Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/813438
www.postmagazine.com 33 POST APRIL 2017 sounds," says Finan. For Mickey, they chose a Camaro Z28 from 1971. "Mickey's car has exposed pipes on the front, like an old school hot rod. The Camaro — which looks nothing like Mickey's car, has a really throaty, sputtery exhaust pipe sound. That car had the ab- solute most personality out of anything we heard and we immediately knew that sound had to be for Mickey. He is the focus of the show and that sound puts him front and center as a showpiece," Finan says. Another consideration was choosing cars that sounded very different from one another. With six cars all racing past each other, performing complicated maneuvers, the engine sounds could easily become a wash of white noise. Finan ex- plains, "We were thinking a lot about the mix and how the cars fit in from a frequency perspective because we wanted the cars to pop out, and to still have a noticeable personality even when they were grouped together. Plus, the characters are yelling lines of dialogue that three-year-olds need to understand, and then there is a rock 'n roll score going on underneath the whole time. The races were a big challenge on the show." For each car they chose, Finan purchased new sound libraries that contained all the necessary car sounds, like pass-bys at various speeds, pull- ins, stops, engine revs, etc. "We bought almost all of our car libraries from Pole Position Production (http://pole.se). Their recordings are really high quality and they tended to have fewer files, which for me is preferable. They put a lot more into a single file, so we don't have to trudge through line after line in Soundminer while we're working. I absolutely recommend them," she says. In addition to sound design, Boom Box Post handles all the sound effects, dialogue and Foley editorial on Mickey and the Roadster Racers. Finan's team includes sound effects editor Brad Meyer and dialogue editor Jacob Cook. For Foley, Finan says they use a 'digital Foley' method wherein they take recordings of actual Foley footsteps recorded on a Foley stage and split those out into instruments in Native Instrument's Kontakt. "Instead of walking on the Foley stage, we walk Foley on a MIDI keyboard. It saves a bit of cost but the real benefit is the ability to put a lot of design work into the cartoon characters' footsteps, like Donald's duck feet," Finan explains. Once Boom Box Post wraps up sound editorial on an episode, Finan hands it off to re-recording mixer Eric Freeman, from Disney Television Animation, who mixes it at Disney's facility. www.postmagazine.com 33 POST APRIL 2017 The Roadster Racers Roadster Racers Roadster sound crew. Each vehicle's sound reflects its driver. Incredible weather shot on DCI 4K by cinematographer Martin Lisius. Licensed for feature films, commercials and docs. Only at StormStock® www.stormstock.com Tel. 817.276.9500