CineMontage

Winter 2015

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31 WINTER 2015 / CINEMONTAGE Aaron Glascock and Martin Hernández, MPSE. They were also nominated by the MPSE for both Sound Effects/Foley and Dialogue/ADR for the film. "As Birdman is told in the context of a constantly flowing stream, no hard visual or sound cuts are used in the narrative," explains Glascock. "The normal opportunity to cut into a scene with a bump was never there — no reset — so the flow had to have definition; any found energy had to develop linearly. In order to depict a noticeable movement shift within a space, locations and actions used layers that would shift from normal to intense depending on perspective. "The tones and layers were always changing in mix," he continues. "Shifting throughout constantly, they were not backgrounds any more; in function, they were all hard effects. Individual walls had their own sounds — shadows, ducts and resonating closed doors, always coming and going. The track orientation was swinging like a compass." Glascock thought the nomination was a tribute to the very well-defined, high-density vision of the director. "With Alejandro, there was always a quest to develop a sense of poetry in the track," he says. "This was true with effects, backgrounds, crowds and music. Beneath the surface, behind the imagery, there was a pulse, a current that was always running. This was an emotional force that had to support his vision. If it did not speak to him, it was gone and something else was developed." For The Hobbit finale, The Battle of the Five Armies, supervising sound editors Brent Burge and Jason Canovas were charged with soundscapes for two very different battles: the Laketown assault by the dragon Smaug at the beginning, and the climactic war involving all of the various creatures. "The sound design for Laketown was quite a challenge, as it was very action- packed and fast-moving; we had to audibly convey a lot of different emotions and story points in quite a short time onscreen," recalls Canovas. "We tried to give the Laketowners different progressive moods as the sequence developed within the loop group session, starting off with quiet, hushed, worried and suspenseful tones, then moving to more animated panic, all the way to full-on terror, then moving back down to despair. The biggest challenges we faced were trying to convey different emotions when we had such a lot happening on screen. Peter Jackson fills his frames with so much action; what to lay on the soundtrack is a huge challenge." "It's one of those sequences where light and shade build dynamics, and the focus on the story becomes the priority," adds Burge. "In order to do this, we are always searching for the right material. The way we do this is through recording vast amounts of the material we need. "The key to the final battle was breaking it down into how to best achieve contrast and definition between the armies, so at any time the viewer had a clear understanding of the story, geography and who was fighting who," he continues. "Sound designer Dave Whitehead built the armies sonically, with Hayden Collow re- inventing the combat from the established styles we set in Lord of the Rings. Creating Becky Sullivan. Andrew DeCristofaro.

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