Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1401019
72 I m ps e . o rg So far, 1986 had been a good year, I had gone from Absolute Beginners to Haunted Honeymoon and knew that I would be Alan Parker's supervising sound editor on Angel Heart sometime in the summer. Also, I'd been promised a recording trip to New Orleans to get atmospheres for the film— atmospheres that would be unique and would set up the entire second half of the movie. In early June, Alan Marshall, Parker's producer, rang me from New Orleans. "Great," I thought, "He's calling to arrange my trip!" "Hullo Ed, Al's needing to be out of the UK for a year and wants to post in Europe." "Oh," I said. "Yeah, we want you to recce the best for you, Gerry (Hambling the editor) and us. We thought Paris or Rome." Well, I had previously worked in both cities but knew Paris better and thought that it would be easier for weekend trips home! "Paris," I said. "OK, you go over there and sort it out and we'll be arriving in a few weeks. Oh, and sorry about your New Orleans trip!" I was given a contact, Glenn Cunningham (the French pronounced it 'Cooning gam'), an American assistant editor resident in France and who spoke fluent French. We met the next week, had a look at a couple of facilities and worked out the logistics over a splendid lunch near the Luxembourg Gardens. I realised that the French editorial system was far removed from our own and that we would have to take all our equipment with us. Glenn and I had decided that the Billancourt Studios were best suited and that we could base our editing rooms in some stacked Portacabins in a space overlooking the Seine. Travel arrangements were organised by Alicia Bernard, one of Alan's London assistants, and, initially, we were housed in a hotel just off the Champs-Élysée. We were eventually supplied apartments according to our various needs. I was glad that my longtime assistant, Lennie Green, was to accompany me. He was guaranteed to keep me cheerful although I would have to be his spokesman as his French was limited. We duly arrived and set up camp. We'd brought plenty of adaptors with us (oddly, though, you never have enough) so quickly got underway. The first few weeks were very pleasant, the conditions were good and we soon found our way around. Alicia, after sorting out apartments for us, returned to London and was replaced by Gilly Ruben, the Alans' assistant from the shooting crew. One big happy family helped, along by the inexhaustible supply of Rosé that Glenn had sourced! Alan Parker liked to play music with Gerry's cutting copy track which he would lay up on a six- plate Steenbeck. For this, he had some favourite scores such as The Mission. One problem was that we didn't have a large library of music for him to use; the other was that Alan couldn't go to London to listen to tapes and discs. I was sent home for a long weekend with the brief to bring back anything I considered appropriate for the film. I rang my friends Peter Cox and Tim Hardy at KPM and arranged to meet up. We selected a lot of horror and mystery themes and many drones and pulses which I had put on tape for transfer. It was then suggested that as Tim was going to record some new material in the next couple of weeks, he would try to 'knock off' a 2-3 minute piece for us which would hopefully, match our brief. This duly arrived and was fundamental to Alan's musical toolkit. I had obtained a wonderful eerie sound effect of treated demonic voices from Peter Pennell via Bill Trent and other sound editors, each of whom had enhanced the track. I played around with it and presented it to Alan. This formed the basis of all the 'elevator/fan' montages throughout the film. Indeed, the voices were often thrown in whenever we needed to heighten suspense. Mickey Rourke plays a few notes on the piano in Charlotte Rampling's apartment. Actually, it was me playing some significant notes out of Harry Angel's memory! As soon as Gerry had cut a reel (about 10 minutes in length), Alan would review it on our Steenbeck, make notes and return it to Gerry for changes. When they were done, Alan and I would spot for sound and music. He would then play with his musical toolkit and I would track lay atmospheres, FX, and tidy the dialogues. We had found a friendly mixer called Neil Walwer in GLPP Studios in the Parisian suburbs and went there to create a mono temp mix of the reel. Eventually, by this method, we had a complete mix of the film soon after Gerry had cut it. One problem I had found was 'loops.' It was usual in those days to utilise atmosphere loops for the backgrounds rather than lay up huge amounts of that track. I took my loops to Neil's studio only to discover that they couldn't play them as their play-off machines were horizontal and loops required vertical machines to prevent the loop itself from clogging the system. It was then that Len and I held, gingerly, the loop while it wound itself through the player and Neil re-recorded each atmosphere on one track of a three-track roll of magnetic. Thus, atmosphere rolls were introduced to the UK and I had multi-purpose three-track rolls of atmospheres for future productions! I needed some help with the dialogues as I had my hands full with (what has now become sound design) trying to perfect the lift, heartbeat, and fan sounds for the montages, so I brought Bill Trent out from the UK. Bill had worked with me on Haunted Honeymoon and was both reliable and fun to have around. To assist Bill, I decided on