Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Go Behind The Scenes Of The Sound Production For Interstellar
Fstoppers: Undoubtedly, audio is one of the most important story telling tools in cinema. Improper use or overuse of sound can dramatically affect the impact of the viewing experience. After the recent release of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, there has been a lot of buzz about the 'mix being muddy'. Many theater goers are reporting sound issues; that the booming sound effects are too loud. The majority of the complaints state that the sound drowns out key dialogue, making the film difficult to follow. However; this blockbuster wasn't intended to be a dialogue driven film. In this behind the scenes video short, Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Richard King discusses technique behind creating sound for this epic film.
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8 comments:
Nolan's concepts for the sound of the movie is very striking. Going for accuracy and real sounds over artificial or unnecessary sounds really makes sense. I haven't seen the movie but just from their explanations of the design concept I get a feeling of what it will be like. The contrast between the sound in space and on the planets they are on has to be huge for it to have the impact that Nolan is going for. Listening to King talking about the process for reaching the decisions they came to is really interesting. How he describes the ship as their office and that instead of adding bleeps and bloops they focused on the sounds of the ship structure itself and the atmosphere in it is really striking. Seeing how they made the sound effects was also really interesting. I never really realized how much time and effort goes into getting the sounds just right. I especially enjoyed the part where they drove a truck through a corn field to get the sound just right.
I saw Interstellar a few weeks ago, and maybe the theatre I went to did a better job than some others or maybe I wasn't paying very close attention, but I didn't have any complaints with the mix, or that it sounded "muddy". One of the things about the sound that I remember very clearly is the silence -- I don't think there are very many movies where space is shown so quietly. It was really cool to see how much thought went into what things should sound like, and I think they did a really good job. People often say that those who work behind the scenes know they did a good job if nobody noticed that they did anything, at that was the case, at least for me. It might be interesting to watch the movie again, this time paying attention to the sound specifically now that I know how the rest of the movie goes.
After seeing Interstellar, I can definitely say that this was a very well-mixed show. The sound designers did a crazy awesome job at creating atmosphere wherever Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway ended up. For me, the most powerful moment was when Matt Damon's character blew up part of the space station. What so many space movies get wrong is the sound of a large explosion, in space. But, there's no sound in space. So, after this intense scene where Hathaway's character is trying to convince him to not open the door but Damon ignores her, there's complete silence. I remember the whole theatre gasping. It was such a powerful moment because we're trained to expect something both aurally and visually. I braced myself for a deafening crash, but there was none. The ship was having this massive explosion, but all we heard was silence. As for the critics, I think their equipment couldn't handle it. In my theatre, it sounded great! The mix added so much to the worlds they were visiting that I remember being completely aware of the sound design as we moved through the movie. The mixing was striking and flowing and although I couldn't hear the dialogue sometimes, I also agree that this isn't a dialogue-driven movie. Sure, there needed to be intense explanation of these complex scientific concepts that Nolan was throwing at us, but the little conversations didn't matter, and those were the ones that were apparently muddied by the sound. Also- go see this. It's stunning.
While I do not think the mix was muddy I did think that a good majority of the movie was generally too loud for my taste. I do not necessarily think it was out of place but would not have been my choice. Adelaide pointed out something important, Nolan utilized silence very well. i think the louder mix was to create a greater absence of sound and thus giving us the silence of being in space. without giving too many spoilers there is a scene with an explosion in an airlock that represents the fraction of a second before utter silence in the vacuum of space. just recently we covered the sound design behind Alien as directed by ridley scott, which is more of a haunted house film then a sci fi film. Utilizing terrifying elements that isolate us just from their sound.
I haven't seen this movie yet but I'm more excited to do so now, considering the thoroughness of work put into the sound design. In the video the sound designers mention adding syllables to lines and working with such minute details that it's obvious that they really put their best effort in creating the best sound possible. I always love to see the unconventional ways through which sound designers create diverse sounds for movies, but what I think this team seems to have done best is conceptualize the various scenarios of the movie in terms of audio. Theres obvious conscious decisions at play that affect the feel of the film as a whole. The decision to keep space silent and to only create a sense of violent hurdling through space through the rattling of objects within the spacecraft is a conscious decision that undoubtedly took a lot of consideration.This decision to simulate realistic space conditions hasn't been seen since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and is worth noting as a noble attempt to separate this film from other nonsense big budget space action movies. I respect the sound designers for the deep consideration and completeness of their work, and I hope it does its job of empowering the other elements of the film.
I saw this yesterday and I had a couple pretty big problems with the sound. The stuff the talk about in this video, about how they wanted the sounds to be real that was evident. All the sound was believable but maybe at points to believable. There are scenes where everything on the ship is going haywire and they are talking to each other but you can't hear them over all the whistling beeping alarming. And maybe that is realistic but if they are talking and I have to strain to understand them it detracts from the movie. Also sometime the music despite being really good was just so much louder than their words that whatever they said was completely lost in those moments.
Also sometimes it was just so loud it hurt.
I liked the movie and the sound was believable but not mixed terribly well.
The beautiful sounds included in this video and the immense complexity that is discussed is a lot to unpack. I love watching things like this because film still holds so much intangible magic for me because I do not understand its ins and outs as I do theatre. Seeing the foley art, the recordings, the ingenuity and experimentation, and the immense hours spent recording and testing is exhilarating. My mind swirls just thinking about how they keep track of all those files and how such a team is managed. I am also curious about the timeline and structure of what be the immense conversations that the sound designer and Nolan must have. I definitely want to see the movie now.
When I think of external sounds being done in movies, I often think that they are being produced in a sound studio via a synthesizer. It’s great to see that they are still using old school techniques to get the sound they want. A friend of mine did something like this for a class in my undergrad, being able to combine different types of sounds to create a unique sound for a particular object. Having said that, I now feel as though seeing the movie would make it that much better because I would know that in some regards, the making of the film was still raw and natural in those particular ways. Once you start going into a completely automated sound system, I know we are used to hearing it in that regards nowadays, but it’s definitely refreshing to know they can still use that technique.
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