Sound design

and any number of people, including Rebecca. We should talk about the sound mix here because it's just extraordinary. It kind of rocks the theater when you're inside a cinema watching. Yeah, our sound team, this actually, there was a lot of time and effort that went into this, and then it was really only on the very last day when we took the sound design apart and put it back together again. There had been a lot of notes and thoughts and rules, and we finally just went down and picked specific sounds

14:50 · jump to transcript →

And then the most important part was to mix in a level of bass so that you actually feel the storm. Yeah, so if you're watching this at home, your subwoofer will be getting a very good workout in this little bit of the movie. Although we now go into much more subjective, dreamy sound design here. And we played with the end of this sequence, how it would end and where the credits would fall in the beginning of the movie many, many times. And finally settled on this. I love the dissolve here as well because...

15:19 · jump to transcript →

Yeah, because we wanted the desert to have a win in it. Yes, well, we knew that if you went into the credits believing that she had died and withheld it all the way to Rome, which is what we originally did. Yeah, a good hour into the movie, yeah. It affected the entire tone of the airport. Yeah. So we knew you had to reveal this somewhere else. Yeah. And we went full circle. We threw the idea out, and in the very last week of editing, the idea came back. And a lot of this is told through sound design. This is actually shot on the back lot.

24:28 · jump to transcript →

So most of it was basically done by them in London. Sound designer Norman Wanstall recalls how he added production value to Dr. No through sound effects. A typical example would be where I could contribute would be just literally to introduce voices where purely for atmosphere, which was something I learned from Wyn Ryder. He was a great fan of doing this, and I learned how he brought scenes alive just by having distant voices.

27:24 · jump to transcript →

In the studio, you can control everything much easier, so everybody was more quiet, and it was easier, it was less tension. Sound effects play a key role in the latter part of the film. Editor Peter Hunt. In order to level that all out, I know how we came to have that general hum, was that we thought, well, because it was way down, underground,

1:23:53 · jump to transcript →

the most technically and artistically perfect track for the cinema. Like all the departments, Wanstall was challenged by the film's limited budget. The budget was very low and this really was significant in my case because invariably on busy films like that, action films, you have two soundtrack editors. It's inevitable you need those because somebody has to look after all the dialogue and somebody has to look after the sound effects.

1:25:17 · jump to transcript →

but then decides that he's hungry now. Yeah, nothing like mouth raping a bunch of pregnant women. That's going to hell for that one. Yeah, I kind of regret how quick this shot is now. I wish we held that one a little bit longer. It's just such a quick flash. By getting the sound effect right here when we were on the dubbing stage. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're talking to an ADR, talking to the actress there.

1:06:28 · jump to transcript →

And she's like, so what are you looking for? We're like, yeah, just imagine a really large thing jammed down your throat, squirting eggs into your mouth. And she's just like, oh, okay. And we played for her, and she's just like, oh, my God. She was a little appalled at the footage that her voice was going to be applied to. Yeah, she did a very authentic choking sound there. It was good. In a movie like this and in this genre, sound design is very important, especially a lot of our—

1:06:54 · jump to transcript →

sound had to be otherworldly at points, and so it was designing and pulling that off so it would work. Oh, yeah, I mean, between the guys designing the sound... Yeah, Jay did a great job. Jay kicked ass. Our mixers were just fantastic, you know, trying to balance the music with the sound design, with the dialogue. I mean, because it's a challenge, because part of you just wants everything at a volume 11. You know, I love really, really loud movies, and...

1:07:24 · jump to transcript →

This piece just seemed to kind of get the mood of this strange encounter. I don't know what... Flustered. We should also talk about the wonderful sound design of Steve Munro, which a lot of times kind of crosses into music score. There's certain sounds that you'll hear in this pet shop, and certainly in the club,

22:05 · jump to transcript →

In the office, in the club, you'll hear these long bell tones, and a lot of people said that was their favorite part of the score, but in fact, it was just sound design. Actually, that's a really good point. We'll talk about that in terms of the scenes between Francis and Sarah Pauly's character in the car. There are these wonderful sounds that Steve...

