HOLLYWOOD – Todd/Soundelux, here, recently completed full audio post production on We Were Soldiers, Paramount Pictures’ latest release, starring Mel Gibson, Madelein Stowe and Sam Elliott. The feature film, released on March 1st, is based on a book recounting the true story of a monumental 1965 Vietnam War battle, led by Colonel Hal Moore (played by Gibson).
According to Todd/Soundelux’s Lon Bender and Mark Stoeckinger, who served as co-sound supervisors on the film, the facility was challenged with creating a soundtrack that rides the fine line between the reality of war and the over-the-top dramatics of Hollywood. “The goal,” says Bender, “was to objectify the experience and not make it subjective by adding music to it. And we had to do that without making the audience feel like they were being bombarded the whole time with large weaponry. We pulled that off by using a lot of specific details in the sound, so that it was consistently interesting. The palette was filled with many colors as opposed to the mid-range frequency you would often find with explosions.”
Stoeckinger, who’s been with Soundelux since ’91 and most recently supervised sound for the films Blow and Mission Impossible II, took time out of a Foley session for the upcoming film Wind Talkers to chat with Post about the details of We Were Solidiers. The Todd/Soundelux team provided editing, design, Foley, ADR and final mixing for the film, as well as some location recording to help build an effects library, says Stoeckinger. The film was shot on location in California and Georgia.
Using TASCAM and Sony DAT recorders, along with Sennheiser and Schoeps mics, the team went on location to numerous shoots, capturing gun and helicopter sounds. Additional effects, such as cannon sweeteners, background guns and helicopters came from the company’s own Hollywood Edge sound effects library.
Editing was performed using Digidesign Pro Tools 5.1 systems at the facility’s Hollywood location. Foley was recorded at the company’s West Los Angeles studio. And the final mix took place in Studio S at the CBS Radford lot using an AMS Neve DFC digital film console.
Stoeckinger notes that all of the Todd/Soundelux studios are linked to a centralized sound server, making distribution of elements much simpler than in the past. The Wide Area Network links four LA facilities together using Gigaman technology provided by Pacific Bell, and two additional facilities using wireless microwave links.
All data is merged together in a tower in the Hollywood hills. Sounds are downloaded from the server for local playback in the different sessions. Bender adds that We Were Soldiers was the first feature film to take full advantage of the networked storage solution. We Were Soliders was released in the Dolby EX (6.1) format, which includes a dedicated rear center speaker. A good example of the format’s ability can be heard in a sequence of the film where Colonel Moore walks out into one of the fight scenes and the camera and sound pan entirely around him.
Volume settings, says Stoeckinger, were set within Pro Tools, while panning was left for the mix stage.
