Scott Pilrim Vs. The World

Sound Designer: James Boyle
Supervising Sound Editor: Julian Slater
Dialog Editor: Zak Melemendjian
Sound Effects Editor: Ben Meechan
Re-Recording Mixer: Chris Burdon
Re-Recording Studio: De Lane Lea Studios

This weeks mix analysis for myself comes at a pretty timely time following the Academy Awards. Yes it is true that Inception had amazing sound, but the same time re-watching “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” I realize that the Academy really missed the boat on something that is truly unique. All the nuances of this sound mix really pop out at me now, and the fact that this was snubbed really is such a shame.

What really stands out for the sounds in “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is how it blends 8-bit sounds with realistic sounds to create a very unique take on what we would consider a punch to sound like. The entire plot of the movie is pretty much a video game with Scott having to go from one boss fight to another in order to earn the love of Ramona Flowers. Supervising Sound Editor Julian Slater described the reasoning for this as “We knew from the outset that using real 8 bits punches etc were not going to cut it within a modern cinematical soundtrack. Not only because they would not have the weight and low end required but also because we needed to come up with a bunch new variants.” (http://designingsound.org/2010/08/scott-pilgrim-v-the-world-exclusive-interview-with-julian-slater/)

To create some of these 8-bit sounds they modified an ancient Atari game machine into essentially a synthesizer that they could generate sounds from along with doing a human beatbox vocal sounds. These techniques helped to create a unique take on video game sounds, while even though they did lift some sounds from games like Sonic the Hedgehog or The Legend of Zelda, there was a fresh quality to everything about “Scott Pilgrim” Each of the 8-bit sounds in the fight would also be manipulated differently to give each fight its own unique flavor, since they are all completely different types of encounters.

Moving away from just the 8-bit side of the sound effects, actual post production effects like reverb and delays played a huge part in the film. There are plenty of times throughout the film where a characters voice would be echoed and repeated as if they were in a great hall with a giant ceiling.  The selection of the movie of the movie I looked at, the fight with Roxie, made great use of these effects. In multiple occasions Roxie would flip around and her voice is given dominance by having it echoed in the space of the club they are fighting in. It adds to her character in the sense her powers verge on telepathic with her ability to disappear and be invisible.

Another interesting thing about the sound mix for this fight was the tremendous use of pans for Roxie and Ramona’s weapons. With the weapon of choice for Roxie being a chain metal whip there is not a moment where it isn’t in the same location for a second. With it moving throughout the space it is paned all around in the mix. The Re-Recording Mixer Chris Burdon mentioned in an interview with SoundWorks about how this scene provided them “an opportunity to go crazy with the surround, or really go surround heavy.” (http://soundworkscollection.com/scottpilgrim) The craziness really comes through in this scene with your ears being assaulted with sound from all over. It really helps pull you into this space and make you feel like you are in this club watching the craziness ensue.

While not really pertaining to this scene, there are very unique takes on the idea of a “woosh” camera move in the film. Instead of just using a traditional “woosh” sound effect to go along with the fast move, in this film it was decided to use diagetic sounds for the space that they are in for a particular scene. There was this scene in a coffee shop and the camera pans from Scott to Ramona and the sound that accompanies this camera move is a coffee machine. It just is a very unique approach to sound on a film and really adds a fresh and just fun vitality to the film as a whole. It really is hard to find a film to compare this sound mix to, if anything it bares in feeling at least resemblance to Edgar Wrights other two films of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” for the sheer fact that sound is such an important element to the films overall feeling.

Other work done by Chris Burdon as a Re-Recording mixer includes Kick Ass, Gnomeo and Juliet and the upcoming film Paul (featuring Wright regulars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost)

A film like this makes me want to sit down in MC006 and go crazy with the surround sound and pan sound effects all over the place. While it does seem like a crazy prospect, I am confident that I would be able to do the circular type panning effect through a tedious process of sending sounds to specific speakers.