22:33 · jump to transcript →

in a Denis Arcand film and told you about her. And I believe that's how she ended up. Loving human remains. Loving human remains, yeah. The baby with Eric. I found it. Does he know? I would hope so. But here, look at the sound design here. Like, you know, the sound of these, again, parrots or birds. I mean, like, it's sort of an abstract sound. Like, it's almost as though there's this garden outside. Like, there's this weird, you know, um...

47:41 · jump to transcript →

which means that the dialogue was replaced in post-production. And not because the performances were bad, they were actually quite good, but the actors didn't quite project well enough to get over the crowd when the scene was being photographed, so we went back in the studio and revoiced those lines with them and had them projected more so that it could get up over the crowd sound effects that were put in later in post-production. Now, right after this shot, there used to be a whole other scene

22:49 · jump to transcript →

The part where the mummy comes back to life, that's based on a true story, right? That happened to me when I was younger, yes. I love the photography in this scene. You really, well, you feel like you're there. Torch lit. Creepy. Although, before we added sound effects, it sounded like they were walking on...

41:51 · jump to transcript →

which they were. Our sound designer, Leslie Schatz, did a great job in this sequence, because basically what he had to do was he had to make the sounds of humans seem like it's some scary sound, so you have to...

42:21 · jump to transcript →

rubber sword there. Always amusing to... Try to cut around. Yeah. Also, when Freddy gets thrown across the room there, he suddenly becomes giant for a shot. That was his double. If you go back, you look at that sword under the... the old sword under the armpit stab. It's funny, though, with the sound effect, it's really effective. The actors here rehearsed and rehearsed, but on the day Addie nailed...

30:29 · jump to transcript →

Again, I love Patricia's eye. Watch her eyes, her focus. I mean, there's nothing there, and she has to really keep her eyeline straight. This is a really neat painting from ILM. Very evocative and impressive. And Leslie Schatz, who's been our sound designer since, again, film school. We work with the same people over and over again.

49:02 · jump to transcript →

Because we find good people and stick with them. And I just love the sound effect he put in when her thumb goes into his ear. I thought that was very effective in the theaters. Here, if you notice in the background, we're running out of time. The sky is lighting up. It's 5.15. I've got five more minutes to get that shot, that side of this scene done. Because see how black the sky is there? See at the top of the frame how blue it is there? We're running out of time, folks. It's Monday morning and the traffic's about to pour in. The sun's going to come up and I'm done.

49:32 · jump to transcript →

Darren Aronofsky

It's emphasized by Brian Emrich, our sound designer, who creates different, you know, sound design for different elements of the attacks. All the medical stuff is completely real except for that, our vaccination gun. It was built by a sculptor friend of mine in Brooklyn named Sasha Noe, who put it together from some old parts from his drilling machines.

7:59 · jump to transcript →

Darren Aronofsky

It looks pretty cool though. And that's just a sound effect to bring it alive. And of course, Sean's performance to make it real. So he's still waiting for the pain to come.

8:30 · jump to transcript →

Darren Aronofsky

He knows it's going to come. It hasn't hit him yet, and his nausea is growing in the back of his throat, and it doesn't kick in until there. We call that the vibrator cam, which was just basically shooting with a long lens and shaking the camera viciously. And now the paint is here, and we sort of accompanied it with not only the sound design, but the score as well. All the different elements working together, all the different departments.

8:54 · jump to transcript →

Tim Lucas

especially effective in the five-to-one sound mix. By taking out the music, the scene becomes more intimate and the two men feel more exposed, more out in the open. We're going to see what they're really made of. Just like the games we know. They have been behaving up to now, just as children do, but that's about to change.

54:18 · jump to transcript →

Tim Lucas

the sped-up, spring-like sound of a Jews harp. These are just two of the many ways that Ennio Morricone added to the film with musical sound effects as opposed to music. This elderly character actor playing the telegraph operator is Giovanni Tarallo,

1:10:25 · jump to transcript →

Tim Lucas

while the later stereo re-recordings were arranged to make a more ideal listening experience. As best I can determine, the first full-length soundtrack album was released by RCA Records in 1971, padded with music from A Fistful of Dollars. In 2004, there appeared a CD released from RCA Victor Europe, which lifted the mono tracks, replete with sound effects, directly off the film soundtrack. It had a running time of only 15 to 16 minutes,

1:12:36 · jump to transcript →

Stephen Prince

The sequence took 13 days to shoot, one of the longest in the film. Two of its most striking features are the use of slow motion and the sound design. Kurosawa used three high-speed cameras running at 72 frames per second, three times the normal speed at which film is shot. To get slow motion on film, you have to shoot at a high frame rate. This sequence then consumed a lot of film, which would have run through the cameras very quickly.

