Since the release of "Extreme Car Thief" for a few days, many people have said that they are shaking their legs to watch the whole film, and such a stimulating film is bound to have a complex sound design behind the scenes, and involves the preparation of sound effects and atmosphere, in order to let the audience enter such a realistic and immersive environment. In director Edgar Wright's film, his royal sound designer/sound editing director and mixer Julian Slater faced considerable challenges.
English Source: Voice of America Translation: Sydney Cat
The male protagonist of "Extreme Car Thief" is played by Ansel Allerg, who is forced by life to drive a car for the criminal gang boss doc from an early age, responsible for the reception. However, due to an accident in his childhood, he fell with the sequelae of tinnitus, which made it centrally affect his daily activities. In order to meet the bank robbers, he can only wear headphones, and through music enhances his focus and reaction in the crime world to keep driving at his best.
The film, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March, tells the story of a baby forced to work for a gang boss who finds himself in a doomed robbery.
Director Wright was born in england, and his best-known works include Shaun the Zombie (2004), Hot-Blooded Detective (2007), Crooked Scott Vs. the World (2010) and The End of the World (2013), all of which prove Slater's excellent vocal work. In contrast, "Extreme Car Thief" was the director's first film to be shot in the United States, mainly in Atlanta, and its inspiration came around the time from "Pulling Teeth out of the Tiger's Mouth" (1978), "Raising Arizona" (1987) and "Fluke Double Heaven" (1980).
Late last year, Slater was at Goldcrest Films in London's Soho Film District to process music and sound premixes, while mixer Tim Cavagin was working on dialogue and special sound premixes at TWI Studios in Richmond. Before Christmas 2016, the film began final production on Goldcrest, with Slater in charge of the music and sound effects, while Tim oversaw the dialogue and special sound effects. "We used Goldcrest's new Dolby Atmos Hall, which opened a year ago," Slater recalls.
"Since the protagonist suffers from tinnitus, we use tonal variations to intertwine multiple elements of the film's music," Slater said. It is rumored that the film was based in part on british electronic duo mint royale and his music "Blue Song", which was directed by Wright. The lead star in the music, Noel Fielding, is the pick-up of a gang of bank robbers, and Nick Frost is involved in the show. The music composed by composer Steven Price for Extreme Car Thief was recorded at abbey road studios in North London.
Meanwhile, Slater from the UK has been nominated for bafta and Emmy awards several times, and he has worked with many first-class directors. Since graduating from Audio Engineering College (now Sae College) in London, at the age of 22 he co-founded hackenbacker audio post and was involved in the sound design of a film for the first time, "Leaving Las Vegas" directed by Mike Figgis. Later films include Shaun the Zombie, Killer No Holiday, Shadow, Crooked Boy Scott Vs. the World, and Block Wars. Slater moved to the U.S. three years ago, first joining the formosa group and then working at Paramount's technicolor in Hollywood.
Integrated music and sound design
"From the very beginning of the film, it was a film that combined music and sound design," Slater explains. "The music that the protagonist is listening to has a lot of cut-out processing, which is what the director thought of from the beginning." These cuts are meant to allude to other sounds in the film, such as the sound of a character talking or the sound of an object.
