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www.postmagazine.com 36 POST MAY 2015 PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES 2 When sound designer Gregory Hainer, owner of Scorpio Sound (www.scorpio- sound.com) in Los Angeles, was con- tracted to help create sound effects for Plants vs. Zombies 2 (iOS/iPad), he was told, "You have to have a quirky, sarcas- tic sense of humor to be able to design for this game." Developed by PopCap Games, Plants vs. Zombies 2 features a soundtrack that is part realistic and part cartoony, with an added dash of unexpected. Hainer was asked to create effects for a few very different sound- ing levels. His sound design for the Zen Garden level, which takes place inside a green house, is very organic-based, with a bit of an odd twist. "There is a bee that flies back and forth until he's either prompted to pollinate the plants below or he goes into a boredom-induced bee hibernation state," explains Hainer. Ad- ditionally, the potted plants below need to be watered to make them grow and produce jewels to be collected. "I had to design sounds that would give the ap- propriate reward or emotional response while also making sure they did not be- come annoying if played repeatedly." In contrast, Hainer's work on a Far Future level, where alien zombies are at- tacking using super-slow space tractors with shields, is more sci-fi based. He de- scribes the tractors as having retractable arms with metallic clippers that are used to cut and nibble through obstacles like giant pies. "This level is more sci-fi based but still incorporates a good deal of me- chanical elements that contribute a lot of the functional character and personality required," says Hainer. To create the main bee-buzzing sounds for the Zen Garden level, Hainer ended up recording his own voice. "I couldn't find anything in a commercial sound library that was the right fit for the bee," he says. "I went into my VO booth, took a deep breath, and made long buzzing sounds with lots of variations." He also voiced other bee sounds, such as the bee-snoring and a questioning "huh" sound for when a player clicks on the bee. In Pro Tools, he layered the vocalizations with organic effects, car- toon effects, and musical elements. For the bee's wing flaps, Hainer exper- imented with layering realistic elements, like the shuffling of cards and various fluttering sounds from Sound Ideas and Hollywood Edge libraries, with cartoon sounds, quirky sounds, and custom sounds. "The bee also does a little excit- ed loop-the-loop when he pollinates and little magic honeycomb-pollen things come off him. I had to create sound for that movement as well," says Hainer. After the bee pollinates the plants, they begin to grow. Hainer combined the Foley of rustling plants with stretchy, rubbery cartoony effects to create a plant growing sound that was not too real and not too silly. He chose classic cartoon sound effects from the Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and Hollywood Edge libraries. All of his effects, from custom recordings created for previous projects to commercial libraries, are man- aged using Soundminer. With only a few weeks to work on Plants vs. Zombies 2, Hainer had to quickly find the right tone for his sound design. Whether organic or sci-fi, the sound effects still had to fit in seamlessly with the overall quirky Tim Burton-like aesthetic of the game. "One of the things that was so challenging about designing for this game title was that it really doesn't sound like anything else," concludes Hainer. "I basically had to pull everything out of my hat for this one." UNCERTAIN New York-based freelance sound de- signer/re-recording mixer Jacob Ribicoff (www.linkedin.com/pub/jacob-ribi- coff/16/1a9/448) designs and mixes both narrative features, such as the 2015 Sundance Film Festival favorite Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, and documentary films — most recently the Anna Sandilands and Ewan McNicol-directed documen- tary Uncertain, which premiered at New York's 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. Ribicoff observes that New York filmmakers generally prefer natural, realistic sound design that adds an element of emo- tion to the soundtrack. "Whether it's an urban story, on the ocean, or up in the mountains, it's not enough to just take the actual recordings from those places. They want to have an emotional impact underneath the sound," he explains. As was the case with Uncertain. The film tells several interwoven character stories set against the backdrop of the local lake in Uncertain, TX, being taken over by a floating fern called salvinia. Ribicoff's challenge was to give that plant a sinister bearing. "You see the surface of the lake with these floating plants about half the size of your fist. As the film progresses, SOUND DESIGN Sound designer Gregory Hainer (far right) relied on fluttering sounds from Sound Ideas and Hollywood Edge libraries to create the bee's wing flaps in Plants vs. Zombies 2 (above).