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Stephen Prince

He used slow motion in a more extended fashion in Ran during an epic battle scene that the slow motion, in conjunction with Taro Takamitsu's music, makes into a tragic lament for the foolishness and self-destructive nature of human beings. The sound design in the sequence is very striking. And indeed, the sound throughout the film is superlatively designed. We hear only a few sound effects,

32:27 · jump to transcript →

Stephen Prince

In other stories, she draws the breath from their body and along with it their life energy. In Kurosawa's variation, there's a physical struggle against which the I character must prevail. And the sound design again marks this shift. The beguiling soprano is gone, replaced by the harshness of the wind heard at high volume. As he struggles, she drops all pretense and begins holding him down. And she undergoes several changes in appearance.

39:31 · jump to transcript →

Also, slow motion also will give me a lot of a strong impact, you know, like the horse racing. I want to see the energy. I want to see the beauty of the horse running. I want to see the muscle. I want to see the hair floating in the air, you know. So I shot the whole horse race shot with 120 frames. But in the meantime, when we cut into the scene, I need a very strong sound effect.

47:29 · jump to transcript →

So I would like to start with the slow motion, all the horse running out in slow motion. And then I emphasize the great sound effect. And they will draw a lot more of our attention. They will make the audience sit on the chair. Oh, what happened? What's going on? That kind of feeling. Bids from possible Chimera buyers.

47:56 · jump to transcript →

The sound effect guy, Mark, you know, he's brilliant. You know, he worked with me in Face Off, and he knows my style. I pretty much care about the sound effect. The sound effect is very important in the whole movie. Sometimes you make some boring scenes not that boring. Sometimes you create some kind of special sound. You make the simple scenes look different. It's better than being broke. I have terrorists and... And then I like to do some kind of experiment. For example, for the gunshot.

1:33:11 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

Fukabe also created the sound of Godzilla's roar among many sound effects that he tackled as extensions of the musical score. Concerned that the roar should be organic and natural without sounding like any living animal, he created the sound by taking a contrabass, one of the lowest pitched musical instruments, loosening its strings to drop the pitch even more, rubbing the strings with a leather glove to get the basic sound, and applying an echo to that recording played back at a slower speed.

1:20:16 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

When Ifukube requested access to the instrument for use in creating the monster roar, he had not previously had any opportunity to practice the sound effect. His finely tuned sensitivity to the sounds of objects and instruments allowed him to deduce in advance what lesser musicians could only learn by trial and error. Apparently, the filmmakers began to realize what an asset they had in Ifukube, and this sequence was amended during production to take advantage of that.

1:20:45 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

He complained that he had to make do with a smaller orchestra than he was used to in his classical works. And to show how chintzy the whole thing was, he directed the musicians while the Foley artists recorded the film's sound effects simultaneously on the same track. The movie studios pinched pennies like nobody's business, even on a project as unprecedentedly expensive as this. The final budget is said to have been 62 million yen.

1:22:13 · jump to transcript →

sound effects of traffic, all of which... builds as the intimacy builds and as the angles become more acute and as you get more into their face throughout the whole of the ten-minute sequence, because it was fairly difficult to figure out a way to put a ten-minute dialogue sequence in the middle of a movie. We are now in our California garb. California, yeah. It's supposed to be California in case you can't hear it. It is. I know it is, but you gotta...

45:39 · jump to transcript →

Anyway, at the end of the previous scenes, the trucks all make kind of a sonic envelope to it, and the sound effects are processed in the same key as the music. There's an accent as one truck goes through, just as he makes kind of a warning horn sound, just as he makes it approach the telephone and picks it up and calls Leo and makes his Faustian bargain, which he doesn't realize is a Faustian bargain at the time. What's the fifth alarm? We cannot run it down.

