Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1401019
m ot ion p ictu re s o u n d e d i to r s I 31 actually a different sound. There are some sounds in Discovery that people will say, "Oh, this is from TNG, which is a different timeline. Why is that?" My theory was that the Discovery is the latest, greatest, state-of-the-art ship, so it might have some sounds that are super new to Starfleet in the Disco that just stuck around so that they would be considered old sounds that were still in use by the time of the TNG era. Think of the cabin "ding" on an airplane. I feel like my whole life I've heard the same ding! But again, I would always tweak the source material, so I would never use the actual raw sound from TNG. NM: Is there a diˆerent sound for the Enterprise sound of a phaser from the Discovery's phasers? What did you do there? TF: Well, in the very beginning of Discovery, during the big battle on episode 1 and 2, all the ships fired packet weapons or energy blasts from the ship's phasers. Whereas, in TOS, it was always a beam. However, when we get to the big battle in Season 2, episode 14, the Federation ships have beam weapons again, so those had to be recreated. The photon torpedoes, of course, have such a specific sound, so it was another case where I took the original and kept as much of that sound as I could. I added some more high-end frequencies and tried to give it a little bit more oomph, but that sound is so iconic. It has to be that sound. You can't really change that one too much. For them in Season 2, episode 14, when we got back and had the actual beam weapons, I used the TOS sound for it, but it was very bright and very thin, so I ended up coming up with some sync layers to give it more weight, depth, heaviness and more of a wind-up and turn off. You end up seeing it mostly in the background, and you don't really hear it half the time. [laughs] But it's there! EM: I think what's particularly amazing is that you take these iconic sounds that everyone knows so well, and you're able to modify them and update them, but everyone still identifies them as the original sounds. That's incredible. How early do you typically get workable visual eˆects for these shows? There's so much going on and, like you said, only so much time to cover it all. MT: We get the turnovers for the show fairly early. It's not necessarily always the case that we have the budgetary resources to start that early, but we get a cut. Depending on the content of the episode, we could have a decent amount of VFX or close to none. These shows are very VFX-heavy, even background plates can be very active. Stuff starts trickling in about a month beforehand, and then really it all starts showing up a week before. TF: Yeah, the week before the mix we get a big turnover, and then once we start mixing, every night we get updates. I will say, the editors are very good about their pre-visualization animations and temp material placeholders. Even when they turn over stuff early, they do a really good job of conveying to us a sense of the story and the final movement that will eventually be there. So many times, when the visuals finally show up, our sounds we've prepped are actually pretty darn close. I really do commend them for their ability to have things close even in the pre- design phase. The show couldn't happen without it. Of course, there have been plenty of curveballs too, but mostly it's pretty good. EM: Were either of you involved in the process of how the Klingon language was recorded? TF: It was performed on set and then sometimes corrected later in ADR. There are Klingon experts who would make sure that everything was spoken correctly and dubbed correctly, and that loop-group was speaking it correctly. With the Klingon vocal design, they have two larynxes, and Alex [Kurtzman] really wanted to convey this in the sound of their voices. We played around with putting different layers of pitching and other stuff. Ultimately, we actually put growls underneath all their voices. We came up with a chain that, as they would talk, also added a growling, gurgling sound under the dialogue. We had to be very careful because if there was too much of it, you wouldn't understand what they were saying, and people understand Klingon. If it was a different alien language no one really knew, we could play up the more animalistic qualities, but people speak the language and we had to make sure people could understand it. That was definitely a key part of the whole process. EM: How do prosthetics such as masks aˆect the dialogue? Like for Saru or Klingons, how does that aˆect your workflow? MT: Well, depending on what was added, especially for the Romulans and Klingons, you might have to loop that whole section because it will sound different behind prosthetics. L'Rell would come in, and her prosthetics were pretty well- controlled, so when she got onto the ADR stage, she sounded very similar to her voice in the prosthetics, and she was putting on a voice while acting as well, so that always helps hide the impedance the prosthetic is applying to the spoken word. Saru has his own prosthetic that he brings to the ADR stage, so Doug will bring that every time. That goes a long way in helping match his tone and diction. I've found the Kelpiens, in particular, are the most difficult as far as needing a prosthetic. If they go into the ADR stage, they need a prosthetic because the sound is very different—the prosthetic seems like it's very tight—the makeup is very tight there at the mouth, and it restricts lip movement.