AudioMedia - March 2009 - (Page 27) PRESENTED BY: Bringing Entertainment Alive! but it does create more work as some people think that changing things is just a matter of pressing a button – but in reality that one change usually affects thousands of other things!” The old methodology of separate editing and mixing is also being challenged, with the advent of new technology – as Freemantle explains. “Both processes are merging into one. This can only be better for the film, as you’re refining things as you go along – Danny can come down and check it out as it progresses. On Sunshine (Boyle’s epic space saga), we had to invent every single sound, but when we came to the final mix, we were just blending the elements which Danny had heard as we worked on the film. It’s easier to get the levels right over the film’s whole duration – you’re not just trying to muck around with individual elements.” Freemantle believes that this way of working serves the film better, allowing the sound team to concentrate more on the rhythm and the emotion. “Then, it’s no longer just about which sound and which reel – it’s about telling a story over two hours – and that’s what draws you into a film.” As anyone who has heard the soundtrack for Boyle’s Trainspotting will attest, the Director is very aware of the importance of a film’s musical score, and for Slumdog, he called on the services of A.R. Rahman. As is so often the case, the music arrived just in the nick of time – as Niv Adiri, Sound Effects and Music Editor, explains. “It came in as we were mixing – we only had one cue on the first day of the mix, so we were quite concerned as the music was an integral part of the sound design of the film – it was quite an adventure! We had to do a lot of music editing as AR hadn’t been writing to the final cut, so he sent us great big slabs of music which we then cut to the film. Having the stems available separately (the music was mixed at Out of Eden by Andy Richards on his Fairlight system) enabled us to easily break it down.” sound24 has two sound design and two effects editing rooms, both of which are networked making it easier to share libraries and sounds. Audio is handled by Apple G5 computers running Pro Tools 7.3.1 on HD 2 and 3 systems in 5.1 configurations, while monitoring is handled by Dynaudio speakers. Like most professionals, Adiri prefers not to draw blood at the cutting edge of technology. “Pro Tools 7.3.1 was the most stable version available at the time,” he says. “I used to work at Gearbox Sound and Vision, so I was supporting Pro Tools for many years. I never use the latest versions, but usually wait at least six months to make sure the systems are stable.” Soundminer and the Pro Tools Workspace were both called upon to ensure that the thousands of audio files were correctly catalogued and easily accessible. “The library kept being updated, mainly from field recording but also from libraries, so each sound file needed to be named properly, and cut and catalogued to make it easy to find via the search engines,” says Adiri. The team made extensive use of plug-ins, such as the Waves Restoration bundle, GRM tools, Native Instruments’ Kontakt, Motu’s Mach5, and Audioease’s Altiverb. “We used Altiverb a lot – it’s our main reverb, “ says Adiri. “Hugo Adams records his own impulse files for the software and we print the effect so it becomes part of the sound – we don’t tend to run these live right to the end.” Freemantle is, however, aware of the pitfalls of using such tools in an attempt to make the audio too pristine. “I said to Danny before we started that the most important thing to get is the dialogue. If you want to keep it real and gritty, we need to keep as much of the original recording as we can. You have to be careful when you are using these types of tools because you want to keep the integrity and rawness of the voice – part of the charm of this film is that you can buy into it that it’s real.” Tapp concurs, “I paid particular attention to this whilst premixing – trying to encourage the warmth of the dialogue, and avoiding any cleanup and filtering that was destructive to the dialogue quality.” For the final mix, Pinewood’s Powell Theatre was utilised, along with no fewer than five Pro Tools systems. “It looked a bit like NASA,” laughs Freemantle. “As a general rule we try and keep it simple as it can get very messy on a big film,” adds Adiri. “If we can do it with less, we do. We split the tracks for convenience because things are so busy and you can’t really keep everything on one system. The atmos had so much detail that we needed to separate these out – they were almost more like spots, not just the usual long files of evolving sounds.” Audio from the Pro Tools sessions was routed through a Euphonix System 5 console, and the desk’s EQ was called upon to add sparkle to the final mix. The whole process took around five weeks, though Freemantle admits that they had a lot of time “for free by the guys at Pinewood”. Once the mix was complete, you’d assume that the crew at sound24 could put their feet up and relax for a while – but you’d assume wrong. “It was all shot at 25 frames per second, so we had to make a 24 version as well,” says Freemantle. “We mixed the whole thing at 25fps all the way through, so cinemas equipped with digital projectors and DVD got a version at 25fps, while more traditional film cinema required 24 fps. So at the back end we had to do a pitch change using the Dolby 585 system. Though Boyle has long been a pioneer of digital cinema – 28 Days Later was famously captured on handheld camcorders – Slumdog was shot on film. “Danny wanted to shoot at 25fps because of the extensive use of lights and the TV monitors. We had to deliver to Fox and Pathé at 24fps, but Danny wanted the HD master to be at 25. I was worried about artefacts – we’d had a similar problem with 28 Days Later – but for that one we kept just made a 24 frame master as the pitching systems weren’t as good then. You don’t need these problems when you’re making a film, I can tell you!” Chris Tarrant was unavailable for comment. ∫ Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, and Resul Pookutty with their Oscar for Achievement In Sound Mixing (Slum Dog Millionaire). Glenn Freemantle – Supervising Sound Editor / Sound designer Ian Tapp – Sound Re-Recording Mixer Richard Pryke – Sound Re-Recording Mixer Niv Adiri – Sound Effects / Music Editor Tom Sayers – Co-Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer Hugo Adams – Foley Editor Resul Pookutty – ADR Mixer/Sound Mixer Gillian Dodders – Supervising Dialogue Editor Ben Barker – Effects Editor Lee Herrick – Dialogue Editor Steve Haynes – ADR Recordist Adam Scrivener – Assistant Sound Re-Recording Mixer Danny Freemantle – Assistant Sound Editor A.R. Rahman – Music Producer Andy Richards – Original Score Mixer One of the Euphonix System s at Pinewood – the host for Slumdog post. AUDIO MEDIA MARCH 2009 27
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