46:35 · jump to transcript →

the sound effects of the fire extinguisher have changed now in anticipation of a cue that's incoming. A what? In anticipation of the cue that will have a reverb on the sound effects of the fire extinguisher.

1:31:54 · jump to transcript →

Bill Paxton

and the grips shook the set and the set collapsed on us and split open my scalp. So I'll always remember that line. It caught fire and the roof came in all on the same day. And it hit Jim in the head. I saw blood spurting out of his head. It was where Sigourney was supposed to be sitting, so it was good it hit Jim and not her. We'd have gotten a day off. Think they did that on purpose? No. - I'm just asking. At that point, maybe they would've. In the pipe. Five by five." My favorite line. These shots, it's just me shaking the back of the magazine of the camera. The poor camera operator had a bruise around his eye, cos sometimes I'd whack the magazine too, just to give it a sharp jolt. This is all my shake of the camera. The operator can't do it himself. It just gets into this bouncy rhythm if the operator tries to do it. It has to be imposed from the outside and then they fight it, which is the natural reflex. Such a wonderful sound design in this movie. Much of which was generated in our living room in England. At the time, people really weren't using synthesizers in England to create sound effects for films, and we had a Fairlight synthesizer in our living room. A lot of the sound effects were generated by Bob Garret, Randy Frakes and Jim in our living room near Pinewood, including the sound of the alien queen. It really was a home movie.

41:08 · jump to transcript →

Bill Paxton

This is, to me, the creepiest part of the movie. This thing running around, that sound effect he did of the facehugger. The first scenes of this movie when he did the chestbuster. The sequel, A/en - he took care of it in five minutes. That first scene. That it was a dream. - That was great. I thought it was so smart. It was just great. His storytelling. - The sound effects. That scrabbling noise. The way this whole thing was laid out in the first Aven and the second one, the whole genesis of the way it would start out in the pod and then it turned into the facehugger and then it turned into the alien.

1:47:16 · jump to transcript →

Bill Paxton

A Iot of the shots of it scuttling along the floor were done on our miniature stage. That shot where it just scuttled by was done right next to the twelfth-scale cargo lock. At the base of the twelfth-scale cargo lock there was a little set there. So Jim would have five or six or seven little setups poked in between our miniatures. We'd fog up the stage and get ready to shoot, but he needed to shoot with no fog, so we'd clear the stage, he'd shoot his thing and then we would continue on. So it was like one giant filmmaking unit but we were doing two or three miniature shots simultaneously and he was doing four or five live-action inserts. A concentrated dose of Aliens filming. It's very hard to see Paul Reiser as such an evil guy, after so many years of his TV series. He used to hate to ride to work with me. I used ride to work with him. And he didn't like it? - Hated it. I was like a real primitive. He's a sophisticated comic. - What were you doing? I was always grunting and groaning. Smoking, burping. - He hated everything about me. What a boring ride that was. You've been carrying this baggage a while. This is a good forum. - Let it rip, baby. It was because of the character he was playing. He's such a prissy, corporate guy in this. It's tough in these kind of movies. Especially when you're young, if you're playing a good guy, you're always hanging with the good guys. You don't trust yourself as an actor to be friendly with the bad guys. "One of the bad guys might wreck my big scene." We were too serious as actors to be able to hang with Paul. He was reading the paper the whole time. It was like I was interrupting if I talked to him. You didn't wanna ride to work with me? I was in a different area. You were right round the corner. You didn't want me with you. - Bullshit. We're yanking these facehuggers around. I called them rubber-chicken facehuggers cos they were these floppy ones. The crawling one had a mechanism inside it. That was shot backwards. We pulled the tail off and shot it backwards. There was a pretty good mechanism built into the ones that are really articulated, but a lot of the time we were just yanking them around on fishing line and doing it in cuts. People probably wonder why I had him shoot the window before he jumped through it. The idea was it's tempered glass. You have to get the crystal structure of the glass to shatter before you can go through it. So this is a bunch of grown people fighting a rubber chicken, basically. But, of course, it's the actors that make the effects real in our minds. Great sequence. I love the red light that he uses in this too. The warning light. That happens in the other sequence too when the aliens are coming through the roof. Look. This is another scene that James Cameron sets up as the family scene. There's just the three of us there as a family, ready for Aven 3. David Fincher did a really good job photographically and so on. I think it's really a well-made film, visually. It's just kind of a slap in the face of the fans who invested in Newt and Hicks and all of those character relationships. I understand the instinct, of course, which is you have to make it your own. I just don't think you should make it your own at the expense of what people like, personally. But everybody's gonna make their own decisions. But I had to change some things and make it my own on my film. And I know that Ridley probably watched it and wasn't pleased with a lot of things. He probably wasn't pleased with the fact that he hadn't made it. But I think it's tough. It's tough to see somebody continue on something that you've started. But then you learn to just get over it because that's the nature of this business. I think the trick to this type of film is you just take it utterly seriously. You don't step outside yourself and try to have fun with it and wink at the audience. You take it absolutely seriously and you don't give the audience a chance to question it. And if the actors can sell it, then it works. This is a distinction. I never got the sense in the first film that the alien had an intelligence that allowed it to manipulate their technology, but I didn't see that necessarily as a barrier here because certainly these creatures have been around longer. The alien in the first film had only been alive for 24 hours. It was still an infant, even though it had grown full size. These aliens have had weeks or months to figure things out. There's no reason why they couldn't figure out the electrical system. Not that they're technological, but the rudimentary stuff. The implication is that they're pretty clever. It's clear by the end of the film that the alien queen knows how to operate an elevator. It's amazing how such a low-tech little device that Jim sets up early on really builds the tension. You don't have to see them. You just see that locator and you realize they're getting closer with a little sound effect. This is one of the first films we worked on that we worked with a video to look at our effects. Prior to that you would shoot a shot and go by your perception at the moment as to whether it worked or not and looking at dailies the next day. You didn't see an instant replay. But on this film we used a video tap and offside video camera on some of the shots to analyze what worked and what didn't. It was fairly expensive to have a video tap camera. In most effects stuff, the cameras used were... These old Mitchell cameras were great but they didn't have video tap. It was an expense a lot of times you couldn't afford. More welding. - Just don't look at it. Look away or you'll be blinded. Weld it but don't look at it. Put your hand there. Don't look at it. Is this where you bite it? - Yeah. Well, pretty soon. I'm gonna keep talking, even if I'm dead.