Mix Analysis:

Scott and Ramona have a conversation in a club setting. The music is EQ’d to appear diagetic and mixed with background ambiance. There is some reverb on their voices (1:14:10-1:1:4:18)

Roxie teleports in with a distorted sound and punches Scott with a punch and impact sound of glass breaking. There is reverb on Scott’s impact to the ground that leads to a drone (1:14:18 - 1:14:25)

Scott has a voice over moment in his mind with some heavy reverb (1:14:26 - 1:14:28)

Three way conversation between Scott, Ramona, and Roxie with the background ambiance repeating itself with the same effects (1:14:28 - 1:14:36)

Roxies voice gets repeated over and over again, most likely with a blend of delay and EQ to create this underwateresque sound, and some reverb mixed in as well (1:14:36 - 1:14:38)

Roxie moans and gets her voice reverbed and leads to another drone (1:14:40-1:14:43)

Scott’s mind is seen visually with a meter and a woosh sound and drone accompany the cash register sound when the arrow moves over on the meter (1:14:44 - 1:14:46)

Same setup repeats as both for another three way conversation with Scott, Ramona, Roxie (1:14:46 - 1:14:56)

Roxie’s voice gets some delay on it while she flips around. During this flip the music in the background looses its EQ and goes from being diagetic to non diagetic (1:14:55- 1:15:02)

A brief moment of silence through some EQ minus the club beat that is fully audible (1:15:03 - 1:15:05)

An 8-bit sound appears for the Fight title (1:15:05)

Roxie’s voice recieves some more delay as she once again flips around (1:15:06 - 1:15:08)

Roxie and Ramona have a conversation and the music stays non diagetic (1:15:09 - 1:15:15)

Roxie pulls out her whip with lots of pans of woosh and impact sounds to go along with her movement (1:15:15 - 1:15:20)

Ramona pulls out her hammer with its own woosh sound and is mixed with some reverb and an 8 bit sound (1:15:20 - 1:15:25)

Roxie and Ramona begin their epic fight and there is lots of panning of their weapons sound effects in the space. The musics level rises as well to help create the beat for the action (1:15:26 - 1:15:40)

Mixing Analysis #2 - "Surrender"

For myself the track I most associate with the band Cheap Trick is their 1976 track “Surrender” from their Heaven Tonight album. It is just one of those songs I can’t help but find incredibly catchy and one that I would be humming all day long. In my younger years I never really appreciated songs for how well they can be mixed. It was just something I took for granted. But now with my stronger audio knowledge, as well as a good pair of headphones the layers of this song are more apparent to me now, and this is such a fun mix of a song.

What I really like about this song is how all the instruments start up at the same time. It begins initially with just a second of lonely drums, but after that a huge blast of music comes your way. There are multiple tracks consisting  of rhythm and lead guitars, bass, and even a synthesizer track that is used to help emulate a violin strings sound. While I do enjoy songs that build up all the instruments introduction, on a song like “Surrender” I just always found the huge wall of music that is the songs introduction to be just fun. There is no me anxiously awaiting the big build up to all the music. I can instantly hear the drum beat in the beginning and just know what is coming my way. This song really helps set a standard for similar teen anthems like “We’re Not Going to Take It” by Twisted Sister.

One of the nice subtle touches that I really found well mixed by the mixing engineer of Gary Ladinsky is a variation on a lyric that occurs near the end of the song. Ladinsky describes this moment as “the hardest thing I remember doing was, they decided at the end, after all the backgrounds were completed, they wanted to go back and go, ‘Oh, let's put our names in there. Let's go “Bun E.'s alright, Tommy's alright, Robin's alright, Rick's alright, we're all alright, we're all alright.”’ And that was scary, in that I had to punch in on the tracks that we already had recorded vocals and stacked the vocals on. I wasn't even sure they knew what they were doing.”

