Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
46 M PS E . O R G vocal tones, and mouth shapes. The Reapers in Blade II were just Guillermo del Toro and me doing rapid, fast breathing, snarling, and hissing. When trying to design a sound, I'll first try to hear it in my head, then try to vocalize it. By doing this, I can deconstruct it, figuring out how to build or shape it. What kind of plug-ins will I need, and will it do what I'm imagining? What kind of pitching does it need? Does it need modulation or saturation? What kind of elements need to be layered? When designing creatures, I usually start with animals. But most animals don't vocalize in the ways I need them to, especially when it comes to emotion. So, I use those recordings as a base and then blend in my own voice to connect one sound to another. I might mimic what I think the animal is doing and use that as a bridge between textures while giving it a "human-inspired" emotive quality. I never rely solely on a dry voice. I perform through outboard gear in real time and only listen to the processed signal in my headphones. That way, my performance responds to the character and the color added by the effects. It becomes a feedback loop between my voice and the gear. That's what gave the dragon in Shrek its personality. It could shift from being an intimidating dragon to sounding expressive, flirtatious, or lovey, depending on the moment. Early in my career, I was given a lot of Frank Welker material. He's amazing, but it always sounded like a person imitating something. That made me want to develop a process that felt more connected and expressive on my own terms. This same thinking applies to non- organic elements too. For the ships in The Chronicles of Riddick, I used guitars with a Floyd Rose bridge, playing the strings de-tensioned and tensioning them slowly with the whammy bar while going through a Marshall amp. I ran the mics from the amp through two Eventides in real time, having Peter Zinda and Rob Arbittier spinning the Eventide's wheel, increasing the pitch and modulating on the fly. The end result was this rising wall of sound with multiple pitch layers increasing at different times to resemble the sound of a massive starship taking off. Another thing I like to do is run dialogue or organic SFX through a Doppler and filter plug-in (or a 480L) to add realism and motion to chaotic or riot crowd scenes, such as in Born on the Fourth of July or JFK, among others. I love using samplers with weird controllers or blending in instruments or mangling organic sounds. I love using my voice through physical objects like tubes or glass and digitally processing it in real time. These have become a core part of how I work. It's not just about syncing sounds. It can also be about performing it, touching it, adding a humanistic element, and creating imperfections. That's the real beauty of it. Finding the Right Balance "That kind of intentional coordination, knowing what the composer is doing and designing around it, is everything to me." Shaping Cinematic Contrast and Musical Clarity That approach of performing the sound really brings character to your designs. Once you have those core elements, how do you shape them into a larger cinematic moment and ensure everything will work with the music? Scott: Whether it's a game or a movie, I do everything backward. My technique is to start with the loudest sounds first. You can't get louder than loud, so the only way to highlight loudness is by contrasting it with quiet. I begin analyzing the project: What are the biggest moments? Where does the audience get to breathe? Perhaps it's the biggest creature, the biggest weapon, the final climax of the project, or setting up the major conflict. These are the parts that define the top of the dynamic range. From there, it's about creating contrast—smaller, more subtle. You have to analyze the scene and shots. What are your eyes drawn to? Who or what is leading the moment? That was especially tricky in Transformers One and other big action films. I focus on what the audience is seeing, not what is happening in the background. Some sound designers will include long tails or background elements just in case, but I don't think that way. If you're not on screen, or the perspective isn't following you, I don't need to hear you. The exception is when I'm building a purposeful lead-in or transition. Sometimes I like the design to be very staccato, especially if the music is legato. If both the design and the music are padded or flowing, it turns into a muddy mess. That's why I try to learn the composer's style, meet with them early, and attend spotting sessions with the director when possible. When I was working on the Frank Marshall movie Alive, James Newton Howard was the composer. I'm a huge fan of his work. We had this giant plane crash sequence, followed by sound deprivation. The only way to create contrast was to start with the plane crashing, crescendoing into a crazy loud, "make it stop" moment, then cutting to nothingness. But there was one area I approached differently. In many movies, people are screaming through the conflict, like during the plane crash. But I decided to go in a different direction and have the passengers be silent, only gasping in key areas as the plane was being ripped apart. That made it incredibly eerie. There was a lot of shaking, metal stress, big rip-aways, people getting sucked out, and the plane moaning like a giant creature dying in pain. Frank loved the approach. We knew we had succeeded when, at the