1:48:04 · jump to transcript →

And the catacombs are more interesting. The big kind of cesspit, whatever this is, a giant pool. Also, kudos to whoever in the sound design decided to put nunchuck sounds for the tendrils coming down. That's totally nunchuck sounds. I love that. We had fun with this. Oh, Craig Stern did an amazing job with all those. Yeah. Sluices and whatever. It was a big complicated set in a warehouse by Magic Mountain, California. And it held four feet of water.

1:03:42 · jump to transcript →

This is my fave. When it comes out of the... Yeah, because the way that it's designed, we're going, yeah, of course, it's the meteorite. And Jesus Christ. Yeah. This was a close encounter. Goddamn Reagan. Yeah. And the sound is so great. How long did you have for the sound design, knowing that, like, obviously you guys didn't have a... I remember having fun with the sound design, but I was in kind of a crazy state of mind at that point. It was like, tick-tock, we got to get this movie out.

1:04:35 · jump to transcript →

But like what Mark was saying before, the sound design on the blob itself, it's an integral part of the character. Absolutely. Doing sound design for this and the mask were the two most challenging. But when you got it right, the whole thing jumps off the screen. You don't even have to debate. Suddenly the right sound is there. You're inventive and it pops. It's remarkable. That's what you think. It's not going to work. He has such a good, ambitious attitude.

1:05:02 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

It wasn't bought by anyone. I bought it, and it turned into a film 20 years later that's quite a good movie. Anyway, I invited Joe Lansdale. There's some more of our graphics on the back. Now, if you'll notice during this brain surgery, this is mostly done with sound effects. And what you've got here is a cap. It was a fake cap on top of Tommy that they pulled off, right? And nice and gory. Again, there's a lot of gore in this film.

1:11:22 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

And then what you're seeing is close-ups of prosthetics and that kind of thing. You never really see anything. It's mostly sound effects. I did want to say once again that this was a genuine operating theater and an abandoned hospital.