This is one of those moments of the song that I tended to do a double take on. If I wasn’t paying attention for it I would of just felt like I was hearing the background vocals as its normal lyric. It is a nice touch for those who notice it, and in fact grew in popularity and would become a big part of the bands live performance of the song.

Ladinsky made good use of EQ on the multiple guitars in his mix sessions by utilizing the B&B equalizer module, which he said “I think it just fattened it up for when it popped in the chorus.” One of the snare drum tracks recieved a Pultec for its EQ. One of the neat mixing tricks he did with the vocals was to double them up, which in mixing he would adjust both parameters on the lead and doubled vocals “through a pair of 1176s” to help limit both tracks.

Reverb on vocals through using a EMT 250 set to chorus mode. The set up of the session involved three different sends. The first send was a live chamber, the second was the 250 and the third was “a phaser effect with an Eventide unit.” In the actual recording of the vocals there was compression utizlied from the UREI 1176 on the vocals coming from a Neumann 47 FET.

While most of the effects where done with physical modules, this shouldn’t be too hard for me to replicate within a software like Reason or Pro Tools, with the powerful reverb and EQ tools they can offer.

Mix Analysis:
Starts off with drums, to my knowledge would be a snare drum leading charge (00:00)

The multiple guitars, bass, and sythesizer enter to complement the drum track all at once for the introduction, and to be repeated throughout the song. In addition to EQ on the tracks, there is some panning of the lead guitar to the right (00:01)

First set of vocals kick in with Reverb placed on them for a slight echo effect (00:15)

First Chorus with the same instruments playing to the fullest, and vocals have reverb on them still but this time there is multiple vocal tracks with some backing vocals that harmonize to complete the chorus (00:43-1:03)

Instruments: Electric Guitar (Lead, two rhythm guitars) Bass (8 and 12 string), Drums(Snare and kick), Vocals (Lead and Background vocal tracks doubled up for harmony), Synthesizer (Labeled Strings Ensemble), Piano (Compressed highly and isn’t too noticeable)

Gary Ladinsky would also work on albums for Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, as well as making the switch from music to Hollywood and doing some film and TV work such as Dragnet and Weird Science

Surrender Track Information:
Engineer: Gary Ladinsky
Producer: Tom Werman
Mastering Engineer: George Marino
Studio Recorded:  Sound City located inVan Nuys, Califronia
Studio Mastered: In New York

Information found at: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_classic_tracks_cheap/index.html

Minor

Minor Project Proposal:

The project that I am thinking about approaching for the minor project is my Ghostbusters 2 ADR project from Sound in Media. It was the work that I was proud of the most from the class, but at the same time could of used some more mixing to fix some awkwardness in the sound design. The main area that sticks out for me that needs work is the actual childrens party scene where there is a noticeable lack of ambiance. The room feels too empty and this is something that needs to be fixed. Along with better editing of the claps so it doesn’t sound so fake. Overall I’m proud of the ADR and may only need to move some slightly over to match, but nothing that requires a lot of rerecording.

I don’t have a solid times on when I will work with this project as I am balancing out my other classes and WMJF, but I do plan to do a lot of work at my home studio in the odd hours of the night until I can get time in 006.

I think some of my mixing inspiraitons for the piece include movies like Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead, where they have some pretty serious sound design to make it seem like a real action or horror movie in build up, but it turns out that it is acutally a comedy. This is the effect I am trying to create by having a very tense race to a location by creating  a false sense of danger, since there is really no ghosts at the party.

Since this was my favorite project from Sound in Media I will bring passion into this project and look forward to revisiting what I have done. Now that I know even more about sound design I think I will pick up mistakes that I should of noticed at the time but failed to do so.

