Sundance Sound Brief: Inside the Audio Post for Four Film Premieres
Audio post pros worldwide have been working year ‘round for this moment, when a plethora of indie films premieres at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
The POV style of “Low Down” required a special approach to the mix.
As the projectors purr at Park City, mixers and sound designers are breathing a sigh of relief for the completion of their appointed rounds. The NYC audio post facility Heard City worked on no fewer than four films opening up at this year’s Sundance.
Low Down, Kumiko, Jamie Marks is Dead, and Blue Ruin each presented their own unique challenges. Here’s a briefing from Heard City Partner Keith Reynaud and Re-recording Mixer/Commercial Mixer/Sound Designer Cory Melious on how they handled these high-profile indie features.
Low Down – Keith Reynaud and Cory Melious:
“A POV style film, so Heard City mixed with that in mind, keeping all of the sound as if it’s from Joe’s daughter, Amy’s (Elle Fanning), perspective. The director, Jeff Preiss, and the editor, Michael Saia, both paid particular attention to detail with regards to the color of the music. Heard City put a lot of emphasis on mixing the music to sound as diegetic and organic as possible.”
Kumiko – Cory Melious:
“The director, David Zellner, and producers, Nathan Zellner and Chris Ohlson, came to Heard City with the challenge to create a visceral sound track that parallels the lead actress as she becomes lost in her own world. Through the use of score moments, as well as big sound design, the mixer was able to creatively build the soundscape through to the climax of the film.
“An example of this building tension exists when she finds herself lost in the mid-west. They used lots of hollow ambiences juxtaposed against big windy soundscapes. The main character, Kumiko, travels from Japan to America, so they wanted to build sonic landscapes that lent it to each of those locations.
“In Tokyo, her world existed at the edges of the city, so they built a calm, quiet ambience to help the audience engage with her surroundings. As she progresses through her journey in the United States, her world becomes colder and lonelier, so they created the sonic texture to achieve that goal.”
Jamie Marks is Dead – Cory Melious:
“When Heard City spoke with the director earlier this year about working on Jamie Marks, they discussed the challenge of the film, which was creating a unique environment for the two worlds in which the main character Adam exists.
“One way they’ve moved to achieve this is by using organic natural sounds for our ‘real’ world, and moving to a more hyper-real feeling when in our ‘abstract’ world. Through the use of dynamics in each of these worlds, they’ve achieved that goal.
Heard City used sound to make a car into a character for “Blue Ruin.”
Another challenge was to get Jamie’s character to feel like he’s otherworldly. Heard City used some interesting techniques on his dialog to make it feel separated from the other characters, which gives it that ‘abstract; feeling. They’ve also discussed how this separation helps build the intensity of the action on screen.”
Blue Ruin – Cory Melious:
“Blue Ruin offered a unique challenge in that it’s primarily dialog. The acting is impeccable throughout the film, but sonically Heard City needed another storytelling boost.
“One of the interesting techniques we used was to give the old run-down car its own sonic texture, making it an element the character (Dwight) interacts with. Dwight does most of his travels in this old run down car, so they wanted to give it a sense of character that would give weight and influence to Dwight throughout the course of the film.”
— David Weiss
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