Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1437291
64 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E with Villeneuve four years ago on "Blade Runner 2049," which was Oscar-nomi- nated in both the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories. Other key m e m b e r s o f t h e te a m i n c l u d e d s o u n d editors Phil Barrie and Lee Gilmore MPSE from Formosa Group, together with sound designer Dave Whitehead. A s o n " B l a d e R u n n e r 2 0 4 9," G re e n started sound design while the film was being shot in Budapest. "During those eight to 10 weeks, I developed whole scenes with picture editor Joe Walker, ACE — who, in a previous life, was an experienced sound editor and composer — while he did his first cut," Green said (see accompanying story for more information on Walker's process). "I was also sending these files back to Mark [Mangini] in Los Angeles so that he could hear what I was up to, and start thinking about the resources we'd need later." Rather than developing single sounds and passing them to the picture editor, Mangini and Green designed, edited and mixed whole scenes. "We then split those mixed tracks into five food-group stems, co m p r i s i n g fo re g ro u n d o b j e c ts, b a c k- ground objects, dialog-based effects and so on, that Joe would import into his timeline," Green said. "He could then chop up, discard, move, add to those mix stems, and pass them back to us." One of the trickiest scenes proved to be a training montage during which Gurney Halleck (played by Josh Brolin) teaches Paul Atreides how to fight, deploy his pro- tective shield and use the Voice. "In its first incarnation," Mangini said, "the f ight sounds were quite broad and bombastic; Theo's shield sounds were in early stages of development. Each subsequent iteration saw these sounds stripped down to their essential parts as Theo developed increas- ingly interesting shield behavior." Setting early ground rules motivated the team's collaboration with visual effects, which also was struggling to develop a 'HE COULD THEN CHOP UP, DISCARD, MOVE, ADD TO THOSE MIX STEMS, AND PASS THEM BACK TO US.' MASKED MAN: Theo Green at Warner Studios. P H O T O : C O U R T E S Y O F R O N B A R T L E T T