“Dead cat”, “sharpened” ears and a surgeon’s care – behind the scenes of the cinema in the “office” of the sound director
00:00 / 17:28
Māra Rozenberga / Latvian Radio
Sitting three sound directors at the microphones is no joke: they are usually on the other side of the sound. While we are warming up and adjusting the microphones in the radio studio, I ask all three to tell us in simple words – what do sound masters Ernests Ansons, Werner Biters and Mārtiņš Rozentāls actually do in the making of a film?
It all starts on the set
“You can start with me, but in the work process you should start with Martins and Werner, because they are the first ones who come into contact with the sound while working on the set. I am the person who works in the studio and in the post-processing of the film,” explains Ernest Anson. “These professions are divided. Maybe in ancient times it was done by one person, but nowadays these jobs are clearly separated.”
The sound recording of the square is visually best illustrated by the long microphone shaft with a long-haired “fur” to stop the wind, which is popularly known as a “fox tail” or a “dead cat”. It is usually worn by a sound recording operator’s assistant. “The sound recording operator is the one who sits at the “recorder” and watches the sound levels, like a conductor managing the sound department of the film set,” explains Mārtiņš Rozentāls.
“We call it pitch sound recording – it can be a feature film, a documentary, an advertisement – anything related to the filming process that involves sound,” adds Werner Bitter. “We also record various special effects – this also counts as pitch sound. This means that you record separately from the camera, for example, a screaming crowd or driving cars, birds, sea urchins… For example, Ernests, while sitting in the studio, has noticed that here it is necessary to record the sound of car wipers. Why wasn’t it recorded on set? Because on set we specialize in recording dialogue as cleanly as possible.”
A high-quality recording of dialogues on the set is also important so that the actors have to come to the studio to discuss the texts as little as possible, which is a labor-intensive and expensive process. It’s also not easy to get back into the role, as dubbing usually takes place a long time after the filming stage. However, according to Anson’s observations, about 30% must be rewritten later in the studio: “This is the specificity of cinema: the editing director usually makes some decisions during the editing, changes thoughts, texts… Often the emotion also needs to be changed.”
Ear-believing noises
Maybe you’ve ever seen some behind-the-scenes videos about film dubbing – how the noises in the frame are simulated so that they are believable not only with the eyes, but also with the ears. Also among our film sound professionals, the English term “foley” or the reproduction of everyday sounds for the needs of a film has caught on.
“Mostly everyone foil perceived as the sound of feet, steps, but basically it is clothes, movement. In English it is called “movement track”, in Latvian – movement score. It helps the film live and move – even if it’s all written on the pitch, it’s like a layer underneath the whole film,” says Anson.
Synchronous noise session mess
Photo: from a private archive
“And then there are all the other sounds – the chair, sitting down, standing up, coffee being poured, the door and so on,” adds Rosenthal.
“I used to specially buy meat for the film “Olegs”, because in the shot (the action takes place in a meat processing plant – ed.) a person is lifting pieces of meat, but in the background there is the sound of devices, ventilation, and the recording of the field is simply “mess”. Then you change it by making synchronized noises. (..) I needed a piece of meat more when they threw it on the table in the shot. But it was easier to imitate the sound of the meat itself with a wet napkin – something unpleasant, glum,” Biters gives an insight into the world of synchronous noise recording.
Sound professionals have a keen sense of hearing: their ears also pick up everyday sounds that many of us overlook. Ernests Ansons and Werner Bitter have just worked on the TV series “Pensions in the Castle”, where creating the atmosphere of the 1930s from a sound point of view was not so easy, because the world of the 21st century is around.
“You hear – a tractor is driving somewhere, it’s getting closer, will you be able to record it… Or is an airplane coming. “Pension in the Castle” is a vivid example – the building where the filming took place is actually on the side of the road. And every now and then someone drives by. You already listen – something is coming up the mountain… If it’s a shot where people just walk by and don’t talk, you can film it so you don’t delay, but as soon as there’s text, which is the most important thing, then you have to stop filming and wait,” Biters says.
“It’s like dialogue is the most important thing, but you have to listen around all the time,” adds Anson. “Also, when working in the studio, before I pay attention to the dialogue, at first I am busy with the fact that I “clean the air” – take out the excess noises. Because the square is generally quite a noisy place – even in ideal conditions there are some generators, squealing lamps, behind the frame people are moving…” Increasingly, technology is also helping in this “cleaning”, but it is still manual work. “There is no such thing as one universal tool, one button that will work for all places, for all locations. You have to approach each scene separately and sort out what’s bothering you, how much you need to clean. At first you clean outside and then put it back in,” says Anson.
Only it should already be of a different quality and must be tuned separately. That’s why, for example, Ernest Anson almost always has a voice recorder in his pocket in his daily life – just in case some useful sound comes across on the way: “I sometimes go outside the studio myself and write the atmosphere. Something is constantly missing, even though the sound banks are currently large and varied , also publicly available. You always need something more specific, you drive around, search and record.”
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
The truth and the biggest fallacy
Ernests Ansons and Werner Bitter and Mārtins Rosenthal have known each other for a very long time, they have worked together a lot, but lately they have been meeting less often, because both directors of sound recordings of the square are most often busy with international film projects, for which Ansons teases both colleagues a little: “Initially we the three of us really wanted to work together, but life got in the way, so it didn’t happen. Because Werner and Mārtiņa have grown up as big sound directors, they are no longer cheap and small. But the Latvian cinema business is cheap and small,” Ansons ironically, calling out his colleague laughter. “I, on the other hand, serve the Latvian side, and I always have only new students. Every time I have to tell them anew: on the field you have to do this and that, I don’t want to hear anything else from you but a good dialogue. If you can, record the atmosphere.”
All three sound men have gone their own way in the film industry. Ernest Anson is a scared DJ, Werner Bitter used to be a member of the group “F[ei]K” soloist, while Mārtiņš Rozentāls studied philosophy.
They admit that they initially gave the sound direction a romanticized image, but although their romance exists, it is a passion that requires a lot of endurance. “Field sound recording is a 12-hour shift, and the project lasts 30 days or more. Sometimes it feels like you’re away on a ship,” compares Bitter. “That romance kind of disappears when you have a night shift in the winter, -25, and then you start thinking,” laughs Rosenthal, adding that it has to be a matter of the heart.
Listening to the interlocutors, I realize how creative this apparently technical cinema profession is.
They do protest about it: “I really don’t like being called a sound artist. That word goes through my bones. That work is really very technical, let artists deal with art,” says Anson.
What are the biggest misconceptions about this job? That everything happens quickly and does not require much effort. Because nowadays everyone can record sounds on their phone. Therefore, at the end of the conversation, we summarize again why the work of the sound artist, sorry, the technical worker, is so important in the film.
Werner Bitter says: “It should be that you turn off the picture and you understand what the story is about. There will be a bad picture, there will be good sound, nobody will notice that there is a bad picture. But if there is a very good picture and bad sound, everyone will notice. A marriage is a marriage.”
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
Photo: From a private archive
2024-02-03 10:15:26
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