Major

The major project that I want to attempt for this course is fix the sound design of an EFP project entitled “3000 Miles” from last semester I joined up to help my friends at the last minute to do sound for. Due to the last minute nature and my other class workload I wasn’t able to put the time and effort to truly earn the title that they gave me credit for. I was able to assist in an ADR session but didn’t get to properly mix it in so it didn’t sound too unnatural. There also needs to be a lot of mixing of the sounds that were placed in, especially considering that it just occurred in Final Cut. I never got to do my real Pro Tools session due to time. This project excites me to do a surround sound mix for since there is a scene that occurs in the Recher theater. I think I could have some fun mixing that to create something special for my friends. My main reason for doing this because they want to put this into student festivals, and I think it has potential once I can get them a proper sound mix.

Once again I plan to do most of my work at my home studio until I can balance time later on to get into 006.

Since this is a film that takes a lot from music I think I want to look at a movie like Once where it is very naturalistic in its sound design. I think I may even take inspiration from Spinal Tap for the sound design of backstage during a concert.

This project will have more work then I am probably thinking at the moment until I get the copy from my friends to see it in its current state. There will most likely need to be some new foley sounds recorded, but once I put the effort to it I think this will be a very good Major project to approach.

The Simpsons - Classics

The Simpsons is cemented in history as one of America's longest running television shows with no clear end in sight. While it is hard for me to pick a single episode as my favorite, one that popped into mind when it came to thinking about sound was an episode from Season 8 entitled "You Only Move Twice." This is an episode that features, Hank Scorpio (Albert Brooks), one of my favorite characters to ever be featured the show. Scorpio is a parody of every over the top James Bond ever made. Which through the course of the episode leads to a hilarious climax with his lair becoming under attack by military to stop his evil master plan. This would fit right at home in the end of any Bond film. While it only lasts one minute and thirty seconds this scene  creates a pretty complex sound mix with a lot of background action and sounds. What makes this particularly challenging is the fact all the background action is secondary to an important story dialog Homer Simpson has with his boss Hank Scorpio about moving back to Springfield. This is an important moment in the episode that can not be overshadowed by what is occurring in the background. The mix was balanced good enough that this does not become an issue allowing us to take everything in without feeling like stuck in a Michael Bay film.

The sound team that worked on this particular episode included:

Dialog Editors: Bobby Mackston, Mark McJimsey, Terry Green
Sound Effects Editor: Travis Powers
Sound Re-Recording Mixer: R. Russell Smith, Greg Orloff
Music Editor: Chris Ledesma


Mix Analysis:

Automated door opens and closes (19:25- 19:28)

Somber score played under Homer's entrance (19:25-19:30)

Foley footsteps for soldiers in background with ADR shouting (19:28-19:30)

Gunfire in background (19:29-19:33)

Cart speeds across background into battle and audio is panned from left to right as it passes across screen (19:32-19:34)

Inaudible soldier chatter for atmosphere (19:33-19:37)

Over a loud speaker a female voice countdown the nuclear launch, voice has EQ to match a speaker (19:33-19:37)

More background gunfire (19:35-19:37)

Explosion with rubble falling sounds for after math (19:38-19:39)

Inaudible soldier chatter for atmosphere (19:39 - 19:41)

Foley of a button being pressed (19:40)

Cauldron tilting over sound following button press (19:41-19:42)

Acid pour sound, resembles water splashing (19:42-19:43)

Screams in pain from soldiers (19:43 - 19:44)

Background gunfire continues (19:44 -19:49)

Dialog between Homer and Hank, background sounds are lowered to make dialog the focus (19:48 - 19:54)

Lady grunts sounds while she flips around in background (19:54 - 19:59)

Heels echo with reverb through the spacious lair as the lady flips around (19:54 - 19:57)

Gun pulled out of holster, most likely foley (19:56)

Solder gets tackled with a foley thud (19:57)

ADR grunt for soldier being tackled (19:57)

Foley sound for soldiers neck being cracked (19:58 - 19:59)

Homer and Hank continue dialog while fight continues behind them, still mixed above all other sounds (19:59 - 20:28)

Background Gunfire returns (19:59 - 20:02)