1:11:49 · jump to transcript →

Paul M. Sammon

true testimonies to Hollywood craft. Sound effects by Stephen Hunter Flick. Steve Flick did the sound effects for the first RoboCop for Paul Verhoeven and in Starship Troopers 2, little known fact, Steve Flick and Paul Verhoeven came up with a language for every alien insect in the film and they worked on it for months and it

1:54:39 · jump to transcript →

uses a lot of weird sort of percussive instruments to create sound effects, and that's where they had a major sort of argument about the sound levels of the sound effects of the music, because the music's also creating sound effects, and what would you then level out and balance with the sound effects? But yeah, I think this is probably the most lush score out of the three, because even at the end when she...

54:43 · jump to transcript →

save the movie like you say it kind of blends into the sound effects and it at times becomes I'm going to get this the wrong way around aren't I at times it becomes diegetic I think that's the right way around it sounds like it's crossing the line between whether or not this is meant to be

55:37 · jump to transcript →

them trying to salvage the film, you know. This moment here where she's running down the corridor, you've got the sound of the score, which is making all these banging metal, also her running footsteps and touching stuff. You've got this kind of cacophony of noise, you know. I love it. I absolutely love that. Yeah, I love it. But it also shows you the nightmare of balancing what is sound effects and what is music, you know. It's another Tom Waits reference, really, because it does, at times, it really does sound like

1:08:09 · jump to transcript →

The director, David Foley, one of the stars and one of the writers, and Jake Hogan, one of the writers. And a big player. And he does play a very important role in the film. And so does David, by the way. I do. No spoilers. Oh, that's Dave's name. That's your name, Dave. Can we get any of the sound in the headsets? Softly. Do you want it brought up a little bit? This is our Lawrence Schrag. Right, Lawrence Schrag's soundtrack and the great sort of...

0:21 · jump to transcript →

we want to do this gag, Martin gives it. Is it worth it? Yes. Is this gag really worth it? Yes. Is this joke worth it? Oh, yeah. Over and over again. Yes. The train had kind of a big wind to it. It was difficult. Yeah, yeah. If you watch the film, he's Dave Foley there. He's not Nelson Hibbard. It's Dave with this giant train driving by him. Trying not to fall off that box.

34:25 · jump to transcript →

Oh, and this was the one where we tried to get him to drive a little faster. We wanted because... The stunt. He throws Foley out of the car. He throws Dave out of the car. And this idea, we kept trying to get him to go a little faster. A little faster. And I think we did get him finally on this take that we used to go as fast as they possibly would.

44:15 · jump to transcript →

E. Elias Merhige

And a lot of the sound design in this film is just absolutely meticulous. And there are many times when I asked my sound designer, when we go to the black and white scenes, for example, I wanted everything taken off surround sound, Dolby stereo, and moved to the front speaker, where we then transferred all of the sound to wax cylinders. And those wax cylinders then

1:00:39 · jump to transcript →

E. Elias Merhige

In here you have this beautiful blend where music and sound design really you can't notice the difference between the two and this is something that Dan Jones and Nigel Heath you know my sound designer worked very much very closely together to create this this seamlessness so that you don't know the difference between where a sound design

1:09:31 · jump to transcript →

E. Elias Merhige

my sound designer to do is to take the sound of a Gatling gun from World War I which is like a primitive machine gun and to use that sound in creating the sound for the motion picture camera that we were using and see now you see Carrie going off leaving the camera but someone must man the camera the camera must never be left alone and it's here that Murnau then begins filming this kind of awful

1:20:44 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

is in Iceland, and just the sound effect of the helicopters carries over the cut, and so you feel that the helicopters have taken off over their heads, but actually they're in two completely different countries. So this shot is in England on Salisbury Plain. And this shot is in Iceland by the Iceberg Lake.

1:11:02 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

and it's just a sound effect that carries you across the cut. We take all doggies, da? Macho US greenback, da?

