2013 Richard Chew: sound designer

The choices you make with music can influence your perceptions of a scene:

1. Instrumentation can color the visual image. An example would be Citizen Kane (1941), by Bernard Herrman or The day the earth stood still (also Herrman) - exterior reality expressed by using the theremin (early electronic instrument) or in the case of Spellbound (1946), by Roza, an interior reality.
2. Genre of music to lead the audience expectation. Black Board Jungle - first use of rock and roll in movies. (1955) Early showings resulted in riots in England (the movie inspired rebellion by it's music which was thought of as subversive) or in The Man with the Golden Arm - Jazz signifies heroin use. Blackboard Jungle uses Rock Around The Clock, the same Bill Haily song as the opening to American Graffiti but in different ways. the opening to Blackboard Jungleis about rebellion, fear, enticement. American Graphitti nostalgia.
3. Music as sound effects. The Birds. Which had no music score.
4. Themes are established to establish the character (villain, hero, ) The Fantastic Mister Fox, or The Conversation. or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to show how two different characters might merge together. (by using a saw as an instrument and native American flute and drums blended together ) show the melting of two mind sets. Joyful use of music, That Thing You Do by Thomas Newman or Road to Perdition (also by Newman) or A man and a woman (1966). The music takes you to a place via changes within a particular scene that switches from emotion to emotion.

Thoughts on the use of music in film:

In American Graffiti, the sound editor, Walter Murch, came up with the idea of World-izing the music, putting the music into the world as part of the environment. Instead of just changing the equalization of the playback of the songs, to give more of the feeling of songs playing on the car radio, he played back with speakers in a different rooms in the studio and miked it to reverberate through a "trim bin" (used in film editing) to give it a sense of space. The soundtrack unites and gives a commonality of the culture. It's not rational, it fills the space, where does it come from?, yet it makes sense.

The Birds. used a keyboard mix.... with effects. The construction of the sound makes it feel like more birds are around then what you see. In the clip he shows there are only a couple birds shown. Then, sound effects and keyboard effects create an envelope of tonalities and disharmonies that mix distortion to create a sense of anxiety.

When you are editing a scene do you add a scratch track how much relationship do you have with the scratch cutting visuals to it or not? I never rely on music, make the scene work without the music. The dynamics of the scene needs to be brought with the performance. It should work without. The music should be the dressing. There is a tendency today with the style and commercial needs to add music to everything and it can fight against the characters in the scenes. The editor needs to tell the story.

Now, of course there are scenes of how music can be used in interesting ways for example, Road to Perdition. But in most cases, the editor cuts the picture to the visual rhythms of it. (Richard shows a clip from That thing you do) he needs to cut with the music to get it to fit with the character beats and the jokes and the song had to fit in between. In That thing You Do, the song was short enough that they did not want to shorten it. (Richard shows a scene in which it's the first time the song that the rock group wrote gets played on the radio) The scene builds and builds as visually more radios are turned on and the band comes together in the appliance store. Richard had to edit, cutting heads and tails of each piece of film trying to shoe horn the images to the sound. He did not have to cut to the rhythm except at the beginning of the song and the end when the drummer says "I am the Smarticus" In a scene there are wild cards, shots you can play or not play. (for example, the mother on the phone) if you use it, you have to set it up, set up the idea. for it to play off . The sister by the window, not quite getting it, the character comes in and kiss the cardboard character.

Should you use temp music?

He uses stuff all the time, to get the feeling that you want. Then you get the friend down the hall to make it in the style of say John Williams. "Many of the pieces that I show are much more simplified that orchestra pieces. A simple instrumentation focuses you in on a moment."

How do you work with a blank slate?

Do I hear the external reality on the screen or do I exhibit a sound that is not shown yet but will be revealed on the screen? Do you express an interior space such as a, heart beat on a girl going to class? Sounds can be cues like a bell dinging that reminds you that you need to go to a class. You have a world that you introduce perhaps character to character.

Super! notes:

There are many ambitions in the project. It shows the type of curriculum, (it's) focus in animation. It was a little confusing story-wise when he has a moment of heart graphic and only one chair. Introduce only one idea at a time instead of 2 at a time (the love and the chair) Another example: Road to Perdition. An example of music introduced to tell you stuff without the obvious sound. Tom Hanks is opening a suit case (score by Thomas Newman) music comes up slowly, while the sound of the gun being assembled takes place. Then the scene of Neman out in the rain without the rain sound, just the piano music and the attack begins. The use of orchestrations is timed to the moments on the screen. The strings pause, play and swell in time with the performances. EXCEPT when Hanks kills Newman. Then, it abruptly breaks in explosively loud. Then, back to a quiet piano without the strings.

The audio need to let up, leave space in between. This is something you might think about (for Super!) Sound can run back and forth, when do start one and end another, they are emphasis points. As an editor how do you work with a composer, it's collaborative. He sits down with the director and composer.