MMCS380
Advanced Audio and Sound Design
Assignment
Two: Written Reflection
Django Unchained Sound
Analysis
Ashleigh Wadebrook 42453062
29/09/13
The power
of sound is ignored critically and spectatorially because it is both complex
and magical, and revealing the nuances of either aspect might ruin the delicate
balance in which it operates. Sound appears to be the secondary element of
film, even if it is an element that is impossible for the experiencer to
ignore, when even its absence speaks volumes.
(Sinclair, 2003)
There is visual bias in film, where it is commonly
believed that audience members are principally viewers rather than listeners.
Craig Sinclair (2003) coined the term ‘experiencer’ to describe one who
“partakes of films” because he believes that we undergo a multisensory
experience as an audience member, through sight, sound and emotion. To many
critics and film-goers alike, what we see on screen appears to be the
foreground and primary story-telling element, while what we hear seems to be a
submissive shadow of sight. Despite this perception, Sinclair claims that sound
serves far more than the projection of a literary script. It allows for volume
and depth beyond that of the flat two-dimensional screen. The sound of a
film is equally, if not more powerful than the visuals in terms of drawing the
“experiencer” into the story from their lounge room or cinema seat and filling
them with a sublime sensation that can only be achieved aurally. (Sinclair,
2003) Quentin Tarantino’s wonderfully produced 3-hour epic Django Unchained (2012) is one such film that proves Sinclair’s words to be true. The film was nominated for a 2013 Academy Award for Best Sound Editing thanks to the passionate work of highly renowned sound editor Wylie Stateman, sound designer Harry Cohen and their determined colleagues. In many ways, each and every scene in the film speaks to its audience through sound as much as it does visually. The sound crew claim they really have produced a one-off
soundtrack because it is so very unique in the way it explores hyper-realistic
clarity, revives the “analogue” feel through modern technologies and embraces each
word that leaves the actors’ lips with strange reverence.
This film is interesting from a sound design point of
view because, in the Tarantino tradition, it takes from a very well-established
genre and rediscovers that genre in a modern light with the director’s unique
flare. Django Unchained reaches deep
into the heart of the 1960s-70s spaghetti western, reviving the old classic horse
chases and shoot offs. As supervising sound editor Wylie Stateman puts it, these
cliché elements are “presented in a hyper-exaggerated form”, through both the
visuals and the soundtrack (Creative Planet, 2013). The sense of intimacy is
exquisite, from the bright red blood that sprays across the screen as we hear
the gory squelching of a bullet protruding another head, to the extreme close
ups of a beer glass filling up from a tap as we are brought in even closer by
the sound of the beer head bubbling over and being scraped away. Throughout
this film, it seems that every action, no matter how small, is clearly audible.
There is one scene in particular that truly goes
beyond the point of believable clarity in terms of sound, and that is the scene
in which we first encounter the villainous plantation owner, Monsieur Calvin J.
Candie. The sounds played to us during his introduction perfectly portray the
kind of cruel, heartless character that is Monsieur Candie. Played by Leonardo
DiCaprio, the character is draped over a luxurious lounge suite with his back
facing the camera as our protagonists walk into the room. The sound of a
bloodthirsty fist-fight fills the space, with grunts and growls and thuds
coming from a pair of Mandingo fighters brawling on the floor at Candie’s feet.
It is loud, impossible to ignore, and yet Candie, without even caring to take
his eyes off the excitement for a polite nod to his guests, speaks strong and
clear above the racket: “Why do you wanna get into the Mandingo business?” There
is a brief test of character through Candie’s rude and abrupt questioning, when
one of the guests finally answers, “it looks like just a bit of fun”. The
following shot is a very revealing moment for Candie’s character, as he turns
around to show an approving grin. Not only do we see his face, but we learn
from his expression just what makes him tick. The significance of this shot is
accentuated by a corny sound effect to accompany the camera’s speedy zoom in as
it frames the face. It is one of the film’s many comical salutes to the cartoonish
sound effects of the Italian Western era. Then comes the truly magical part of
the scene, the eerie, hyper-real sounds of minor actions that would
realistically struggle to compete with the yelling of fighting men. We hear
paper burning on each drag of Candie’s cigarette, each drip of water falling
from the bottom of a champagne bottle as it’s carried across the floor (Mentorless,
2013). All the while the bloody fight continues off-screen, softer in volume than
these delicate details. Stateman says himself that this is how the soundtrack
punctuates the intensity and horror of Monsieur Candie, and his casual demeanour
towards such violence.
