Initial Soundtrack Idea

After a good long while I came across the appropriate distorted bass sound that I could add a low pass filter to. I then had to find a good rhythm for the bass notes and it turned out that just repeated notes in a very simple pattern worked the best. After that the song kind of just fell into place quite easily.

Having shown Rhys and some other people it seems I'm on the right track with this sound. Having seen some of the rough edit I can see how similar to Drive parts of the film are and so feel quite confident in this being the right idea.

Public Enemies Sound Design Article

I read an article on MixOnline (http://mixonline.com/post/features/audio_public_enemies//index.html) about all the different aspects of the sound for Micheal Mann's film Public Enemies. I found it a pretty interesting insight into a director that takes sound very seriously.

The article interviewed different people involved in the creation of the sound for the film who described how they recorded specific sounds as well as working with Mann himself. Jeremy Peirson, co-supervising sound editor, describes how Mann's "got a mixer in front of him and he'll audition things and try things himself, so you'll get very specific notes about where he wants to go". I find it interesting to read about a director who is so ingrained with the sound design process. I haven't heard of it too much.

Re-recording mixer Beaus Borders describes how Mann will get as granular as syllables in the dialogue mixing. “If the line is, ‘Let's go!’ he might say, ‘Raise the attack of the “g” on “go,” but leave the “o” exactly where it is, and on “Let's,” I want you to do a rise on the “s.”’ It's not so much for intelligibility reasons; it's because Johnny Depp is supposed to be very forceful in the scene so he wants the attack on the ‘g’: ‘Let's go!’ He alters performances in minute but important ways"

There some detail on how the sound designers and recordists visited the actual places where the real events from the film took places in order to get an idea of the ambience etc. There is also a good part on recording the guns for the film, but what I found most interesting was the description of how they use those gun sounds. Beaux Borders describes:

" There's one scene where Michael is trying to show how the bad guys have the better technology, the faster cars, they're more organized and they're much more aggressive than the cops. In this particular scene, we relied on the original recordings that Laurent and Jeremy provided, and that's where you hear the machine guns being aggressive and scary and startling. They're in the subwoofers, they're coming out of the surround speakers. You cut to a cop and he's got a little .38 gun that sounds like a peashooter compared to these Tommy guns.

“Now, fast-forward to later in the film — there's a scene where there's a bank heist that goes wrong. It's another quick scene, but this time it's all about disorganization, about the plan falling through — chaos and disorder. And when you hear the sound in this particular scene, you're not going to hear giant, lush recordings; you're going to hear an amalgamation of production recordings and sound effects, you're going to hear things chopping off on cuts, you're going to hear breathing and the re-loading of a gun louder than a gunshot. You're going to hear things out of balance from the way you would normally perceive a machine gun battle, and it makes it feel disorganized."

I definitely find this the most interesting part. Hearing sound designers talk about the specifics of their craft is very interesting to me. I like how much thought has gone into how to use the recorded sounds. It's not good enough just to have good recordings. You have to use them appropriately and interestingly.

Heat - Soundtrack and General Sound Design

This famous scene from Heat directed by Micheal Mann uses a similar tactic to Drive in that it has a tense, repeating synthesized/percussive pattern quietly layered under the action to give the scene tension. It does increase and decrease in prominence in the mix, but it does not use a low pass filter like Drive. It simply repeats over and over again, occasionally getting louder when there is not much else in the mix. It really adds a sense of pace to the scene which could otherwise be quite tension-less.

Heat is famous for its sound design, namely the sounds of the weapons used. The gun sounds are raw and realistic and this creates an impact you don't feel in most Hollywood films. The gunfire can even hurt to listen to at times.

Micheal Mann is well known for using actual sound recorded on set and for being heavily involved with the sound design. He is incredibly precise altering sounds a tenth of a decibel and making sure that certain syllables are more prominent when characters speak.

Drive - Opening Sequence

Obviously a very popular and, perhaps, overdone favourite of modern students, Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive is a fantastic film. Since the film Rhys' group is going to be making has many similar elements Drive is one of the first places I went for inspiration on the soundtrack.

Perhaps the most iconic scene is this opening robbery and getaway. It is immaculately shot and paced, but the main reason (in my opinion) that this scene is so effective struck so many people is the driving synth soundtrack. It subtly moves in and out of prominence in the mix perfectly suiting and enhancing the tension.

Nicolas Winding Refn said in an interview that he wanted the music to be like a clock ticking. Much like the watch Ryan Gosling's character places on the steering wheel. It's supposed to represent the mechanical way that the character can drive and the near lack of emotion of the character himself.

The effect is achieved through using a low pass filter and increasing and decreasing the frequencies being cut off in order to let more or less sound through. When there is very little happening the low pass filter allows just the bass to come through which keeps the tension high. When the action picks the low pass filter is increased to allow more of the treble through and so the sound becomes more full and alive, suiting the image on screen.

Since the film being made appears to have a lot of Drive influence (including similar tense shots of someone driving) it makes sense to attempt something similar in the soundtrack. However Drive is so well known and distinctive that imitating it would be stupid and obvious. I have to come up with a way to achieve similar tension without ripping it off.

My initial idea is to use the same convention as the soundtrack from the opening of Drive, but use much more distorted and "heavy" synthesizers and sounds. These represent the character from Rhys' film better as he appears more openly violent and aggressive and so this fits with the film thematically as well as sounding different to Drive.