Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512183
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 125 speaker channels in the beginning of the movie, because he wanted to make sure the speakers in the theater were all in good condition. In fact, after the mix, we tried to watch a technical screening at a theater to check the first print, and we immediately knew that the right speaker was broken from the beginning of the movie as the sound was not coming out. Since then, we've often done that and you can hear a bell sound in different random speakers at the start of both Okja and Parasite. It's a way to check the status of your theater. PA: The follow up Memories of Murder (2003) is such a brilliant film. It's very atmospheric and evocative. It takes place in a small Korean province in 1986 and the use of ambiences is really great. Can you talk about your work on that film? Did you do a lot of specific sound effects recordings or ambience recordings for the film? RTY: Memories of Murder is a serial murder case that actually took place in Korea, and first it was made into a play, and director Bong made it into a movie. Bong's debut film didn't do well at the box office but he was recognized by the audience for his cinematic qualities with Memories of Murder. Bong had a new perspective on the relationship between detectives and suspects. Rather than just focusing on the murders, he realistically portrayed the emotions and psychology of the characters without cinematic exaggeration, and the tone and approach determined the sound design concept as we had an ultra-realistic approach. We recorded minimal ADR and mostly used production sound. Sound design and effects editing were also based on real sounds. Bong basically hates the approach of using abstract sounds to give a dramatic effect to an atmosphere, scene, or cut. In Foley, there was also a lot of focus on creating very realistic sound. The underground interrogation room in the film has a very cold and chilly atmosphere but what looks like cement floor and cement walls was actually made of wood when they shot the film. We found a real cement cellar space where we recorded Foley footsteps, and also found an actual location to record the shoes of the detectives on the cement stairs coming down from the first floor. The background sounds had to express the feel of certain Korean rural villages, and the ambiences were designed using many different layers to reflect the thriller elements of the film. This movie is about a murder case related to rain and the sound of the rain is used to express the various emotional states of the characters. This rain concept was actually years later applied to Bong's movie Parasite. I remember using a Tascam DAT recorder for field sound effects recording at the time to record all these sounds. The composer was Taro Iwashiro from Japan, and Bong shaped the atmosphere with Taro's scoring music instead of using artificial sound effects. We mixed the film in 5.1 and the equipment used for mixing was the Euphonix CS2000 console and two Pro Tools systems. Nearfield mixing for the DVD release was done in SurroundEX 6.1 at Bong's request. PA: How much sound effects recording do you usually do for a film? RTY: I spend a lot of time doing sound effects recording for every project when I start on a movie. That's how it's been for about 10 years now, so my sound library is getting bigger and bigger. I'm also buying or subscribing to overseas library sounds whenever that's needed and sometimes I ask my partners abroad. Still, there is always a need for sound effects recording for every project. Nowadays, junior sound editors in Korea are a little concerned about the reduced opportunity to do sound effects Sound recording for The Good, the Bad, the Weird.