Lat Den Ratte Komma In (Let The Right One In)

Analogue recordings of frogs, dogs and heartbeats. This was the remit of Swedish director Tomas Alfredson and sound designer Per Sundstrom when creating the soundtrack for vampire flick 'Let The Right One In'.

For anyone who has seen the film, you can't help but feeling unsettled by the loud gurgles, chomps and close up recordings of the soundtrack which add an extra dimension of horror to the stark cinematography and the cold and bleak backdrop of wintery Sweden. The film centres on the story of Oskar, a 12 year old boy who spends his time alone after suffering from the focus of bullies at school. A young girl called Eli moves into the house next door with her father, and an unlikely friendship and love story unravels. Eli is of course a vampire, a fact that is revealed as the backstories of the young lovers is revealed in parallel. While the visuals of the film are stunning, Alfredson understands the importance of the effect of sound in a movie.

"The soundscape is fifty percent of the experience. Any kid can nowadays easily point out where and how you've made certain visual effects, but very rarely what they've experienced with their ears. This is still an enormous orchestra to conduct, which is in the dark for the audience."

We remain tight to the story of Oskar and Eli, gaining warmth from their love amongst the cold and unremitting chill of the winter and Eli's unsalvageable situation. We sit close to them as they talk, Oskars nose runny and breathes thick, and this closeness is further empathised by the loudness of natural sounds, adding another dimension to the tension.

"You're so close to them sometimes, that you actually hear their heartbeats - and its not overdubbed heartbeats. We have added a lot of human sound to them - the tongues moving in their mouths, the sound of swallowing, breathing, hands moving slowly over winter dry fabric. Eli's voice is overdubbed. Lina (who plays Eli) has a too feminine and soft voice. After a thorough voice-casting we found a girl with the right abrasive and boyish touch. All of the sounds in the film are analogue; even effect sounds are analogue. When Eli's attacking we used analogue sounds from nature, animals. When she's biting its the actor biting through a sausage."

While the horror is not always visible, the sound design illustrates the imagination. Sounds stand out amongst the sparse design, mirroring the bleakness of the visuals. The shuddering clarity of Oskar and Eli communicating via morse code, and the unsettling crunch of the snow as victims walk alone. Eli's unsatisfiable hunger is signified by a ever increasing array of low gurgles, a pain that can never be cured and a danger that is impossible to avoid. She quickly morphs from innocent young girl to ravishing vampire, instinctively stooping to hungrily gobble up spilt blood.

The sound process was very complicated because visually, it's very important to have a dialogue with the audience. Most entertainment today is monologues coming out of the screen at you. A lot of films are overloaded with too much sound and effects and images. But if you leave out things or deliberately omit things visually, you always keep the audience interested. You make visual suggestions to the audience that help engage them. The same is true with sound. If you choose to have a lot of silence in your movie, it will really draw attention to the things you do hear. For instance, if you have a shot of a big city with a lot of cars and people, and all you hear on the soundtrack is a bird, your eyes will immediately start scanning the screen for the bird. It keeps you very active as an audience member."

What Alfredson and Sundstrum have achieved in the sound design for Let the Right One In is nothing short of wonderful. I sat glued to my seat, my ears listening intently to the intricately crafted effects, gleefully smiling at its intensity as it immersed me in the script. I don't often leave the cinema in a daze, but this is one of those films that stays with you when you leave, and is a magnificent cinematic experience.

Pro Tools Users

For anyone who is a end user of professional software, forums are a invaluable source of information. They give you access to a huge community of fellow creatives, who gladly give up their free time to help out fellow users with their problems and questions. So being a big Pro Tools user (and being self taught during studio downtime), Pro Tools Users has saved my bacon on numerous occasions! I've been using the site for a good 2 years now, and am also proudly now a moderator of the site. It has some of the best guys in the business on hand to help you out, and is a friendly and ego-free community. So if you have any Pro Tools problems you know where to go! Join here.

Inglorious Basterds

I'm severely sitting on the fence with this one. I grew up loving Tarantinos stuff, with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction being personal favourites. But recently I've become bored with his films. Tarantino is essentially a film geek and the ultimate post-modern film director. He pays homage to his favourite films and genres by 'borrowing' images, reference points and sequences from his favourites. This is then knitted together with his trademark dialogue, which over the years has become more self referential. His last film Death Proof rates as one of the worst films I've ever seen; the characters are annoying and the dialogue exchanges uncomfortably long and uninteresting. The genius sound design and synth lines of Planet Terror was a far more enjoyable homage to the Grindhouse traditions and ideology. So I will be approaching Inglorious Basterds with severe trepidation, but lets hope Tarantino can get back to his best. While I'm talking about film trailers, how excited am I about Where The Wild Things Are..........

