AudioMedia - June 2008 - (Page 48)

challenge FROM STAGE TO SCREEN Springtime for Hitler and Germany gave playwright CP Taylor ample material for an arresting stage production. Bringing it to a cinema audience, however, posed a good few challenges for the post team at LipSync. Report by KARL FOSTER. itling a movie ‘Good’ is just asking for it, bearing of the Cedar DNS for dynamic noise suppression. in mind film critics’ propensity for biting sarcasm. “We use a lot of the EQs and a gentle expander on the DFC,” However, that didn’t stop Director Vicente Amorim reveals Paul. “But the Cedar can tighten up reverb – you can from deploying the adjective when working up his subtly reduce unwanted reverberation. If you’ve a constant adaptation of Cecil Philip Taylor’s award-winning play for mask of a noise, it’ll generally sit on it really well and not the silver screen. Good is set in Germany during the s, attack the dialogue in any way, if used subtly. That was part a time when a particularly unpleasant man called Adolf was of this ‘clean sound’ – we wanted to be able to get quiet busy rejuvenating the country and pondering the longevity with the film where we needed to.” of a third German Reich. Caught up in this is Aragorn, or Naturally, quality monitoring is critical when indulging Viggo Mortensen to his friends. Sans stubble and Sword in a surround Dolby EX experience, hence Crown of Elendil (or Andúril to its enemies), Viggo plays john amplifiers driving jBL  THX cabs for screen, As Halder, a literary professor whose novel on compassionate for surround, and A low-frequency emitters were at euthanasia is seized upon by the National Socialists to Paul’s command. suppor t government propaganda. Location sound was courtesy of john Add a neurotic wife, demanding children, Taylor, wielding a -bit Zaxcom Deva a mother with senile dementia, and a best multi-track, two boom-ops, several radio friend who happens to be jewish to an mics, and a painstaking approach to already Nazi situation You can imagine authenticity. Says Paul: “I would point out how life becomes a tad tricky for Halder. what a good job he did and how multiAlso challenging was Amorim’s track recording, when done properly, can vision for the production’s soundtrack. be so useful. He miked lots of perspectives He wanted clean. Fresh. Exciting. for us, and he shot some wonderfully wide Something invoking the excitement of shots of bigger scenes. There are several a society being rejuvenated. Not selfparties and he really got some lovely wide consciously ‘period’, but historically sounds in the big, grand places in which accurate. Quite a task, then, for LipSync’s these parties were taking place.” Senior Sound Mixer Paul Cotterell. Forward planning was key in realising Senior Re-recording Mixer Paul Cotterell: He wanted to make a modern film, Director Vicente’s vision, hence audio was “Good was a play to begin with. It’s a very although a period film at the same time. discussed in depth at a very early stage in human drama because Viggo’s best friend is He didn’t want any synthetic sounds the production. “john called us and asked Jewish in the film – that’s the crux of the in there. us how we worked,” says Paul. “We spoke movie, this friendship.” “There’s a sense of regeneration in about the wildtrack material – he’d already that period in Germany. At the beginning reconnoitred some of the places so he of the film there’s lots of building work – there are knew there may be trouble in terms of traffic in a couple of real, tangible improvements throughout all the cities. the locations, so we talked about wildtracking lines from Everything is coming to life and it’s a jubilant time. So that scenes, which was really useful, just getting the actors to sense of construction and improvement is what we tried do their lines again without the camera rolling. We had to capture.” options in that we could just cut the bits and pieces in.” LipSync Post, located on London’s Wardour Street, has With sound effects courtesy of Antonia Bates, putting output some quality product of late, including visual effects Steinberg’s Nuendo through its paces, and supremely work on The Bourne Ultimatum and Stardust. Paul relied on accurate foley from recordist Robert Brazier, all tracks the facility’s . Dolby room, designed by White Mark Ltd were kept live throughout the mix for maximum flexibility. and equipped with an AMS Neve Logic DFC, -input desk, Dialogue editor Sean Hannah, also of LipSync, used TC Electronics’ Reverb s, and the supreme capabilities Titan software to assemble location sound in Pro Tools. > a good T 48 AuDIO MEDIA juNE 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AudioMedia - June 2008

AudioMedia - June 2008 Contents Recording Post Broadcast AES Review What's Up UK? Geofocus: Australia For the Record Special Report: Videosonics Newstalk: DPA New Microphones Novation SL Compact Allen & Heath IDR-8 Eastwest Quantum Leap SD2 & Goliath Final Cut: Indiana Jones Merging ADR Module Koolworld SSL Duende Good Product Sampler: Microphones Video Guide AMSR Meyer Sound The Blue Planet Live! Royer Labs Mics R-121 & R-122

AudioMedia - June 2008

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