We go to the cinema to be entertained and to be emotionally moved, with some education and expanding one’s world view thrown in occasionally. Even though most recognise that the cinema is a multi-sensory experience, few tend to recognise how much of that experience is created specifically by sound ... or why that is, or how it happens. MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound is a feature-length documentary exploring the art, history, and aesthetics of sound in film, that aims to correct the lack of awareness of the role sound plays in the cinema-going audience.
What Is MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound?
Just over two years ago, the producers turned to crowdfunding to try and get this film completed and we asked Would You Like To Support The Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound Movie Kickstarter Project? The crowdfunding was successful and the film goes on general release in the US starting tomorrow October 25th and in the UK on November 1st 2019.
Directed by veteran Hollywood sound editor Midge Costin, the film reveals the hidden power of sound in cinema, introducing us to the unsung heroes who create it, and features insights from legendary directors with whom they collaborate.
Featuring the insights and stories of iconic directors such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, Barbra Streisand, Ang Lee, Sofia Coppola and Ryan Coogler, working with sound design pioneers–Walter Murch, Ben Burtt and Gary Rydstrom–and the many women and men who followed in their footsteps.
How Did MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound Come About?
Midge Costin’s career emphasis on education gave her the initial idea to condense a term’s worth of introductory material into one package, breaking down the essentials of her craft for an audience of laypeople. She didn’t want another generation of filmmakers to grow up hating sound as she had at the start.
Midge told the Guardian Newspaper “I went to film school, and I hated sound. It scared me, I had panic attacks doing it, so I wanted to be a picture editor when I graduated. I was doing my thesis, and a friend called me up to tell me that none of their union guys would touch 16mm sound. I fell into it by mistake, because I needed the money. I took the sound job and then went, ‘Oh, crap. I’m responsible for tone and mood.’ I had a conversion, once I realized that sound wasn’t just technical. It adds so much to the story.”
She took to sound like a duck to water and soon was working on big-league pictures. However, she later became disillusioned with the action-adventure work that was being offered to her and decided to go into academia. It was at USC in the early 2000s that she first made plans to rework her lectures into a film, but copyright law at the time put a stop to that. After a decade there was a change with the fair use law, as long as it’s done in the spirit of public edification so that at last she could use excerpts from major movies without paying an arm and a leg. The project was back on at last.
Between her industry connections and favours from fellow sound people, she managed to put together an all-star lineup of commentators. From her former student Ryan Coogler to Steven Spielberg, her pool of experts dissect both classic and contemporary movie scenes to illustrate the huge amount of work that goes into creating and fine-tuning a soundscape. Spielberg, for example, digs into the subtly expressionistic quality of the shellshocking beach invasion that opens Saving Private Ryan.
Midge also introduces and defines key terms – foley work, automated dialogue replacement, mono v stereo v surround sound – in order to turn the invisible into actual visible hard work and creativity that it is, because so many take good audio work for granted, from the casual viewer to the studio penny-pinching accountants.
Midge explained to The Guardian… “They say sound is 50% of the story, but on the films I was doing, the post-production sound budget would be 1% to 1.5% of the total. The average moviegoer thinks that when you turn on the camera, it starts also recording sound. They don’t even get that they’re recorded separately and synced. How much work going into sound, when done correctly, isn’t even perceptible.”
Some of the tasks we undertake are fun like smashing watermelons and breaking sheets of pasta to get the noise of splintering femurs, but other tasks can be more tedious.
“When you think about doing footsteps, you’ve got to do them for everyone. Everybody has their own unique footsteps. So many American films go abroad, and when you take out the production track (the track with the dialog recorded on location or on the set), you lose everything. If someone’s tapping their fingers while talking, you’ll lose the tapping when they dump the dialogue for redubbing. The rerecording is extensive. They even have what’s called a ‘cloth track’, where they just rub various fabrics to get the sound of people shifting in their chair or getting up … Sometimes, the most important sound can be a creak or a breath.”
MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound wraps up with a section looking toward the future, focusing on technology as the driver for the development of sound in both the theatre and the home. “Some people will say it just sounds better with analog equipment, but the variety of things you can do, what you can see on the digital readouts, it gives you so many more options. Aside from the difference, which is hard to hear for a lot of people, we’re all pretty happy to be on digital.”
With regard to the developments at the consumer’s end of the chain, Midge is of two minds. She is pleased that the equipment needed has become so much more affordable but as it becomes more sophisticated that comes with its own issues. “The problem sometimes comes down to how people have their home systems set up. Theatres get carefully calibrated, but listening at home leaves a lot of room for error. I’d love for people to see movies in theatres.”
However, the tools we use might change, Midge is sure that her life’s passion will be secure. “As we watch things on smaller screens, sound gets even more important. The smaller someone’s face gets, the more reliant we are on audio cues for emotion and tone of a scene.” With a laugh, she adds, “You all need us!”
What Do The Viewers Of The Film Think?
Even though Midge’s film isn’t out on general release yet there have been some reviews and comments online including this from ‘Slazenger’ who says…
“Just wanted to leave a quick note - the film was excellent, moving, and a unique opportunity as a viewer to experience and immerse myself in a topic that is both underappreciated and underpublicized. I personally think the film was a tremendous success, as it set out to immortalize and call attention to the pathfinders and giants of sound design - and did just that. Best wishes to the three of you and looking forward to being able to have my family experience this!”
Where Can I See MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound?
On the film’s website, there is a screening calendar that you can check, starting with…
New York, Oct 25, 2019 – Oct 31, 2019
Santa Monica, Oct 25, 2019 – Oct 31, 2019
Bellingham, Oct 25, 2019 – Oct 28, 2019
Los Angeles, Oct 25, 2019 – Oct 31, 2019
and the premiere in Beverly Hills on Oct 26, 2019
In the UK, we have done some digging and if you are in London then it is showing at the Bloomsbury Curzon cinema at The Brunswick Centre, London WC1N 1AW on Friday 1st November at 8:30pm, Saturday 2nd November at 6:30pm and Sunday 3rd November at 4pm.
Then it’s on at the Hull Independent Cinema on Tuesday 10th December at 7:30pm.
Tell Us What You Think
If you do go and see it please do tell us what you think in the comments section below…