Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521562
40 S U M M E R 2 0 2 4 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y beautiful bit about hearing that tape of his younger self speaking to his future self, which is just amazing. Also, Edgar started a company called Bach Audio, and we've been developing through his inventions, binaural over loudspeakers. Interesting! Well, Mark, since you were along for the whole ride, can you share a scene that maybe sticks out more than the others due to its challenges? MM: There's a sequence that Sam and I love with Don Garcia, who's the crazy guy in New York City who plays "In the Air Tonight" driving around the city, and he's blasting it out of his windows. Sam and I had talked about that in pre-production before he shot the scene, and we both agreed that part of the joy of that sequence is his experience. Living in the city and hearing it coming from a mile away, just hearing the subwoofer rattling his windows. We even have a shot from his apartment, and you hear it echoing off all the city buildings and alleys. We wanted the audience to feel the sense of place and immersion like you're just surrounded by this. We encouraged our production sound team to capture all of that with an Ambisonic microphone so we could get it as an immersive recording. But as fate would intervene, and we hadn't sort of thought it through, there are several issues after that. The car itself is very loud and noisy, and it kind of muddied all the recordings that we made. And then there was the issue of intercutting and having varying perspectives from shot-to-shot, and it would end up being a giant failure despite our planning. And yet it created this post-production challenge of taking the original recording itself, the nice clean one, and having me figure out ways to use impulse responses from the locations and clever multitap delays to recreate the slaps off of buildings and alleyways. That was probably the most complex mix challenge I had. The portion about recordings of those who have passed on touches on the sentimental side of sound. MM: The recordings of deceased loved ones were important. The joy of this film has been how that has built up its momentum, and how that triggered emotional responses and audiences in deep, deep ways. Sam and I continue to receive glowing correspondence from viewers who said that I went back into my closet, and I found those old VHS tapes of my mom, dad, sister, uncle, whomever, and I just started listening to them and all the memories that that brought back. It's just beautiful. The effect that the movie has had on audiences. I have been the audio documentarian of my family, and I encourage people in lectures to capture these sounds because they'll disappear. When I hear my grandparents speak, I wish I could hear my great-grandparents, and now I know that because I've captured my grandparents and my parents, that my children will now be able to benefit from having heard my parents. Their grandparents speak emotionally. I've done oral histories with them, and just open chats just to capture the sound, because it's so evocative. Any final comments? Anyone you wish to thank? MM: I'd like to thank Bob Kellough, who was my sound effects editor. He cut most of the movie and I finished what he couldn't complete. And of course, Eliza Paley, who was our ADR editor. LC: Thanks to Sam for bringing me on. It was an amazing project to work on for a production sound person. He's a great director to work with; he can speak our language, so it's great! BC: It probably sounds cliche, but I'd thank everyone I've ever worked with because I learned something from them. Also, my family. When we do a project like this, we do it after hours and on weekends. Thanks to Karen Waller, Phil Kovats MPSE, and Richard Lee as well from PlayStation. BJ: It was my true pleasure to work on this. I thought the results came out great, and I also promoted it with Sam as much as I could on the East Coast, because I believed in it. We had screenings at Harbor in their big room for all the sound community, and we invited everybody in New York. It was a thrill to help Sam. BG: I've been making records for 20 years, and I started working in film five years ago. I'm excited about doing more, and this feels incredibly validating. Thank you! SG: I love Mark. He's such a genius and an artist, and I felt lucky. One thing that I think is important; people often think of sound as post-production. You make the movie. And then somebody adds some sound design to it. For a lot of movies, that's the model. We were so far from that with this film. It was woven into the DNA of the film. Mark was integral as a collaborator and an advisor, and somebody that I had a long dialogue with. It's just a far better approach. It was such a pleasure. And the movie would not be what it is without him. Recording golf in binaural