“Sound: The Other Half of your Movie” is a panel that took place Tuesday in the SCAD Museum of Art as part the week-long Savannah Film festival. The panel discussed the workflow and careers of established sound professionals. It is the first of several like panels that represent greater attention to the sound design department compared to festivals past.
This panel brought a varied roster together with music producer Jack Douglas, re-recording mixer Eric Fischer and supervising sound editor Eric Norris. It was hosted by Michael Coleman, who produces a series of behind-the-scenes videos documenting the workflow of movie sound departments called the SoundWorks collection.
Record Producer Jack Douglas (right) shows his process from initial recording to final mix on a John Lennon song. Photo by Angie Stong.
The talk began with Jack Douglas’s work, including his records with John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Aerosmith. He presented before and after clips to show his process and the end result of his work. He also spoke of the amount of time and effort that went into a record, especially with Lennon.
“We were working until his last day on Earth. We were working on a record that night,” Douglas said, referring to the night Lennon was assassinated.
He spoke with an amount of intimacy with Lennon that immediately commanded the attention of attendees in the SCAD Museum of Art auditorium. Douglas said that Lennon liked doubling his voice, meaning he liked the sound of two vocal recordings playing on top of each other in his songs.
“He hated the sound of his voice,” Douglas said. “He thought Paul had the better voice.”
Douglas’s record experience was followed by Eric Fischer, who has worked on music documentaries like “Pearl Jam Twenty” and “The Union.” Both are documentaries on famous musicians, and helped bridge the gap between film and music during the panel.
Fischer played clips of the “Pearl Jam Twenty” documentary for the panel, highlighting his work as a re-recording mixer, the position responsible for the final mix of a production. He also spoke to the reality of the sound industry, saying nepotism got him his first gigs.
The topic of film closed the panel as Eric Norris, a heavily credited sound designer and sound supervisor, gave a presentation on his editing methods in feature films such as “The Amazing Spiderman 2” and “Man of Steel.”
He showed his process as he tackled sound design problems such as making the antagonist’s voice in “The Amazing Spiderman 2” sound organic and electric, as opposed to robotic. Attendees could hear the changes as Norris went from the initial sound edits of a scene to the final mix that was shown in the film.
Eric Norris shows sound design process. Photo by Melissa Terry.
The panel was opened up to a handful of questions from students, many of which were directed at Norris.
Afterwards, Sound Design professor Robert Miller said these kinds of panels provide a level of immediacy to students.
“It represents a very realistic scenario of what is going on in their lives but also in the industry in a very real way,” Miller said.
President of SCAD’s Professional Audio Student Organization Melissa Terry, a graduate sound design student from Atlanta, attended and spoke to District after the panel.
“I really appreciated Eric Norris’s example presentations. The preparedness of those was really nice to see,” Terry said. “It kind of showed a level of mutual respect for us having him here and that always brings a great level of interactivity and understanding of their workflow.”
Former PASO president and SCAD sound design alumni Matt Wesdock was also there.
“These panels provide opportunities for us to interface with these professionals that we can’t get anywhere else,” he said. “What I’d like to see in the future, which I think we’re even doing this year, are the one-on-ones where they’re sitting down, talking in a very intimate setting and answering those questions the students are asking.”
