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Sound designer Richard King approached the animated Rise of the Guardians the way he would a live-action film. He will use an array of Pro Tools systems to allow them to mix virtually. By keeping every- thing virtual "in the box" he has ultimate flexibility for every element involved, includ- ing the Audio Ease Altiverb and other pro- cessing plug-ins they use. "Because of the 3D sound situation, we want to have the free- dom to have all the sounds separate and not have anything married to anything else. That way we can pick and choose what we want to have in the sound and not be burdened with having to figure out ways to separate sounds in the pre-dubs." To go along with the 3D visuals, they plan to mix the film using one of the 3D audio formats, such as Dolby Atmos (which debuted with the movie Brave), or Barco's Auro 11.1 system (which debuted with the film Red Tails). While both systems have a unique approach to 3D sound, the idea is the same: to be able to move the sound beyond the two spatial axis of traditional surround sound set-ups by adding a height component. "The new 3D sound formats are really going to work well with the 3D image, and this will be the first one I've done," says King. "We are mixing the 7.1 now, and we are getting a lot of ideas about what we can do with the 3D sound field." King's sound design relies on tangible ele- ments, like ice and sand, to contrast the fan- tastical images in the film. His sound lends reality to the situations. Two characters in the movie use sand as part of their sound — the sandman, who helps children fall asleep and have good dreams, and Pitch, the nemesis, who makes children have bad dreams. King recorded various sand and ice sounds. "Their powers are visualized by sand so we record- ed a lot of sand flowing, different grades of 38 Post • October 2012 sand, different sizes of grains of sand, in differ- ent amounts. Jack Frost is a character of cold, of wind and ice, and when he touches things he creates frost. We recorded different things in liquid nitrogen and manipulated them to make crunchy, crackly frosty sounds. Between those guys there were a lot of actually recog- nizable sounds, like ice and frost, and you can recognize the sand." Pitch is also a shape shifter, and King plans on using the surrounds a great deal to move Pitch's voice around the theater, making him instantly disappear in one spot and reappear in another. "We have to watch that a little bit because it can veer into the too scary terri- tory. One challenge is to try to make things seem big without over powering an audience that may have small children in it. We are trying not to make things too loud or too abrasive or too shocking, but still have an impact that suggests that this is a monumen- tal situation we are seeing on screen." Since the Rise of the Guardians is a story about fairy tale characters, the goal of the sound is to help create a reality where these characters are real, with real emotions. "It's about heightening the emotion of the story, and the interaction of the characters, and the jeopardy that these characters find them- selves in. All the characters are interesting and fun. It's not exactly the characters that you'd expect. They are all eccentric and have distinct personalities. I really enjoy working on the film and working with all the people involved," sums up King. RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION In September, Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, released Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth Resident Evil www.postmagazine.com continued on page 47 film in the series. Picking up where the last film, Afterlife, left off, Alice and a group of survivors aboard the ship Arcadia fight against the Umbrella Corporation. The story follows Alice through her recapture by Umbrella, and her subsequent struggle to escape. Unlike Afterlife, Retribution takes place in a wide variety of locations, including a suburban setting, New York City, Moscow, an underwater complex in the arctic circle and Washington, DC. The IMAX 3D format is a good fit for this action-packed film. IMAX 3D looks big and sounds big. The extra-large, curved IMAX screen helps to put the audience closer to the image. The IMAX sound system is differ- ent from conventional 5.1, or 7.1 surround set-ups. The speakers are all full range, so the bass frequencies are reproduced throughout the entire theater. Resident Evil: Retribution was mixed on a Harrison MPC4-D in Theater One at Deluxe Toronto (www.bydeluxe.com) by re-record- ing mixers Andrew Tay, Andrew Stirk and Mark Zsifkovits. Having worked together on the previous Resident Evil film, the team was able to quickly hit their stride. They com- pleted the final mix in four weeks, and spent another five days converting the film to the IMAX format. "For a film of this scale we managed to keep the hours well under con- trol, probably because all the tracks were so well prepared," says Stirk. "Theater One at Deluxe ran like Usain Bolt at the Olympics." The IMAX conversion time was spent on bass management, since the IMAX set-up doesn't include a discreet sub, and on manag- ing the EQs of different channels because the