Behind the Seen

by Charles Koppelman

  May 30, 2003, Murch’s Journal

  Finish going through film with Dennis and there are around 230 effects shots which Dennis thought was in the ballpark for what he expected. A lot of breath and snow shots as befits Cold Mountain.

  At the beginning of June, with their first major deadline looming, Murch and Minghella are locking one reel a day. Working out of order, which is typical in film editing, they finally lock the last reel—number one, the battle. Murch considers it, “semi-refined... more work to do, but at least it is all on the table.”

  The film is well below three-and-a-half-hours, and Murch is amazed that it still has most of its internal organs, despite the fact that they have cut out more than 30 percent of the original assembly.

  June 3, 2003, Murch’s Journal

  Total length of film is three hours six mins and two seconds, allowing two minutes for titles at the end of the tree shot, which is a fudge—it is really a minute and a half. But we have cut out just over two hours, which means 40% of the assembly. No main character is gone. Swimmer is hostage to this version, and barely there, and no extra loop down to Black Cove. That is a significant plot moment, but it was arguable that it was a mistake to begin with, since the book treated it as a flashback.

  This latest assembly of Cold Mountain is done just in time. Murch has another milestone to attend to: back in California, his daughter Beatrice is getting married.

  June 4, 2003, Murch’s Journal

  Flying home: Walter came to Primrose Hill Cottage at 11, and we rode to the airport together. He is on this flight, though in economy and I am in business.

  Bought Rise and Fall of Third Chimpanzee: by Jared Diamond. He wrote this in 1991 and it is good, and reminds me of Mysteries of Modern Science by Stableford—a remarkable book.

  Have neglected this journal for the last three weeks, as the crunch intensified. Also neglected my morning exercises. Start up again. Cleaned up the house and put the dishwasher on—has not been on since Aggie left a month ago. The dishes in there were full of mold.

  Chapter 9. Another Rubicon Crossed

  The Murch family at Beatrice’s wedding.

  JUNE 7, 2003—BLACKBERRY FARM, CALIFORNIA

  On a warm, overcast afternoon on the expansive front deck, Walter Murch’s daughter Beatrice marries Kragen Sitaker. Two days later, still home, Walter gets back to the business of finishing Cold Mountain. It’s coming down to the wire with Apple about getting the beta, or even alpha, version of the XML software that could be used to transfer sound information from Final Cut Pro to Pro Tools, the sound editing application. If they are going to receive it (Apple’s Will Stein initially said no) Murch and Cullen must put it right to work, though it may already be too late. A temporary sound mix to prepare the soundtrack for the first screenings outside the edit room, begins Saturday, June 14, three days after Murch’s return to London.

  * * *

  Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2003 16:26

  Subject: Checking IN

  From: Ramy Katrib

  To: Walter Murch

  Hello Walter,

  Have you heard anything in regard to the last round of threads? FCP 4 is supposed to release this week, and it appears things are more chaotic than usual in Cupertino.

  Regards,

  ramy

  * * *

  * * *

  From: Walter Murch

  Subject: Re: Checking IN

  Date: 6/9/03 11:21 PM

  To: Ramy Katrib

  Dear Ramy:

  Thanks for the letter.

  No, I haven’t heard anything from Will or Steve, or Brian. I did get an automatic mailing from Apple that urged me to be the first to own FCP 4! I am just about to get on a plane back to London. Daughter’s wedding last Saturday which went very well.

  I wonder what our next step should be?

  We are doing a temp mix starting on Saturday, so for the time being, the EDL-Titan pathway seems to have done the job. But it is clumsy and incomplete compared to what is just out of our reach.

  Despite the probable chaos, I am a little cheesed off at Will S. for not answering or even acknowledging my last letter.

  Best wishes,

  Walter

  * * *

  The workaround Murch and Cullen use for getting unembedded sound information from Murch’s editing system to the sound editors is cumbersome and requires several time-consuming steps using two different, specially written applications (MetaFlow and Titan) and a file transfer using the OMF protocol. At the upcoming sound mix, they will discover whether the process did its job and kept audio tracks in sync with the picture. If not, if somehow sync got lost during all the conversions and reconversions, then an unavoidable pothole lies ahead that will require precious time and labor to pave over.