What it
does to the soundtrack is it creates a hyper-enhancement of the visual image,
and it also pulls the audience’s focus into it at a very granular level. The
detail is very satisfying to your mind because as you’re listening to dialogue,
this extra-enhanced detail blends wonderfully with the production track. It
puts a magnifying glass on the soundtrack and it allows us to get a little bit
of a three-dimensional pop from the visual. (Creative Planet, 2013).
There is another element
of the film’s soundtrack that makes it stand out from other contemporary movies
of our time. According to the sound crew, “Quentin’s marching orders were that
he wanted it to feel analog, and he wanted it to feel spirited” (Soundworks
Collection, 2013). Stateman and Cohen interpreted analog to mean “acoustic”
(Soundworks Collection, 2013).
Analog means he wants it to have a vintage feel…
[It meant] creating a sense that this didn’t come out of a synthesiser, this didn’t
come out of a 2012 plug in for Protools or for the AVID, this is really rooted
in something that is part of that genre from the 1960s but executed with the
flare and with the technology as transparent as we can make it that’s available
to us today. (The Hollywood Reporter,
2012).
The sound designers went all out to achieve this acoustic,
vintage feel. They knew about all the fantastic Western sound libraries like
the famous collection created for Arthur Penn’s classic “Little Big Man”, which
had served as the best source of horse sounds for almost a decade (DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013). However, Stateman and Cohen decided to record brand new sounds from
scratch to give a fresh raw sound rather than using pre-existing samples.
The gunshots, for instance, had to carry the sound
of the vast outdoors with them, and not be merely generated by a reverb program
or device.
Our gunshots in Django are not just digital
sounds of a gun report; they're backed up by these beautiful impulse responses
created on those three very distinct locations. (The Hollywood Reporter, 2012).
To
facilitate such an ambition, they travelled to harsh environments like Death
Valley and Zion National Park to record echoes. They had various issues arise
such as irregular granite and canyons being too wide. In Death Valley, miles off
road “in the middle of Indian tribal lands” (DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013), they used a range
of equipment such as a Sound Devices 788T digital audio recorder (TVB Europe,
2013), a signal cannon and a starter pistol to get concussive sounds. They
chose a time when the weather was very much overcast, which gave them a more
reflective sound off the sky in the ‘box canyons’ (The Hollywood Reporter, 2012). Stateman and Cohen agreed that
what was recorded on that trip were some of the most beautiful echoes they’ve
ever captured (DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013).
This
was all for the echoes alone. The crew also went to a great deal of effort to
get the right ‘Western’ quality for the gun shots themselves. “It begins with a
holster draw and ends with a ricochet,” says Stateman. Sound designer Harry Cohen
goes on to describe the detail they have to consider:
It’s got a pronounced secondary reflection and a
big canyon tail even if you’re not in that environment. Those are things that
are just characteristic of what audiences have been taught to associate with a
gunshot in a Western movie, so we kind of reinvented that in a modern way.
(DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013).
For this endeavor, they rented
out a gun range and went out with about 10 different microphones set up and a
variety of weapons. For the classic ricochet, they were shooting at washers
hanging from a steel stand. They used hand-forged vintage iron chains to create
the sounds of shackled ankles because modern chains are stainless steel and
machine-forged. They wanted every link to sound different, almost like a
musical instrument. These wonderful sounds were taken from the field and into
the studio where they were warped to become whip cracks, door closes and scene
transitions (Mentorless, 2013).
There's the sound something makes and the
acoustical environment that puts a fingerprint on the sound -- an attitude, and
we are very much making a film with attitude (The Hollywood Reporter,
2012).
Sound
design analyst Michel Chion (1990) wrote of the importance of text, or the
script. Chion believes the cinema is “vococentric”, meaning that sound in film
primarily serves to highlight the voice and the words spoken. Not all sound
designers would agree that this bold assumption could apply to everything in
cinema, but he would be quite right to say that Django Unchained is vococentric. Stateman and Cohen agreed that
Tarantino’s script was bound to be
and was indeed “memorable” (DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013). They
understood that their job was to support the actors’ speech in every way, to bring
the text to the foreground and manipulate all other sonic elements so that every
line can be delivered with great significance.
