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dio Lower-cost tools, in the right hands, can help budget-strapped indie projects. By Jennifer Walden for Independent Films A udio tools are more powerful, and more affordable, than they were even five years ago. They're pretty much available to anyone. Tech savvy young directors can cut and edit their own projects before they head into post production. They can build their own sound design, or clean up dialog tracks. With that said, do these audio tools help improve the quality of independent films that are working with tight budgets and tight schedules? These four audio pros talk about their recent work on independent films, and weigh in on the topic of audio post technology and its impact on the indie film industry. Silver Sound created original music and sound design, as well as mixed The Big House. 12 Years a slave Leslie Shatz, partner at Wildfire Post Production Studios, was the sound designer and re-recording mixer for music and dialog on 12 Years a Slave. Wildfire Post Production Studios (www.wildfirepost. com) is a full service post facility in Los Angeles. They offer picture and audio post services for the film industry. Recent films include Olympus Has Fallen, Promised Land, Warm Bodies, and The Expendables 2. 12 Years a Slave has been getting a lot of attention recently, with talks of a possible Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The film already has a slew of nominations on the indie film circuit for best picture. 12 Years a Slave is set in pre-Civil War America. It tells the story of Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York state, he was kidnaped and sold into slavery. He worked on plantations in Louisiana before being released. The main character, Northup (renamed Platt by his master) experiences two different worlds, one as a violinist in the north, playing for genteel society in an urban environment, and the other as a slave in the rural south. The contrasts in the environments are noted in the sound. Shatz, who created the sound design, says, "Sound marks these two different experiences very definitely. The film begins in Saratoga, New York, in what would be considered an urban setting for the time, with horses and carts, and people on the streets. When we get to the south it's all cicadas. Cicadas are a principal player in the orchestra of the sound. Cicadas are like a tapestry that is woven throughout scenes that happen when he's a slave." For sound design, the challenge was to do less, not more. Shatz says, "You usually don't win points by saying you took out sound rather than put in sound. There is that fear of showing up and someone saying, 'Really, that's all you did?'" After meeting with director Steve McQueen, Shatz knew the sound design needed a naturalistic, restrained approach. "I say naturalistic but there's nothing natural about making films. It's all tricks and levers and people manipulating things. Our goal is to try and create the best indication of what nature was like at that time and try not to overdo it. The minute you go just one little step too far, people are knocked out of the experience. Then they're not submerged in the environment of the film like www.postmagazine.com Post • January 2014 27