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SOUND DESIGN www.postmagazine.com 43 POST MAY 2016 to Ecuador, where his son runs a nature reserve for birds. Ironically, the birds were one sound source that Boyes didn't intend to record. "I couldn't use any of the birds because they were specific to Ecuador," he says. And since Taylor specified India, the birds of Ecuador just wouldn't fly. But Boyes was able to capture lush jun- gle atmospheres, and vegetation move- ment and impacts. "My son was amused that I wanted to record so many sounds of things falling out of trees," jokes Boyes. He recorded a tremendous amount of cicadas and other insects too, that when used judiciously in the mix, lent an air of authenticity of being deep in the jungle. And although it's far from an Indian jungle, Boyes also managed to capture jungle-type sounds in the woods at Skywalker Ranch, where he and assistant Lucas Miller recorded the sounds of foot- steps in deep, organic vegetation that had a nice leafy crunch. Additionally, Boyes found inspiration on his wooded property in northern California. There, he recorded various veg- etation rustles and water-related sounds, like pouring water — which they used for the scene at Peace Rock when Mowgli pours his shell full of water back into the pool. Boyes captured field recordings for the water track that plays subtly in scene when Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray) and Mowgli are floating in the river, singing "Bare Necessities." To emulate the move- ment of the giant bear Baloo in the river, Boyes recorded himself manipulating a big wool blanket in water. His trip to northern California also sup- plied a truckload of logs — both wet and dry, for Skywalker's Foley artists Dennie Thorpe and Jana Vance to use for foot- steps. Boyes explains, "The sound of foot- steps on a log or branch that is alive and full of water and has moss on it is com- pletely different from the sound of a dry branch that is about to crack and break. Jon wanted to make sure that we were clear about that concept, and so we were able to realize that in a sonic way." This concept is vital to the story. Near the end of the film, Mowgli is able to defeat Shere Khan by leading him onto a dry branch, which Mowgli knows will break under the tiger's weight. Having a sonic distinction between wet and dry branches helped to communicate that idea. "Bringing these elements to the Foley stage was absolutely crucial," says Boyes. "Even in reel one, right at the outset, Mowgli is running through the forest and he is jumping from live trees onto a dead tree. We really wanted to enunciate, and give authenticity and hon- esty to each element of his footsteps." Eulner, who uses a Neumann MS stereo mic setup like the KM-100 series with cardioid AK capsules, also took a field recording trip to northern California, where he visited a ranch to capture bull and buffalo sounds, such as close-up buf- falo vocals and snorts, and elements for the stampede that occurs when Mowgli escapes Shere Khan by sliding down a ra- vine into a charging herd of water buffalo. "A big part of that scene was from our field recordings," reveals Boyes. Together Boyes and Eulner journeyed to the animal reserve of Big Bear Alpine Zoo in Big Bear, CA. They recorded wild wolves, grizzly bears, and black bears, which were used heavily. "We even left the Sony D50 with the zookeepers and had them stick it in the cage to get us more sounds," Boyes shares. Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba) has both human and animal vocals that blend seamlessly together, as evidenced in his final showdown with Mowgli. To create the animalistic vocals, Boyes explored tiger recordings he captured for Jurassic Park (1993). He combined those in a Pro Tools session with tiger recordings mined from over 50 other sources. He spent days going through those recordings, selecting and naming elements of vocals that com- plemented each other. Then, he used that palette to carefully cut all of Shere Khan's animal vocals against Elba's dialogue, which re-recording mixer Hirschberg pro- cessed using the Dehumaniser plug-in by Krotos LTD. "Lora used a very light touch of Dehumaniser, which gave a bit of gravitas and a shaky rumble to the low end of Idris Elba's voice," says Boyes. "By doing that processing, I felt that his voice was able to reach down into the deeper registers of the animal vocals. I knew right away that a big part of whether or not Shere Khan worked as a character would depend on the two sides of his voice being able to speak to each other and feel as if they were both coming from the same animal. It was a pretty big challenge and I feel that it came through...I must have cut and recut his vocals over a period of six or seven months." The Skywalker team of (L-R) Boyes, Eulner and Hirschberg were tasked with creating the sound- scape of a dense jungle in India.