400 visual effects shots in it. As a result, the music team spent most of post- production trying to edit and time its work to match pre-viz, post-viz, and even storyboard elements since final shots did not yet exist. This led to still more changes down the road on top of everything else. "It's been quite dynamic," George understatedly comments. "From the point where we finish scoring to when I'm actually handing over material to Paul on the dub stage, we might go through two or three different versions of a reel. And every single cue has to be cut in many different ways to get it to sync properly with new visual effects. It's subtle sometimes. Many times, it's easier to add or lose a foot or two than a frame or two when you are cutting musical beats." Where sound effects were concerned, the music editors battled to make sure the film's music and effects would not interfere with each other. "It really helps to have the score stemmed out in many different ways, because if there are problems on certain frequencies, rather than dropping all the music there, you can just drop certain elements," Rabjohns explains. "So there can be a cool fight scene and the music can still have more of a presence than it would if it was dropped altogether. "But, again, it's all up to the director," he continues. "For instance, we worked on a big action scene involving a tidal wave that we showed in four preview screenings. In three of them, we had big sound effects and music. But in one of them, we had no music at all. Now in the final, the director preferred a version that is almost all music and few sound effects. That's because rather than being about the tidal wave, the scene is more about how Aquaman perceives the tidal wave from his emotional perspective. In terms of emotion and plot, it's more complex and therefore we went with more music than sound effects there." While these kinds of issues were particularly tedious for the editors, they also forced them to push their creativity and collaborative methods further than is typical. Indeed, the day before they spoke with CineMontage, a major change was requested, according to Rabjohns. "Yesterday, we had a big cue about the big reveal, where the melody kicks in at a certain point and it builds to a key moment," he recalls. "Having seen it play out on the stage here, James decided he wanted the melody to start a lot earlier. So we sat with him and moved the melody to where he wanted it to start. But then he left it to us to figure out the end. J.J. came up Aquaman. Warner Bros. Pictures & DC Comics CONTINUED FROM PAGE 46 CONTINUED ON PAGE 50