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www.postmagazine.com 29 POST APRIL 2015 udio post can be a race to the fin- ish, because typically, it's the last step. But really, that holds true for any race, where getting a head start helps. When sound designers get a head start on animated projects, getting involved even before the first pixel is in place, it can alter the course. Sound can help mold the animation, giving directors an idea of what's going to work and what's not. Getting involved early gives sound designers a chance to experiment and develop unique ideas. Here, Post speaks with sound designers about how starting early can have an impact on projects, and for details on what they are able to achieve with more time. HOME In DreamWorks Animation's film Home, Earth is taken over by the innocuous, bubble-like Boov, an alien race looking for a place to call home. A resourceful human girl named Tip avoids capture and relocation with the rest of the hu- mans, but accidentally meets an outcast Boov named Oh. Together the fugitive duo embark on the road trip of a lifetime to save the planet from the Boov's neme- sis, a race of aliens known as the Gorg. The illustrious Skywalker Sound, locat- ed on the picturesque Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, CA (www.skysound. com), started working with director Tim Johnson early last summer while the picture department was still developing the Boov's bubble-driven civilization. Skywalker Sound's sound designer Al Nelson and supervising sound designer Randy Thom began experimenting by recording different variations of bub- ble sounds, big and small. By blowing compressed air into different liquids they created different bubble sounds for the Boov's environment, spaceships, and vehicle movements. Supervising sound editor Tom Myers joined the Home team in October. As the Boov sounds were coming together near the end of fall, Myers notes, "There was a lot of late picture coming in. They were still working out some of the early scenes, specifically the first reel and the introduction of the Boov characters and their planet. All of that was still evolving." In addition to helping with the Boov, Myers developed the sound for the Gorg race, which is characteristically opposite of the round and pliable Boov. "They are the enemies of the Boov, and they have these angular spaceships and they're more threatening. We had to find the language for their sound, that was the opposite of bubble-driven — sharper but not sci-fi or too threatening," Myers says. Director Johnson communicated early on that overly sci-fi sounds, reminis- cent of Forbidden Planet or Star Wars, were not the way to go. "Tim [Johnson] was very articulate, probably the most articulate director I've worked with in terms of what he wanted," says Myers. "He didn't want any classic sci-fi sounds, so anything that veered into that area he steered us away from." Myers built the Gorg's spaceships using whiny drones that invoke a swarm of flies. They recorded whirring machinery, pneu- matic machinery, and computer com- ponents, which Myers manipulated and mixed with other elements using a Syn- clavier by New England Digital. "I like the tactile nature of the Synclavier. It's easy to combine a bunch of different sounds on it. I used the Synclavier as a sketch pad, and then dumped that back into Pro Tools 11," says Myers. In an effort to retain the organic qualities of the sounds, he limited his processing in Pro Tools to pitch shift- ing with Serato's Pitch 'n Time Pro, EQ, and Doppler processing to add thrust and forward movement. "The results you get from the Doppler are a little different each time. When you trigger it, it doesn't come back the same way," notes Myers. "We also used the Doppler on Tip's car-ship called Slushious." The car-ship Slushious is a standard car converted into a flying vehicle by the character Oh (voiced by Jim Parsons). It's powered by a slurpy machine, with three separate liquids. Myers describes the flying sound as being character- istically Boov — bubbley, liquidity and goopy. Later, Oh upgrades the Slush- ious with a Gorg super chip that's like a suped-up spark plug with its own internal energy. After the upgrade, the A Home's supervising sound editor, Tom Myers. Myers retained organic sound qualities with Pitch 'n Time Pro.