OK, just before I get into the fine details of what was done and why, I want to emphasise that what we are going to be doing is looking at one part of sound design. All this example demonstrates is the use of sound design for one scene, what's far more important is how this one scene combines, compliments and contrasts, with all the other scenes to make what is hopefully an exciting, entertaining and therefore a good film. So while this scene may represent a good example of sound design at work, we can't say just from this snippet if the sound design for the film was good. Just wanted to be clear!
Sound Design an Analysis
OK, so I realise you're seeing it in isolation so it's difficult to put it into context but I hope you'll agree that it was quite a dramatic and powerful scene and therefore probably succeeded in it's goal of creating one of the film's points of climax. I don't want to make out sound design was entirely responsible for the dramatic impact of this scene. If the acting, script or editing were terrible, no amount of clever sound design would have made the scene anything other than maybe marginally better than terrible. What the sound design has done is taken a good scene and manipulated the audience into experiencing the scene rather than just watching it dispassionately. By involving the audience we have hugely enhanced their emotional response and hopefully created entertainment. So what did we do and why?
00:00 The dialogue at the beginning is very quiet almost inaudible. The first few words are not essential to the story, so to give us the opportunity to use contrast we start very quiet, we also have a little Foley, a monitoring machine beeping, no background ambience SFX but quite a high level of room tone (RT). This last is a compromise, our dialogue is going to jump in level soon and we don't want the RT to jump with it because it will sound too obvious an unnatural. As an aside, this was made over a decade ago and the noise reduction tools we had then were not as efficient as we have now.
00:08 Just before this cut we introduce some quiet breathing sounds of Marilyn (the victim) to focus the audience's attention on her and help carry us across the cut. Michael's dialogue jumps up in level and becomes more present, to make the scene feel more intimate, supporting the close up. We also add, very low in the background some very distant indistinguishable noises as Marilyn opens her eyes. These noises are swamped in reverb reminiscent of a hospital, school or other large hard surfaced interior building. This is very subliminal but it's as if upon waking Marilyn becomes aware that she's in a hospital. The heart monitor sound and RT continue absolutely unchanged, to maintain continuity across the cut.
00:14 A Marilyn breath takes us across the edit, the background sounds also continue but are not a loop. The introduction of some Foley for the pen on the paper at higher than realistic levels, draws the audience's attention to Pat, what she's doing and maintains some some sonic interest beyond the dialogue. Another Marilyn breath takes us across the next edit although there were none during the scene itself. We're only just starting to build the tension and the breathing sounds are going to be one of the elements we use to do this, so we need to establish the breathing sounds but not overplay our hand at this point.
00:20 The note taking Foley takes us across this cut along with Marilyn's breath, Heart Monitor and RT also unchanged. At 00:25 a bit too much of a hole is filled with some (non-diagetic!) Foley steps in the corridor outside (EQ and our hospital reverb) which also adds depth and perspective to the mix, reinforces our sonic location.
00:37 Slight, almost imperceptible rise in Michael's dialogue level again, even more present and intimate, now we can even hear the lip smacks but still not his breaths, we've still got a way to go. We've had some quiet moans from Marilyn and we can hear her breathing more frequently now, we're building shape. Slight push on the word "Marilyn", a subliminal ring of the bell to start the fight sort of thing.
00:47 I can't tell you how many different buzzer sounds we went through until we found the exact sound the director wanted!
00:54 More happening and a pushing up of the levels of background "hospital" sounds, to increase the pace a little. Marilyn's breathing is also gradually ramped up until constant, with some more frequent quiet moans. Pace an energy getting higher all the time, with the buzzer, dialogue, background FX creating many layers of sound until...
01:16 Ramp up Marilyn's breathing a significant notch but we've still got further to go. Let's have a little contrast, take the pace down a notch or two and create some shape rather than just trying to make the whole thing relentless. So we drop the background sounds right down low again but we don't want it to be obvious so we maintain everything else and use the ramped up Marilyn breathing to hide what we've done.