1:11:31 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

This was a very emotional scene for Angelina and John, and they modified the dialogue to be even more personal and relevant to their real relationship. I briefly tried some unusual camera angles and moves, but in the end realized it had to be kept very simple. In the editing stage, I also experimented with strange atmosphere and sound effects to make it sound like we were in the fourth dimension or inside time. But again, I stripped it back to the basics just to let the scene play itself. Only that which would inspire you and keep you safe

1:24:00 · jump to transcript →

difficult to show visually. Sound design is very important here because all that Bernard's doing is obviously just throwing himself back in his chair, and Ian's just pushing his staff forward. There's no contact between the two of them, but the sound design really gives a feeling of power coming out of the staff. The shot here was done as a very simple morphing. Needed Bernard to go through three different makeups, each of which took half a day, so we basically shot him over the course of two days.

1:20:43 · jump to transcript →

but to bring it to life conceptually is really, really hard. John has a great resonance to his voice, and we felt that John would make a good tree beard, get that slight Welsh kind of lilt to his voice, and the sound effects guys did a really nice sort of echo chamber thing to make it sound like his voice was coming out of a woody kind of voice box somewhere deep down. The shot of Viggo floating down the river was one in which he nearly drowned.

2:06:28 · jump to transcript →

That's when he says, we will die here. Yeah, we will die. So it's just a slight departure. It qualifies as a slight departure again, which is good. We only ever do slight departures. Some lovely sound design here from Plan 9, isn't there? Yeah, the ring sound. Great animation. I love the animation on the Nazgul. It's really nice. This is how far gone Frodo has... That was deliberately similar to him holding the sword over...

3:20:43 · jump to transcript →

the sewing machines are actually, they're actually machine gun fire. But as you put, as you see a sewing machine, you kind of think it's a sewing machine, but it is, I promise you, the sound effect is an actual machine gun. Again, a metaphor for the war machine. Oh, a very interesting

7:44 · jump to transcript →

thing also is another sound you heard that muffled sound when the kid Heinrich Gerber was diving behind the tree trunk our sound designer Frank Kruse he actually dragged microphones through the mud again to create a metaphor in terms of this is Prague by the way we shot this in Prague standing in for northern Germany Prague is a great city to shoot in felt very welcomed

8:08 · jump to transcript →

But again, it felt to us that it's important to get these sequences in one shot without editing too much. I'll later tell you a little bit about editing. But what I wanted to finish was the sound effect that Frank used, the sound recording he used when Heinrich Gerber in the beginning dives behind the tree. And you have this...

10:25 · jump to transcript →

I think with the music and the sound effects, we just about get it to work the way it needs to, but it was tough. That spindle is the thread that Björk is spinning there with her distaff, suggestive of Alex's thread of fate.

38:48 · jump to transcript →

Finner's nose, or his lack of nose, probably looks the best in this scene. So I wanted to only hear the hallucinations and not see them. I don't know if that was the best choice, but the sound design

1:25:40 · jump to transcript →

The sound design is too loud of Alex's background action there, but it's good because you get to read it, so it makes sense. Tiny bit of comedy. The cub you once hunted ate of your nose. Now the wolf has grown.

1:56:25 · jump to transcript →

Once again, taking risks with young Michael in terms of the stunts. We never really had any stunt for any of these guys. I love this sound effect. The hammer hitting those toes. Hit anything that moves. Did you have a stand in for your feet, Bill? No, I did not.

29:08 · jump to transcript →

This is just done with simple mirrors here, isn't it? Yeah, it was a very basic... There's a mirror on the right-hand side of the screen that lines up. There's about two feet between the mirror and the far pole that Mike's putting his hand through right there. And we just put a little sound effect in and tried to match the color. That mirror's reflecting a wall from the other side of the set. And then Mike was just able to dive right through. That was a trampoline effect. We brought a trampoline up against a red wall and it was...

1:11:42 · jump to transcript →

Get your father's good looks. OK, profiles, profiles. They have the same nose. And that was kind of a gift in the casting process. We didn't cast based on the nose, but it was a plus. Little sound effect coming up here. Not believable, but got a laugh. I remember I didn't like that sound effect.

5:34 · jump to transcript →

And this, of course, was sort of a... It was a total homage to Little House on the Prairie. No, no, no, Walton. I mean the Waltons, yeah. And then there's somebody at the end farts or... I belch. You belch. Supposedly. And I know you wanted to put in some sound effects after all the lights were out. Do you remember? No, I don't remember. Oh, I wanted to...

22:27 · jump to transcript →