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For Gary Rydstrom, supervising sound editor, sound designer and re-recording mixer, and Michael Silvers, supervising sound editor/dialogue editor, the hook to “Finding Nemo” was obvious. “All of the Pixar films have so many great ideas for interesting sound,” says Rydstrom, who joined Pixar as a full-fledged director earlier this year. “This one had all of that, but 90 percent of it takes place underwater.” As a result, Rydstrom asked himself numerous questions. For instance: How do you make the underwater world come alive with sound? What is it like being underwater in an aquarium vs. the ocean? Does a coral reef sound different than an ocean trench? What will the voices sound like? “On ‘Nemo,’ the fun came from the sheer number of challenges and opportunities for experimentation presented to us,” he said. “Each underwater environment – reef, aquarium, harbor, deep sea, open ocean, etc. – had a different sonic vision. Most of the environments were created from the ground up, utilizing very few actual underwater recordings.” For many of the water sounds, Rydstrom worked with the Kyma sound design workstation and visual sound design software from Symbolic Sound. “The Kyma allowed me to modulate and morph my own voice into other sounds,” Rydstrom explains. “A lot of the ocean ambience was just me making a sound and using that to modulate a whole variety of sounds so I could shape them into tonalities that I liked. None of my actual voice sounds are heard. But, I could run sounds through the Kyma Vocoder and shape the sound of the water into something interesting.” Rydstrom said, “By growling into the microphone, I could use the Kyma to create the sound of the ‘growling’ water rush as Bruce, the shark, whooshed by. Also, by speaking just his name, I created a subliminal ghostly ‘Nemo’ sound effect that would be way off in the distance. It was in the ambience of the film itself, almost as if only the idea of Nemo was out there, tormenting his father. It sounds simple, but the Kyma tricks were among the most difficult.” Director Andrew Stanton also had the brilliant idea of giving Nemo one small fin as a result of the barracuda attack before he was born. It was great for a visual, but also for sound. Both Rydstrom and Silvers agree that the anglerfish chase sequence proved among the most difficult to mix. “That scene takes place in a very deep, nasty part of the ocean, with an ambience that is more like a low rumble, the earthly equivalent of a lifeless room,” explained Rydstrom. “I’ve done so many creature sounds over the years, and I wanted to do something completely different for the anglerfish. I created the vocals completely from electrical arcs, threw in a dog bark, and just cut sections that sounded like a scream or a yell.” The double challenge takes place as Dory and Marlin are being chased by the anglerfish, while Dory attempts to read the address off the sunken diver’s facemask that will reveal Nemo’s whereabouts. “The inclination was to play it like a ‘Jurassic Park’ scene, but we had to be careful not to make it so scary that kids would be put off by it.” Michael Silvers adds, “It was an incredibly fast-paced scene, but we had to make sure that all the dialogue was heard, so one could contrast Dory’s oblivious character with Marlin’s panic and very real danger. Trying to balance that correctly and keeping Dory’s dialogue in the foreground while cutting back and forth between the chase and Dory’s attempts to read the mask made that a very difficult scene to mix.” “Michael did a fabulous job,” says Rydstrom, “who also credits his sound effects editors Terry Eckton, Shannon Mills and E.J. Holowicki, who had the unenviable task of cutting all that water.” Silvers also credited Disney’s ADR Mixer Doc Kane and recordist Jeanette Browning. “They did an incredible job of seamlessly recording the actors, in some cases, several of the main characters had to come back five or six times over several years to complete their dialogue.” |