01:28 OK, break over! Let's ramp those hospital backgrounds up again. From here we gradually increase the speed of Marilyn's breathing, the frequency of her moans, very slightly increase the volume and subtly introduce the sound of Michael's breathing until...
02:20 Now we can hear Michael's breathing constantly (in addition to Marilyn's) and it's quite heavy and fast. BTW, using breathing sounds is an old sound design trick, so old in fact you have to be careful not to cross the line into cliché and the audience becomes too consciously aware of what you're doing. This trick works at a physiological level, if you hear someone breathing fast or heavily your breathing will speed up in response. It's assumed this response is an ancient automatic defence mechanism to increase the metabolism ready to respond to danger. We want to create shape and respite at this point again though, so we cut Marilyn's breathing completely and the background FX. Now we got somewhere to go at...
02:35 We really need to ramp up the tension here, so let's bring Marilyn's breathing back in, even higher in level and more present than before, we'll also wring the last ounce of pace and drama out of that buzzer sound. At 02:43 some coat rustling Foley brings Pat into the scene and as we really starting to rock, Pat's dialogue becomes more present and louder and her breathing is also gradually ramped up. By...
03:13 We're throwing everything we've got at it, the full orchestra is blasting away and the buzzer should be on fire by now! But, we don't want to lose impact by doing to much of the same thing so we're going to change things, create another change of pace. That heart monitor sound which has been going on incessantly for so long that we've become oblivious to it is going to be changed and the very fact that we're changing something we've grown so accustomed to is going to sound quite shocking. By ...
03:20 We've cut out all the breathing sounds, background SFX and all we're left with is the dialogue, new heart monitor and RT. Now we're almost back to where we started, so we can build it up all over again. It's like we're playing with and teasing the audience, I love this job!
03:34 A pen click piece of Foley starts the ball rolling again. First with Marilyn's breathing and then the dialogue when it comes in is not so loud or present as it was before. What we want to do with Marilyn's breathing, have it slower and quieter to start with so we have somewhere to go, doesn't really marry up with the visual images of Marilyn but shape and pace trump perfect sync, unless that lack of sync takes you out of the scene (which it might do now you are aware of it!). BTW, all of Marilyn's sound (breathing, moaning, etc.) was ADR for the whole scene, we needed far more flexibility with these sounds than the production sound would have given us.
04:00 By now Marilyn's breathing has worked it's way back up to being quite loud and present. The over-hyped pen on blanket Foley really draws your attention to what Marilyn is doing. It was decided to not put in some serious groaning from Marilyn in the CU at 04:03, we've still got to get to the the big peak and a very low level hard straining sound worked well. Meanwhile the 2 tone really annoying heart monitor is doing it's job well to maintain tension and pace. Wish I could take credit for designing that one!
04:18 The completely over the top Foley of pen ripping through the paper adds to the impression of the strain and effort Marilyn is putting into this interview. We tried hard to communicate Marilyn's outrage at what had been done to her and small details like making the sound of the pen ripping through the paper as angry and violent as possible all adds to the manipulation of the audience's perception and involvement in the emotions of the characters.
04:29 We're really starting to cook again now! Marilyn's breathing is at warp 9. We cut in an extra line (from an alt take) here, where Michael says "was there a zig-zag on the back door of the van" because the picture and the script left too much of a hole and lost momentum. When the picture goes to full screen we want more impact from the dialogue at that point so we left the level of the extra line lower and less present. We also go into smoking the buzzer SFX again for a while and now we're at full tilt.
04:44 We drop back on the use of the buzzer here and also pull back on Marilyn's breathing, to create a bit of contrast and bring in the most extreme straining and gasping sounds we've got for Marilyn. We've been at the peak and the drama we're trying to create is to help the audience experience the depth of Marilyn's emotions. We want the audience to feel that Marilyn is almost prepared to kill herself in the extremity of her efforts to give the police information to help catch the perps. We also push Michael's dialogue both times he says "yes" to emphasise the importance and accomplishment of Marilyn's evidence.
There's more details than I've listed above but this should give you a reasonably good idea of what we did and why. In the next instalment we'll start to look at what you can do to start implementing sound design principles into your own projects.
G