Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/757053
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y F A L L 2 0 1 6 29 Sound Inspiration Within the Storytelling Process Presented by MPSE This panel was moderated by Carolyn Giardino of The Hollywood Reporter and the panelists included Will Files MPSE (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Star Trek Into Darkness), Mark P. Stoeckinger MPSE (Gladiator, Star Trek, Unstoppable), Ben L. Cook MPSE (American History X, Black Sails, Deadwood), Paula Fairfield MPSE (Game of Thrones, Lost, Sin City), Harry Cohen (Django Unchained, Inglorious Bastards, Deepwater Horizon), and Paul Menichini (World of Warcraft, Starcraft ) Check out some of the highlights from the discussion below: How do you draw inspiration? Will: "A lot of my inspiration comes from the director and their vision. I always try to channel the director's aesthetic through my own work. I often ask how does he want the audience to feel about something. Often, that's one of the best things I can know going in: 'Should they be scared of this monster? Should they be in awe? Should they feel pity?' Sometimes it's not what you would expect." Will recently finished a film called Loving, a civil rights drama set in the '50s and '60s in the South (directed by Jeff Nichols). "I was able to draw on my own experiences living in the South. You're trying to create feeling through sound of what it's like to be there. Does it feel hot? Does it feel damp? Does it feel oppressive?" When asked how he approaches a project in an unfamiliar environment, Will responded, "YouTube. It's a really great resource. It was totally invaluable for us to have YouTube available when researching Planet of the Apes. What do baby chimps sound like? What do angry orangutans sound like? Twenty years ago, these would have taken so much time to investigate. We even went so far as to track down some of the people who had made these videos and license sounds from them to use in the movies." Mark: "My process is to watch it the first time as a movie, 'What kind of story is it? How do I react to it?' Then, what kind of sound might it need to increase that experience? It also helps define some of the questions to ask like how a director sees a scene play or how the audience is supposed to feel." Mark discussed his approach to the film Prometheus, which takes place in the same universe as the Alien film series. "The research was understanding what the current film is and where it came from so you can pay homage and use some of the sounds from the original film. Prometheus is in the future, but it relates to the beginning of man, and the beginning of man theoretically is this language of Sanskrit. So I was able to make a lot of the computer electronic sounds with voice samples based on Sanskrit. Using organic sounds to make something that's not necessarily organic was important. The black goo that bubbled reminded me of Pop Rocks, so we used Pop Rocks on the Foley stage to get that sound. We just play. It's about getting inspiration to play with sound." Ben: "I do a lot of period pieces, so there's not a lot of footage. I take from other inspiration; the script, watching the reels, books. For The Pacific, I was in Australia for eight months cutting with The Cutting Room. At one point, they had veterans that had been in the war there to look at the sets. Just to get to talk with them and the sounds that they remembered hearing—those were the things that you made sure were in that show and that stuck out because that's what those guys went through. That was invaluable."