"Sometimes, the action is obviously shot for that purpose, such as walking in the rhythm of music, or shooting rhythmically," the sound designer continues. "But sometimes it's more subtle, including sirens or trains in the distance, which are tuned to the rhythm of the music and are integrated into the entire musical journey. We worked hard to do so to support the story so as not to distract us. We tried many times to add something that fits the music, but found that it didn't work in the movie and vice versa. ”
How not to distract the audience through fixed frequency tones to show the protagonist's tinnitus? Slater: "Whenever your baby doesn't listen to music, there's some tinnitus in some way. Soon, during the design process, we decided that this high-pitched whistle should not be allowed to last for a while. We worked closely with composer Steven Price to develop a variety of different ways to convey tinnitus, and the same sound rarely appears twice. A lot of times, tinnitus is adjusted based on incoming music, which allows us to use it more, but at the same time subtle. ”
Slater says the musical performance of the avid pro tool plays a key element in his design. "It's interesting that I've been using pro tools for the last 15 years, but I've never worked in beats and bars modes," he says. "We control each piece of music with a beat chart so that we can stretch and adjust each sound at a specific moment, depending on the track speed. Among them, some of the audio tracks have different rhythms, which is quite challenging. If we're trying to synchronize the car sirens with the rhythm of punk music, it means we need to find ways to mix the sounds together and then re-pace the next shot. We've always had to make sure that the sounds are not only dramatic, but also good. ”
Simply mix the sounds together and then re-rhythm the next sound so you can hear it again. All the time, we make sure that sound work not only makes the film look dramatic, but also makes the music work. ”
Slater said it started picking out music sources for bands including the damned, the commodores and other bands a decade ago. "Honestly, it's a luxury to have such detailed templates," the sound designer says. "Because all the tracks were written into the script and said they would be used in this way before shooting, there were almost no changes. In the post-production period, the director only changed two songs. Large sections of design are fixed to the audio track, and knowing that these won't change means we have the confidence to design around it. ”
Slater communicates with the composer or music editor on a daily basis. "We're going to keep giving them the elements and putting them into the sheet music," Slater said. "For example, the scene after the failed gun trade. Steven incorporated some of the drama sounds, such as the ticking of the alarm clock, the sound of the bag falling, and the sound of the switch light into the soundtrack. As the tension deepens, these sound elements are gradually added to the soundtrack, which makes the plot more interesting, both dramatic and timbre. ”
A mix of Dolby Atmos and immersive experiences
The soundtrack is mixed in Dolby Atmos. "All the source music comes from stereo mixes," Slater recalls. "Basically, I premix all the source music using the halo upmix, [the cargo cult] spanner, and the fabfilter pro r. spatially reverb plug-in, and mixed the stereo to 9.1 atmo, spatially immersing the audience in the sound with more track surround mixes and top speakers. These tracks are relatively high-pitched in the mix, so I had to do a lot of equalization so that the audience didn't get tired of hearing. ”
Slater's sound effects and designs are about 12 or so, such as miniature car engines, tire brakes, guns, gun impacts, etc., and the light background sound accounts for six. After that, we made more specific sound effects, including car engines and brakes, and finally woven into movie music, which appeared in the music at specific points in time. That way, if the music is edited in the editing room, then we know which piece of music to look at from a musical point of view. ”
Throughout the recording and editing process, Slater kept everything on hold. "By mixing mastering I was able to keep all my thoughts on sound," he explains. "For Extreme Car Thief, we premixed to 9.1 channels with a panoramic object and brought the submix to Goldcrest, where we could seamlessly open the cut with the avid s6 mix console and polish the final panoramic immersive mix of dialogue, music, and submix."
When Slater walked over to the panoramic stage, "I started working on objects in the mix, and there were a fair number of them. Not long after the film was played, there was a very amazing shot of the baby walking along the street. The whole picture is compiled following the music. When he turned, the sound of the whole world shook with it, and the camera followed him. Car sirens, sirens, music playing in the cars passing by, etc. are all connected to his music tracks. This clip is complete and quite wonderful! ”
Slater says all sound editors have access to the daw plug-in programs needed to run pro tools. That's the main advantage, because Edgar would go into the editing room and listen before doing the mix. In the editing room, we would have all sorts of mixes and sound ideas, and it would be a few months before we did the final official Dolby mix.
"When we got to the final mix," he continues, "I would take care of all the sound effects and design, and I would put the music into the film." As for temp mix, I'll also let the dialogue and special sound effects match the music, while tim cavagin is responsible for the elements of the mixing process. ”
Slater recalls that the biggest challenge was to keep the sound design and music perfectly coordinated, without distracting or exhausting the audience. "With that in mind, I'm constantly doing self-examination," he said. "Our approach has to be as subtle as possible, and having said that, there are a lot of sound designs in it. There are a lot of audio eggs in the film mixed in with the music, and I don't think anyone can find them all! ”
Slater and Wright have worked together many times, and Extreme Car Thief is already the sixth collaborative film, and Slater is known for his caution in post-production and attention to sound detail. "What I love about working with director Edgar is his obsession with sound design and mixing," he says. "Edgar has been thinking about sound design for a long time, and it's no wonder that the music for each step of his film is not only bold and unique, it's no coincidence. He himself has his own views on music, but he still leaves me with a lot of freedom. Never act arbitrarily! It's more like he made the template and then handed it to me for reference and let me play freely. ”
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