  All during the last 12 months, beginning with that June 2002 conference call among Katrib, Murch, Cullen, and Brooks Harris at DFT’s offices, the group has been expecting the XML plug-in Apple was developing, to permit a transparent data transfer of sound information. At the end of May 2003, before leaving for the wedding in California, Murch had appealed to Will Stein and Steve Jobs. He asked if they would reconsider Stein’s initial decision to deny access to a test version already sitting on Ramy’s computer in LA; it had inadvertently been included within a beta version of Final Cut Pro 4.0 that Apple gave to developers for testing, DFT included.

  According to Ramy, talking later at DigitalFilm Tree, “Without even lifting a finger, they [Apple] could have helped tremendously our effort, our cause.”

  Zed jumps in: “Walter and Sean, they really needed this one, man.”

  Expressing Apple’s position about XML a year later, Brian Meaney says, “I understood their need for wanting it. It wasn’t finished. It was still being worked on. There were many people in the industry who wanted it. It was difficult to have to say no, but we simply can’t deliver what we don’t have. XML wasn’t in a state to pass off for anyone to do anything with it.”

  “We always had the production’s best interests in mind,” Bill Hudson adds. “That’s why we gave them Cinema Tools. We knew it wasn’t going to expose them to anything that could potentially be damaging to the production.”

  “Here we were,” Ramy recalls, “knowing it will work because Brooks saw it, saw it right there with his eyes. So we’re asking permission instead of just doing it. That was one of the critical moments in the whole Cold Mountain experience.”

  Neither Murch nor Katrib ever hear back from either Will Stein or Steve Jobs about their appeal to have access to XML. But DFT and Murch have one last hope for getting the XML plug-in: an earlier email from Apple’s Brian Meaney to Ramy Katrib indicated that Apple would “engage” Brooks Harris, representing DigitalFilm Tree, at Apple’s upcoming World Wide Developers’ Conference on June 23. Ramy has it on good authority that Apple will unveil the new XML software at that event. By following Meaney’s willingness to “engage” at the conference, Harris might get access to the program—not in time to put to work on the first sound mix for Cold Mountain—but if the Titan-EDL workaround fails, it still might be needed to rescue a loss. What Meaney intends by “engage,” however, is uncertain.

  June 11, 2003, Murch’s Journal

  Arrive in London all ok. Had a bath and lay down for a bit—now at the office where all is well. Saw Anthony in Tim’s office—he looked tired.

  Back in London, Murch had email from Ramy about the XML situation:

  * * *

  Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 15:36

  Subject: Re: Checking IN

  From: Ramy Katrib

  To: Walter Murch

  Hello Walter,

  As of now, I’m working on Brooks going to the developers conference where Apple is going to make major announcements, including XML. The tickets are $1200, so I’m working on getting free passes for him, as we are not quite rich yet. I’ve arranged for Brooks to meet one of the principal FCP programmers at the conference, so they can talk and cover major ground. Brooks would
be going on his own time/money, but we’re doing everything we can to make it happen. Will keep you updated, regards,

  ramy

  * * *

  Four major screening milestones define the near-term schedule for Cold Mountain, each a work-in-progress preview:

  • National Film Theatre, friends/family screening, London, June 20, 2003

  • Miramax Films, internal screening, New York, June 26, 2003

  • First test preview screening, New Jersey, July 21, 2003

  • Second test preview screening, New Jersey, August 20, 2003

  The studio has the option of holding one additional test preview screening on the East Coast at the end of September.

  These showings, roughly a month apart, set a new tempo by which time gets measured at the Old Chapel and throughout the rest of Cold Mountain post production, which comprises music recording, ADR (automated dialogue replacement), sound editing, temporary sound mixes, opening and closing titles, visual effects, and picture editing. While these functions all continue toward completion, each with its own pacing and steps, they are all driven by the demands of the screening schedule. Each screening requires a deliverable version of the movie that can be shown in a theater and stand up to an audience’s expectations for what a major film looks and sounds like.

