Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/825852
www.postmagazine.com 32 POST MAY 2017 SOUND DESIGN from smartphones to medical equipment, but the pivotal tech to the story was a small camera that Mae (Emma Watson) wears, which broadcasts her life to everyone on the network. Since the camera is such a key story element, Mohar says, "We really wanted it to become a character and to not be just a device. We wanted the audience to feel that the camera is alive; that someone was monitoring Mae." Beeps and tones weren't quite fitting the bill for the camera's power-on sound, so Mohar suggested having the camera speak. "We tried different phras- es, like 'camera active,' 'we're on Mae' and 'we're live,' but we ended up with a simple word, 'hello.' And that's actually the last word Mae says in the film, so it comes full circle," says Mohar. He recorded over 40 different versions of "hello," spoken with different inflections, in both male voices and female voices. "As small as it seems to just record one word, the way that word is said can mean so much," says Mohar. Ultimately, they chose a female voice, which sounds less forceful than a male voice. Mohar layered the real female voice with a text-to-speech voice, for a near-human result that has more per- sonality than something like Alexa on Amazon's Echo device. Mohar explains, "I wanted the audi- ence to feel a connection to the camera, to avoid it feeling passive. The voice of the camera sounds more human and less machine-like, almost like there is a little operator inside there. It sounds con- sistent but not robotic." As part of the design aesthetic, Mohar felt it was important to make the tech sounds play as if they're coming from a real device. Getting the size of the camera's voice right made the tech feel credible. "I didn't want the sounds to feel futuristic. When sounds are played beyond the dynamic range/ resolution of what an analog device can reproduce in the real world, they cross the line into fantasy. I wanted to keep the sound within the limited range of its speaker. It can never be floating in space. It is always directional and it always takes on the charac- ter of that device," he says. Using EQ to roll off frequencies below 800Hz and above 4kHz, and by adding a touch of satura- tion, Mohar processed the voice to sound like it's coming from a speaker that's small enough to be housed in a camera the size of a quarter. But, he didn't want the voice to sound too crushed or lo-fi. "The tech is supposed to be advanced, and well designed. It's not a crappy speaker; it's just small. It was important that sound of the voice had clarity and good resolution, but at the same time, had the artifact that you would expect from a very small speaker," Mohar concludes. KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD Director Guy Ritchie, of Snatch fame, puts his unique spin on the legend of King Arthur in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, in theaters now. While still working on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) with supervising sound editor Dominic Gibbs at Warner Bros. De Lane Lea in London (www. wbsound.com/london), they began discussing how they could enhance the different environments for King Arthur with new sound recordings. "This gave us a clear indication of the direction they were tak- Mohar recorded over 40 different versions of the word "hello" for the voice of the small camera worn around Mae's (Emma Watson) neck. Gibbs Technicolor designers created sounds for the advanced technology in The Circle.