CAS Quarterly

34 S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y The lost souls also had a voice. The sound would transition into a muffled dialogue with a process chain of plugins that transitioned to and from the clean dialogue. The formant shaping process available in the plugin Ircam Trax from Flux:SE was used to create the sound. It was important that it didn't feel just like a crossfade, but as an actual transition and change. To achieve this, pitch shifting was also used. This processing chain was also given to the foreign-language re-recording mixers so there would be consistency throughout. During the 'mystics' sequence, Pete wanted the mystic characters to perform their own instruments to conjure the portal to the earth world. Instead of hiring professional musicians, Pete opted for a sloppy amateur performance and enlisted himself, Kevin Nolting, Justin Pearson, and Klyce to perform. Jon Batiste worried it was too sloppy and offered to re-perform it, but Pete insisted it had to have an amateur feel to it. When recording Foley for the sequence, regular sand sounded too bright, so it was pitched down and processed to give a darker quality, shared Foley mixer Scott Curtis. Foley When Coya (co-supervising sound editor) and Ren began the process, they used library Foley as temporary place holders. The Foley team then met with Coya and Ren for a spotting session and Foley supervisor Thom Brennan cued the Foley to be recorded. Scott recalls, "I'll never forget when we all sat down with Ren and Coya for the initial spotting session. We watched a rough cut to get an idea of the story and concept a few months before we actually started working on the film. It was a good opportunity for us to begin thinking about the Foley early on. Even though the animation was not fully rendered, I remember being blown away by what I was experiencing because the characters and story were so touching." Scott Curtis became interested in the concepts of orchestrating, timbre, and tone while he was playing music in his high school bands. He set out to pursue a career in recording music. Then, while working at an independent post-production house, was offered a chance to sit in and assist on a Foley record session. Scott realized that he could apply everything he knew about recording music into recording sound effects and also have a balanced work schedule that allowed him quality time with his family, so he jumped at the opportunity. Now, Scott has been working in Foley for more than 25 years. "I've been very fortunate of the opportunities and projects I've been able to work on," he says. Scott's first job as a Foley mixer unexpectedly came to him at Klasky-Csupo, an animation house in Hollywood where he worked on series such as Nickelodeon's Rugrats. While Scott was helping wire the new Foley stage, the person overseeing the project asked Scott if he would be interested in mixing. Scott also had the opportunity to take advantage of an adjacent pathway alongside his mixing career and work as a Foley editor for 15 years. When Scott was asked in 2016 to help open up a new Foley stage at Skywalker Sound, he took his editing skills with him to become an even better Foley mixer. "Every mixer has a different approach. I feel that my experience as an editor helps me understand what can be done on the Foley stage to best equip the Foley editor with usable material. For example, even when the first take has a great performance, we will provide the editor with a second performance for more options or we will sweeten single props with several layers to enhance the overall effect. Equally important, we know how to judge when we have enough material to move on so we can be as efficient as possible." The team had four to five days per reel to complete the Foley on Soul. Luckily, when the COVID lockdown took place, they had already recorded the primary Foley. "As a team, we have so much fun despite also having a certain amount of pressure to deliver." Scott shares, "I would like to thank my Foley artists Shelley Roden and John Roesch. They are the ones generating the sounds. They are the musicians in the song we orchestrate. Each project that we work on has its own personality and temperament. We all enjoy the process of creating, and I've been lucky to work on projects that I feel connected with. Soul was quite a special one. "Soul was a unique challenge in that the special realms required different approaches. In The Great Before, the surface looked like various heights of grass, but we didn't want it to necessarily sound like grass. Some elements that were used included a nylon bag filled with plastic straws, silk cloth, and Easter basket grass." Scott mentions, however, that he tries not to look at the objects the Foley artists are using to make the sounds so that it does not influence his judgement of the recorded material. "If they can fool me, we're probably going in the right direction. For example, the maple seed that flutters from the tree was an important story point. I honestly don't know what Shelley used to achieve the sound of the whirling seed. It didn't take long and it turned out awesome. All I know is she was flapping something around in her hand." Scott continues, "When working on animation, there are no production effects to fall back on since there is no production sound. You have to create everything, which can be a good thing because you start from scratch rather than trying to match previously recorded material. But everything has to be perfect." To help add perspective and movement to the recorded sounds, Scott continuously mixed between the close mic and a more distant mic to create the illusion that the sounds were organically connected to what the audience is seeing. Throughout this process, Scott had Thom, Coya, and Ren do frequent playbacks to make sure the Foley team and the supervising team were all on the same page as far as how to establish the otherworldly sounds for Soul. Closing All these elements were carefully crafted to create the mix of Soul, a well-deserving film of the CAS Award. The combination of a deep message, a fun story, outstanding music, and an extraordinary balance with the voices, Foley, and sound effects makes this a film to be remembered. Atticus mentions that "a mix can make a good story into a great film, with a great delivery of sound through the mix." Soul is a great story and a remarkable film with a great sound. Congratulations to the sound team. Picture editor Kevin Nolting

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