  Showing the film in a theater environment means another hurdle for Final Cut Pro to get over. The conforming process—by which the 35mm film print version of Cold Mountain is kept up-to-date with changes made in digital editing—depends on all-important change lists. When Dei and young Walter, the second assistant editors, began the conforming process at the end of April, they used Cinema Tools to produce an accurate conform list to make their first round of film edits, and it worked fine. But to keep up with hundreds of changes since then requires a change list function that only became available when Apple provided it to Murch in the Beta version of Final Cut Pro 4.0. Back in California, when Murch and Cullen first decided to use Final Cut Pro, they proceeded knowing the system could not yet make reliable change lists. Very shortly they will discover if the gamble pays off—if this new piece of software gives the film assistants the tool they need to generate a 35mm print that matches the version Murch edits in Final Cut Pro, and whether it plays in sync when projected.

  Each new version of Cold Mountain that gets screened from this point on emerges from the molting of its previous version. After first absorbing the emotional consequences that come with each public showing, Minghella, Murch, and the team must take into account and somehow incorporate—or reject—the comments, reactions, and suggestions generated from the preceding screening—be they from audience, attending producers, or Minghella himself. They must sift through it all, decide what adjustments must be made and how to make them, and get back to work in the edit room. With each new redaction, the film must also get progressively shorter in length.

  De Lane Lea, where the sound for Cold Mountain was mixed in London.

  Saturday, June 14, 2003, Murch’s Journal

  Get up at 7:30 and be at work before nine.

  With that entry, on the first day of sound mixing at De Lane Lea studios in Soho, Murch goes off-journal for the next week and a half. Like the Apollo I circling behind the moon, he’ll be out of radio contact before beginning the trip home to Earth. “It was a scattered time,” Murch recalls later, “with Aggie’s mother dying and lots of cross-Atlantic flying and cutting and mixing, etc.”

  There are several top-notch facilities for sound mixing in and around London. Miramax, in consultation with Murch and Minghella, had selected the re-recording theater at De Lane Lea in London’s West End. They chose it over either the Pinewood or Shepperton studios, both of which are on the outskirts of London, due in part to its location, being reasonably close to Murch and Minghella’s base of operations at the Old Chapel—about 20 minutes by taxi or tube, or a 45 minute walk from Murch’s house in Primrose Hill. Mixing there, within the vibrant narrow streets of Soho, also means every kind of motion picture and media post-production service or supplier is in walking distance. The Cold Mountain sound editors are set up nearby at Goldcrest, a long-standing sound studio; Double Negative, which is doing visual effects, is two blocks away; and the film lab, FrameStore/CFC, is also close by.

  De Lane Lea contains three floors with editing rooms, a screening theater, a large music recording studio, offices, a café, and, on the first floor, a sound-mixing theater, (or mix stage), where Murch, Minghella, and the sound crew will spend much of the next six months preparing the soundtrack.

  Among films using DLL-Soho for ADR and other sound services over the last few years are Pirates of the Caribbean, Master and Commander, Spider-Man, The Hours, and Gangs of New York. The second Harry Potter movie was mixed there after Cold Mountain.

  A movie soundtrack blends three kinds of sound: dialogue, music, and effects. For filmmakers, this process of mixing sound is their final chance to shape a film. What filmgoers hear inside the theater is every bit as complex and emotionally important to storytelling as the images they watch—maybe more so, because sound should do its job at a subconscious level.

  * * *

  Sound Recordist as Movie Hero

  To honor the little-appreciated sound effects craft (and in homage to Michelangelo Antonioini’s Blow-Up and Coppola’s The Conversation), film director Brian De Palma made the 1981 movie, Blow Out, starring John Travolta. In the film, a soundman played by Travolta is recording atomosphere and effects for a movie when he inadvertently records evidence proving a car “accident” was in fact, murder.

