Addicts 2008: Sound Editing & Sound Mixing

Sound Mixing

The Dark Knight
Ed Novick & Agce Ulas

Heath Ledger's distinctive cackle may be the most resonant snippet of audio that The Dark Knight has to offer, but it's only a towering component of the film's sound library. While the heavy, dramatic, overloaded score threatens to dominate, the sound mixing ensures that this seems like a rather tense countdown of the ilk you're accustomed to seeing every five minutes on 24, and the dialogue, similarly heavy, is punctuated with booming effect. This film is loud but rarely turgid.

Doomsday
Derek Mansvelt

Another loud film; not that I think loud necessarily equals worthy, as you'll see further down. Neil Marshall's Doomsday is a runaway fledgling of B-movie anarchy, and the vehicular carnage that becomes its trademark custom feels wholly diegetic to the senses. The mobbish, grating platform of sound feels über-pulpy, and heightens the on-going battle, perpetuating the 'doom' half of its appropriate title.

The Strangers
Jeffree Bloomer, Marti D. Humphrey & Chris M. Jacobson

Horror movies are churned out ten-a-penny these days, so finding one that legitimately "scares" you is a tiresome task in itself. Enter The Strangers, which understands that the success of shocking the audience relies primarily on the quality and effect of the soundwork, as well as its mystery and unpredictability. The film is not perfect, but neither is it predictable, introducing bursts of sound that stir you to the point where you can't really accept them as manipulative devices. The contrapuntal bursts of folk music provide a certain eeriness by themselves.

The Wackness
Ken Ishii, Eric Justen & Jeffrey Perkins

Set in a time when Hip-Hop was still a revelation, The Wackness has a rather catchy and relevant song score to accompany its vehemently 'indie' circumstances. I realise that this is a sound mixing category, and was incredibly impressed with both how the film was put together, and particularly how it integrated the sounds of the period into its plot, without these moments appearing too focus-pulling, deliberate, or self-conscious. These moments also gave the film a much-needed (at times) energy.

Wall-E
Ben Burrt, Zach Martin, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick & Tony Sereno

Wall-E is a quiet, patient, and modest film that does everything you'd really want it to, and the sound is indicative of this. From Wall-E's voice, robotic but intricate and emotional, to the subtle, pattering score, to the institutional chaos of life in outer space. It's all interesting, involving, and perhaps encourages us to ruminate a little more about what's going on. Kind of like an animated version of 2001.

Winners: Jeffree Bloomer, Marti D. Humphrey & Chris M. Jacobson (The Strangers)
Runner Up: Ben Burrt, Zach Martin, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick & Tony Sereno (Wall-E)

Sound Editing

The Dark Knight
Michael Babcock, Richard King, Michael W. Mitchell & Hamilton Sterling

More bombs than you can shake a stick at (although why you'd want to, I don't know) and countless numbers of crashes, smashes, and thuds litter the latest Batman installment, and it's testament to the sound department that it doesn't become repetitive or tiresome, like other parts of the film.

Eagle Eye
Christopher Assells, Karen Baker Landers, Albert Gasser, Per Hallberg, Peter Staubli & Bruce Tanis

If action films are supposed to be thrill rides, Eagle Eye is a pretty top-billed fairground attraction. You know this when it almost deters you from seeing the flaws through sheer energy and confidence. The film feels so mapped-out and is full of plot holes, but its super-slick, never-say-die attitude extends to some wonderful sound effects (explosions, electronics, mammoth vehicles) that it's often a joy to sit through.

The Strangers
Scott A. Hecker, Rick Hromadka & Cliff Latimer

Containing some of the sharpest sound-work I've ever seen in a horror film it playfully and torturously terrifies; whether it be banging, scraping, shooting, or otherwise.
Taken from Review

Wall-E
Ben Burrt, Dustin Cawood, Teresa Eckton, Al Nelson & Matthew Wood

The mechanism of the sound in Wall-E is far from standard. The sharp, clanging, rickety nature of the moving robot a fascinating observation in the film's opening minutes, and the introduction of the highly-strung, bubbling electronica of Eve another smart touch. The conveyor-belt consumerism of space allows for more recognition, but in theory, so it should. All-in-all, fascinating variety.

Wanted
Margit Pfeiffer, Wylie Stateman & Jon Title

Although I doubted that Wanted would be embraced by the Academy's sound branch, I did enjoy the film's audio work in a similar way to Eagle Eye. In fact everything in the film is flash, but when you've got a budget as huge as this film was afforded, you'd kind of expect the soundwork to be good. A standout in that area is the gunfire, which feels wickedly gratuitous and certainly grips your attention.

Winners: Ben Burrt, Dustin Cawood, Teresa Eckton, Al Nelson & Matthew Wood (Wall-E)
Runner Up: Christopher Assells, Karen Baker Landers, Albert Gasser, Per Hallberg, Peter Staubli & Bruce Tanis (Eagle Eye)

Olivia Thirlby in The Wackness (2008)

This is part of StinkyLulu's now-legendary Supporting Actress Blogathon. Enjoy.

Josh Peck was the kid that got pushed overboard (and don't pretend you didn't cheer when it happened) in Mean Creek. He was a big lad, but The Wackness, a story of predictably very wacky goings-on, sees him as Luke, a fairly thin drug-pusher in an early-90's era hip-hop-obsessed New York. Very often films with such malevolent and apparently braindead characters follow a similar formula, which usually involves said characters achieving relativity and forming some sort of reluctant mini-cult by the end of it. The Wackness has a lot of that "How can you be timid and so blunt?" relativity but understands its own kind by making each character appear dependent upon being liked and appreciated.

Olivia Thirlby serves as the love interest to Josh Peck's drug-ravaged and numb-brained non-entity, and one questions, initially, how she could be intrigued by someone as dull, socially-awkward and utterly different to her as Luke essentially is. Thirlby, who featured somewhat in last year's mega-hit Juno, was the title character's best friend, trusted to throw her two cents in but keep the boat afloat. In The Wackness, Thirlby's Stephanie, placid, easy, eager as she may first seem, rocks several of our male characters' boats but waltzes off into the distance a la Natalie Portman in Closer; troubled, even regretful, but forever and preferably a figure of desire.

When a man loves you, you know. A lot of men are set up so that naturally such gestures of honesty feel painful and often desperate -- at least in my experience. Thirlby reacts to Luke's declaration of love with such disdain. Not because she's disgusted by him, or love, or commitment, but rather fiercely devoted to a generation and social movement that wanted to shrug off commitment, and assertive with the knowledge that she is so much more evolved as a person than he is. At that age you do tend to pick the easier option, and so Thirlby effectively acts as the heartbreaking wake-up call to a very confused and unconventional protagonist.

What's great about the film, and her performance, is that you can imagine this story being told from other people's perspectives with the same vigour: through the eyes of Ben Kingsley's stoner, crisis-ridden doctor, and through Thirlby's teenage bombshell. She identifies with us by putting Luke as the centre of her curiosity, then dispenses with him in the intolerable way we might adopt if he wasn't the centre of The Wackness' cinematic braindead world. This braindead world is often worth exploring, but her performance, a fluctuating charming one, feels like an unexpected dose of CPR; to someone that doesn't want to be resucitated and something that doesn't need resucitating.