ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
MPSE Presents ‘Transformational” Experience at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theater
By Michael Kunkes
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On November 5, the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ (MPSE) Sound Show returned to Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre to literally reveal the nuts and bolts behind the sound effects of DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures’ current release of Michael Bay’s Transformers. The evening was hosted by Ethan Van der Ryn, the film’s supervising sound editor/sound designer, and sound designer Erik Aadahl, along with Industrial Light & Magic’s Scott Benza, Transformers’ visual effects supervisor.
With the aid of a new state of the art sound system created by Meyer Sound Laboratories, two-time Oscar winner Van der Ryn (King Kong, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) and Golden Reel Award co-winner Aadahl, (I, Robot and Superman Returns) used playback of pre-dub effects along with full-blown scenes from a pristine 35mm print, to show where 20 months of hard work and a lot of fun went. Aadahl even used his onstage ProTools rig and plug-in processors to create effects on the spot, with the assistance of props and audience members.
Van der Ryn stated that in doing a big sci-fi fantasy movie such as Transformers, there are two powerful and critical areas to focus on. “First, we want to use sound effects to create a physical reality that makes unreal worlds believable, connected and grounded––which is something that sound effects are incredibly good at doing,” he said. “The other thing sound effects can do is to give life, soul and spirit to things that are in fact not alive, but we want to feel that they are, whether it’s a 25-foot gorilla or a 40-foot robot.”
He added that in presenting their ideas to Bay, they were able to sell the director on the idea of playing certain scenes with sound effects only, sans music. He used the example of the movie’s first big effects scene in which a helicopter robot attacks an American military base: “Your first instinct is that too much is happening; tail rotors are folding up, sides are folding in, the front of the copter is collapsing; it’s like a Rubik’s cube on crack.”
Aadahl explained the sound effects team’s thought process. “If you were to put every little sound on the screen, it would turn to mud,” he explained. “It’s like painting. If you take every color on your palette and throw it onto the canvas, it all turns to brown. Sound is very similar; you need to get the feel of a lot of intricate parts all working together––but it also needs to be simple enough to read to the human ear.” As complicated as that might sound, it’s actually pretty simple, according to Aadahl. “Once that full transformation starts, a lot of it is a couple of simple sounds that have been cut into a rhythm to make it sound mechanical,” he continued. “There’s not much going on beyond that.”
Van der Ryn and Aadahl’s plan was to create a unique sonic texture and character for each robot. “Our goal was that if you didn’t see the robot but only heard it, you’d know which one it was,” Van der Ryn said. “Eric and I had huge brainstorming sessions to see what kinds of sounds should be in the palette for each robot, to see which ones would best articulate the character. We played hundreds of sounds, splitting them into robot character piles, and based them very literally on each robot’s name. For ‘Jazz,’ we looked for jazzy sounds, for ‘Bumble Bee,’ we used kind of buzzy sounds. When you have a bunch of robots on screen at the same time, it can really help distinguish who is who, especially in some of the big action scenes.”
About 90 percent of the sound effects in Transformers were fresh, original recordings—slowed down, sped up and all heavily processed at the highest sample rates currently available on portable equipment: 24-bit, 192kHz. The sound of “Bumble Bee,” one of the “good” robots, was captured by recording a fly trapped in a cup. Aadahl’s own car—door, power windows and engine––provided him with a treasure trove of sounds, as did an old water heater and a garden hose. The sound effects team also did a lot of emoting for the robot sounds.
“We do it that way for three reasons,” said Van der Ryn. “First, we get a lot of ideas when we’re recording out in the field, and when we get back to the cutting room we think of all kinds of crazy things that never would have occurred to us if we hadn’t been out there at the time. Second, having new fresh recordings just makes the end product sound better. And third, it’s just a lot more fun.
“One thing about recording,” Van der Ryn continues, is that you never know what you’re going to stumble upon accidentally, and oftentimes the micro is bigger than the macro—using ice cubes to create the sound of a glacier breaking up; crisp bread becomes rocks and boulders. Sound should be used in a conceptual way, and that’s what we did on Transformers.”
As Van der Ryn summed up, “One thing that is all too easily overlooked is the importance of play in the work we do. When we start on a movie, we have no blueprint for how it will all sound. We have to discover it moment by moment. Play is useful; it allows us the freedom to experiment, which is crucial for the creative process. That’s an important thing to remember.’
Michael Kunkes is a freelance editor and writer specializing in animation, production and post-production. He can be reached at writermk@sbcglobal.net.