  * * *

  Every sound mix has its own personality and should properly complement the story being told. A soundtrack for a romantic comedy like Down with Love should be “bright”—it features contemporary pop songs, and brings intimate dialogue to the forefront. A thriller like Fight Club should sound “dark,” contain lots of jarring, spooky sound effects, and use a brooding musical bed. The soundtrack’s character is defined early on with discussions among the director, composer, location sound recordist, sound supervisor, sound designer (if separate from the supervisor), and sound editors. Before the picture is even finished being filmed, sound effects are found or recorded—on location, from existing effects collections, off location, and in the recording studio. In Cold Mountain, for example, sound supervisor Eddy Joseph and sound effects editor Martin Cantwell, spent two days recording gun collectors firing authentic Civil War munitions in the countryside north of London, an event specially arranged for this purpose.

  Even at the script stage (and certainly by the time the first assembly is completed), the director and sound supervisor will “spot” the film, deciding which spots in the film should have which kinds of effects. Likewise, the director and the composer of the musical score together plan what sorts of music belong in which scenes. Even though the best quality recording of the actors’ words is taken on location, that “production sound” is often replaced later in the studio with ADR—because the quality on set was compromised by unwanted ambient sounds, technical problems, or faulty line readings. With Minghella, even more than with most film directors, ADR is an opportunity to rewrite the film one more time—replacing lines, rewriting phrases, adding voiceover—all for the purpose of sharpening story, character, and emotion. ADR is also used to obtain background conversation and off-camera dialogue color using “loop groups,” actors who, in a battle scene for example, articulate sounds such as grunts, cries, yells, and occasionally actual words, none of which were recorded during location filming.

  There are four components to the mix: 1) the sound itself, created on a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Pro Tools, and played directly from the workstation or off hard drives; 2) a mixing board, the electronic switching station with sliders, faders, equalization controls, and other functions (often automated) that is operated by the re-recording mixer; 3) the room itself, a small theater with real theater seats to approximate the acoustics of a theatrical environment; an
d 4) the sound mixer’s ears. While there are all sorts of devices to measure and graph sound, there are no objective criteria for what makes a good mix. What ultimately matters is how something sounds to the mixer, the director, and the producers. Like much of filmmaking, this process is an art supported by science.

  Since it’s nearly impossible to physically manipulate all strands of dialogue, effects, and music at the same time (and mentally overwhelming to even hear them unmixed all together), movie sound is first prepared in “premixes.” That is, the sound effects are grouped together in different categories: atmospheres, munitions, footsteps, props, horses, etc., separated out for maximum flexibility in the final mix. Each group is premixed onto a six-track master, with each track sent to three speakers arrayed behind the screen, two in the walls and one in the rear (surrounds); then all the dialogue is premixed; and, finally, the music is laid in once the effects and dialogue are set. When the time comes to do the final soundtrack, the mixer works with these prepared ingredients, though the “raw” original tracks can easily be accessed if necessary from a workstation dedicated to this purpose.

  The sound arrives at the premix in “split tracks.” Not only are music, dialogue, and effects separated from each other, each type of sound effect is segregated from other sound effects—again, for maximum flexibility. For example, 64 raw gunshot tracks in Cold Mountain’s battle scene have been reduced to one six-track premix, while sounds of horses’ hooves are on a different premix. That way the mixer can adjust the volume relationship between just those two sounds to best represent what’s on the screen—horses are made quieter because they’re in the background, guns are made louder since they are in the foreground. At the sound mix of Cold Mountain Murch, the lead sound mixer works with two other sound mixers, Michael Prestwood-Smith and Matthew Gough. When Murch is gone from the mix to edit, attend to other duties, or at preview screenings, Prestwood-Smith will do premixes, which must continue unabated if the film is to be delivered on schedule. On the mix board, Matthew Gough supplements Prestwood-Smith and Murch by handling controls that are too spread out and numerous for one mixer to manage.