Two carts race in background with audio panning left to right as they go across the screen (20:03 - 20:06)

Gunfire from the two carts racing panning left to right across the screen (20:03 - 20:06)

Man on fire runs across screen screaming and fire crackling, audio pans from right to left as his moves across the screen. (20:07 - 20:09)

Missile fires and impacts in the background with an explosive impact (20:11 - 20:12)

Aftermath of missile impact results in screaming soldiers with some reverb on their voices (20:12- 20:13)

Gunfire returns in background (20:13 - 20:18)

Hank removes grenade top with a foley sound, followed by an electronic ticking sound for the timer (20:18 - 20:20)

Grenade explodes while accented by glass shattering in the mix for the aftermath (20:21)

Soldier screams at the result of grenade explosion (20:21 - 20:22)

Jets fly across screen panning right to left (20:28 - 20:29)

EQ on female voice on loud speaker returns for countdown timer (20:29 - 20:30)

Explosion and result after shock rumble (20:30 - 20:32)

Foley sound for Scorpio grabbing flamethrower (20:37)

Another explosion in background (20:40 - 20:42)

Flamethrower is ignited resulted in a stream of rushing fire sound, and pans to the right as the camera moves to the left following Homer’s exit. (20:44 - 20:54)

Soldiers scream in result of being attacked with flame thrower (20:44 - 20:47)

Final dialog from Hank to Homer, and pans to the right as the camera follows homers Exit to the left (20:47 - 20:52)

Foley sounds, most likely a billiard ball for a grenade falling in front of Homer, which is kicked back (20:52 - 20:53)

Final explosion from Homer’s kicked grenade (20:54)

Automated door opens and close sound (20:55)



One of the reasons that this scene sounds the way it does has to do with this philosophy when approaching doing the sound for the show: "The Simpsons, after all, is different from most other cartoons. Lampooning life and human behaviour, the show is written for an adult audience and, as such, it doesn't fall back on slapstick and 'bam-splat' Hanna-Barbera-type sound effects to support the story-line. Just as the music underscores emotion rather than comedy, so the sound effects need to be real, and this can be quite demanding when considering some of the unconventional situations and locations in which the characters find themselves." (http://www.filmsound.org/studiosound/pp_simpsons.html)

It is hard to look at an evil masterminds secret layer being attacked, while a giant nuclear missile is about launch as anything other then being unconventional. That is unless you are James Bond himself, then it is just another Tuesday. But for Homer Simpson this is strange territory he has gotten himself into. Yet throughout this sequence nothing int he sound design becomes what you could call cartoony. These are all sounds being created that you would hear in any summer blockbuster action movie from your Die Hard and Lethal Weapon movies to something like The Rock and of course James Bond movies.

Once the sounds are all created with this mindset, and the dialog recorded it is all brought to Rusty Smith for the mixing. The characters dialog get delivered to Smith in mono and are all put on their own faders along with a special fader track dedicated to the inaudible background vocals to help create atmosphere. For this scene, this fader would most likely of been all the soldiers you can hear throughout the battle in the lair. An interesting point that Smith makes about his mixing process is how little processing he has to do, he says “all that I use is dbx 160X compression. I don't de-ess it or do anything else, because it's pretty much handed to me in good shape.”   (http://www.filmsound.org/studiosound/pp_simpsons.html)

For this scene I would guess that he would of had four dialog tracks to mix with, one track dedicated to music and three effect tracks. Even with all the action in the background, the sound layering never seems to exceed no more then three sounds occurring at the same time. The three main effects that the mix consisted of would be reverb, EQ adjustment, and panning.

This mix session would be easily able to be imitated in Pro Tools by setting up various mono tracks for Simpsons characters, and creating the 3 effects tracks. I would bus to a stereo aux track where I would place the reverb and other plugin effects needed.

Rusty Smith has done mixing for a lot of other television series including “Lie to Me”, “Justified”, and “Big Love.”