At 01:50:30, one of the film’s key scenes begins. The
scene’s purpose is to unveil a very significant part of the plot, which is
played out primarily through dialogue more than action. Therefore, it was the
sound designer’s duty to bring the audience’s focus right in to the verbal
exchange given at Candie’s eerily quiet dinner table. Pause for a moment and go
back a few minutes to the previous scene. Set in the same interior location,
the room is filled with bustling servants and footsteps, sipping and laughter,
even the cracking of pepper and clinking of glasses adds layers to the
soundscape. All sound is purely diegetic, there is not a hint of an underlying
musical score, nor are there any foreign sound effects. This is a scene in
which there is quite a lot of dialogue, although not nearly as important to the
story as that in the one to follow and so it is allowed to be comfortably
padded by natural onscreen sounds.
Back to 01:50:30, and we see an incredible
difference in mood and atmosphere all due to the simple removal of these menial
background sounds. If the experiencer listens carefully, they can hear quiet
crickets chirping off-screen in the distance. No more rustling, no more
movement at the table. Monsieur Candie is about to say something very
important. His monologue begins, and the occasional sound effect such as the
brush of a beard or the saw of a knife weaves in and out of the speech wherever
there is a pause. It is quite musical, and the entire scene is set at a
hypnotising rhythm as Candie tells his blood-curdling tale of “Old Ben”. This incredible
juxtaposition between the two scenes proves how powerful the sound design has
been in influencing the message delivered in each scene of this film.
In
the end, the director and sound crew were working together with the shared ambition
to make the film something that is really fun to watch and really interesting
to listen to (DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013). It has certainly given
birth to a unique soundtrack, one that could only have been brought to life in
a melting pot classic film clichés, modern technology and traditional production
techniques – not to mention the marvellous imagination of Quentin Tarantino and
the passionate work of the Django Unchained sound production team. A
word of modesty about the power and presence of the soundtrack comes from Wylie
Stateman:
Sound is
transparent and… we should be too. There is an opportunity to have a heavy hand
on the project but most people don’t leave the theatre thinking about the sound
effects.
(DP/30: Django Unchained, sound editor Wylie Stateman,
sound designer Harry Cohen, 2013).
As Sinclair says above,
the power of sound in cinema is often overlooked. It is true that as critics
and movie-goers pour out of the theatres they will fill their discussions with thoughts
on the dialogue, the visuals or the plot, but perhaps it is not all bad that
the sound rarely grabs our attention first. Sound is, after all, a sublime,
invisible force, and the emotions it can inspire within us may be something far
too complex to ever really understand. Let the soundtracks bewitch us without
us ever knowing it.
References
Chion, M 1990, ‘Audio-Vision:
Sound on Screen’, Columbia University Press, New York.
Creative Planet Network 2013, The D May Be Silent, But Little Else Is: The Rich and Kitsch Sound Design
for 'Django Unchained', NewBay Media, LLC., New York, NY, viewed 2 October 2013, http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/dv/feature/d-may-be-silent-little-else-rich-and-kitsch-sound-design-django-unchained/62068
Django Unchained 2012, DVD, Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia. Written
and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
DP/30: Django Unchained,
sound editor Wylie Stateman, sound designer Harry Cohen 2013, video,
DP/30, 10 January, viewed 2 October 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw2YE-vh2w0
The Hollywood Reporter 2012, Quentin Tarantino Demanded -- and Got -- a Whole
New Language of Sound Effects for 'Django Unchained’, The Hollywood Reporter, viewed 2 October 2013, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/django-unchained-director-quentin-tarantino-404162
Mentorless 2013, Sound
Editing Django Unchained with Wylie Stateman & Harry Cohen, interview
summary, France, viewed 3 October 2013, <http://www.mentorless.com/2013/09/04/sound-editing-django-unchained-with-wylie-stateman-harry-cohen/>
Sinclair, C 2003, ‘Audition:
Making Sense of/in the Cinema’, The
Velvet Light Trap, Spring, no. 51, pp. 17-28.
Soundworks Collection 2013, Contender – Sound Editor Wylie Stateman, Django Unchained, interview,
Colemanfilm Media Group LLC., Emeryville, California, viewed 2 October 2013,
<http://soundworkscollection.com/news/contender-sound-editor-wylie-stateman-django-unchained>
TVB Europe
2013, Sound Devices recorder captures
effects for Django Unchained, Intent Media Ltd., London, UK, viewed 1 October 2013, <http://www.tvbeurope.com/main-content/full/sound-devices-recorder-captures-effects-for-django-unchained#.Uk07bYamiSp>
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