Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500189
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 61 disappoint James Cameron. [Laughs] I mean, really, it's that simple. SSS: Wow. I'm very impressed. That is quite the story. I did Foley for 32 years. I have never heard of anything like that. That is very impressive. All right, we're going to move on to The Rocketeer, 1991. JR: The Rocketeer. Well, this was a real fun one, for many reasons, not the least of which was the rocket pack. In fact, I would challenge anybody who's reading this to go to about 13 minutes into the picture, and play it until the broom handle turns off the rocket pack. Everything you hear in there, except for backgrounds and a couple effects, everything you hear is Foley, everything. The rocket engine, the whine, the power up, the power down, the impacting things, the skidding on things, everything! It's all Foley. Point being, this is a picture for Chuck Campbell, and he really gave us the room to maneuver and made sure we had the time to do it. In other words, you don't have to do this reel yesterday. Let's take the time to do this right. And, I will put that minute up against anything I've done. Because to me, that really was a great little section, and there were many other ones in there. Here's one for the new Foley artists, what does it sound like to have people running on top of a Zeppelin, the Zeppelin being back in the old days, a gas- filled flying ship, so to speak. And what does that sound like? Well, I took something, which this is kind of an interesting circle of life, which you gave to me when I received an award and had me sit down in which was a TAJ Soundworks director's chair. I actually put the ECM 50 on that and I took my fingers and tapped on the seat portion of the director's chair to give a sense of feet running on the Zeppelin. SSS: Wow. That's wild, the seat of a director's chair with an ECM! JR: The actual chair, not the seat. SSS: That is incredible! The Rocketeer, the rocket and rocketeer that you created, that's sound design. That's completely sound design. JR: You could say that to some degree. SSS: Layers and layers and layers of creative sounds to make sounds for one element. JR: Yes, I guess so. I've never really looked at it as sound design, especially with Chuck, it's just this is the usual, this is what he would ask and, of course, happy to try it. I mean, that's the great thing about Chuck and most of the people I worked with. There was never a wrong answer. It was just like, well, maybe that's not quite right, let's try something different. That's something I think we all can learn from, in other words, he just didn't get on the PA and say that stinks. He'd say something like "Johnny, is it possible you can make that character sound a little darker, a little deeper?" Or he'd say, "Can you focus the flyby of the jetpack a little more where it sounds like there's a little more of a doppler effect?" And of course, it's not just me, it's me and Tim the mixer, or Carolyn the recordist, etc. You know, all of us working together. SSS: Like you said, it's a team effort. It's a collaborative effort on everybody's part. You were very lucky to have an extremely talented crew. JR: No question about it. SSS: The next movie is The Green Mile, 1999. I have to let you know that I worked on The Green Mile with you and the Foley was extraordinary. It was a privilege and an honor to work on that movie with Mark Mangini. I really learned a lot on that feature. But you did some really unusual Foley on The Green Mile. Tell us about it. JR: Well, yes, a couple things attended with The Green Mile. Mark Mangini was supervising sound editor and we had a supervising Foley editor, Aaron Glascock, who was really a great inspiration because he wanted to have this thing sound fantastic. And what do I mean by that? Well, it just turned out like all the stars were in alignment, that the actual set for The Green Mile was on the Warner Hollywood lot that was now Goldwyn. It had changed hands and turned into Warner Bros. that had purchased it, and the set was hot but it wasn't utilized because it turned out that The Abyss helmet prop for movement used at TAJ Soundworks (1988).