JCVD

Just watched the latest Jean-Claude Van Damme film. Now, I know what your thinking. Jean-Claude Van Damme, star of Universal Soldier, Universal Soldier: The Return and the forthcoming Universal Soldier 3: The Next Generation. John Woo's unintentionally hilarious 'Hard Target' (haircut, music, slow mo!) and the quite frankly awful Street Fighter Movie. So you wouldn't sit down to watch the latest incarnation of the 'muscles from Brussels' with much expectation.

But you'd be wrong.

JCVD sees Van Damme playing himself, in a fake autobiographical film of his life. Struggling for cash following a child custudy case, he returns to his native Brussels to get himself together. Upon returning he enters a post office to withdraw some cash, which unbeknown to himself is being robbed. He becomes mistaken as the perpertrator by the police and a media swarm insues. There is no action fighting sequences, just fine thespian acting from Van Damme, including a 5 minute monologue where he apologises for all the mistakes hes made in his life. Moving and laced with in-jokes on Van Dammes previous action films (John Woo gets a toasting), JCVD is an highly enjoyable watch. Its refreshing to see an actor re-inventing himself to such a impressive degree on screen, and giving a heartfelt account on his own career. I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.

Theo Parrish

Theo Parrish is a Detroit based DJ/Producer who collects found sound and incorporates it in his music, and vice-versa. I spent a lot of time at University studying musique concrete (more to come on this in the future) and creating electronic music from found sound, so was really in to Parrish's ethos. Heres a video for your viewing pleasure.....

The Wilhelm Scream

The wilhelm scream is that of Hollywood legend. Originally a sound effect recorded for the film 'Distant Drums', it has gained noteriety since being discovered deep in the archives at Warner Bros. by sound designer Ben Burrt while looking for FX for his work on Star Wars. Burrt was already aware of the scream, having noted it appearing in a variety of productions, and already having 'borrowed' it from a films soundtrack to include in his own work.

Though labelled as 'Man being eaten by Alligator' on the reel recorded for 'Distant Drums', Burrt named the scream 'Wilhelm' after its emittion from the character 'Private Wilhelm' in the film 'The Charge at Feather River'. Though no-one knows quite who performed the scream, Burrt uncovered documentation at Warner that gave him an indication that the scream was most likely performed by musician and actor Sheb Wooley.

Over the years the scream has appeared as a signature in a mass of Burrts work; and has amassed a cv that any actor in the world would give their right arm for. The original scream is actually one of six recordings; the most popular and recognisable being screams four to six. Although the master recordings only exist in a couple of sound archives worldwide (Skywalker and Weddington being part of this elite group), it has found its way through sampling into libraries across the room, due to a love of the screams history within the sound editing community. It has appeared in films across the spectrum; from Star Wars to Juno and its popularity shows no signs of abating. Having learnt the significance of the effect, king film geek Quentin Tarantino has used the effect in 'Reservoir Dogs' and more recently 'Kill Bill', while Peter Jackson has also insisted in having the effect turned up in 'Lord of The Rings' after hearing of the screams history. The scream has also not been contained solely to the silver screen; it has been used on commercials, video games and even theme park rides.

So what started as a in joke has amassed a cult following amongst sound editors and film fans the world over. Though Ben Burtt himself has stopped using the effect, the scream will continue to live on in cinema for many years to come. I for one am always looking for that 'wilhelm moment' in my own work, and the satisfaction felt when knitting it seamlessly into the action and the enjoyment you get from discovering it being used in other films.

So if like me you want to carry on this cult, then you can hunt out the scream from a film where its clean in the mix (A Star is Born, wink wink!), or head along to here where you can download it for free, but at a lesser quality.

I will also leave you with some compilations of Wilhelms for your enjoyment. Happy spotting!

How cool is this?

So your listening back to your mix. Sat back in the sofa, listening intently. Then you notice something that needs tweaking. You have to get up walk over to the console and correct the fader, and pull the video back and sit back down, breaking the flow. Such a pain.

Until now.

You need a iphone, but how cool is this?



Want a closer look? Link here.