In our continuing series looking into the backstories of leading entries in SHOOT’s quarterly Top Ten Tracks Chart, composers and sound designers have frequently referred to their working relationships with and/or contributions from directors as integral to the success of a project. That is evident in the first entry in the current Fall chart, the tongue-in-cheek “Battle for Milkquarious” rock opera for the California Milk Processor Board out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco (see separate story).
Goodby associate creative director/copywriter Andrew Bancroft wrote the lyrics for “Milkquarious,” working in concert with composers/performers Tyler Spencer and Zach Shipps of Detroit-based band Electric Six.
Bringing Electric Six into the fold was director Tom Kuntz of MJZ who had earlier helmed music videos for the band, including “Fire in the Disco.” Kuntz had the Electric Six artisans team with the Goodby creative ensemble last year in helping to develop the musical persona of the spandex-clad White Gold, a self-anointed rock superstar brandishing a milk-filled guitar. White Gold resonated with the youth market, which sought out his songs on iTunes and rocked and laughed to his offbeat videos, fulfilling the objective of the original Goodby creative brief which was “to make milk as cool as Red Bull” for teenagers. The follow-up for White Gold in ’09 is his audacious “Milkquarious” rock opera, reteaming Kuntz, Spencer, Shipps and the Goodby contingent.
Hamilton on Hunter Similarly the number one SHOOT Top Ten Tracks Chart entry in summer of ’08–Audi RS6’s “Gymnast” for BBH London–is a prime example of a soundtrack benefitting greatly from its director, in this case Paul Hunter of Prettybird.
The spot featured a coterie of gymnasts whose twisting, twirling and precision movements paralleled the RS6’s powerful engineering that demands “performance from every part.” This tour de force in choreography was driven by a score from Wave Recording Studios, London.
Back then, Wave creative director Warren Hamilton, who served as “Gymnast” sound director, told SHOOT, “Paul Hunter is a director who understands sound. You look at Paul’s body of work and it’s very much music and sound driven. Hamilton cited such commercials as the lauded “Freestyle” for Nike out of Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore, which debuted in 2001 during Hunter’s tenure with HSI Productions.
Hamilton and Wave sound designer Tony Rapaccioli, who also served as audio post mixer on “Gymnast,” noted that both Hunter and BBH brought Wave into the pre-pro stage of the project. “Paul had a vision for the choreography with the gymnast dancers,” said Hamilton. “He wanted the soundtrack first in order to drive and shape the choreography and pacing.”
Wave invited a couple of accomplished musician friends–composers Nick Rapaccioli (Tony’s brother) and Neil Barnes–into the mix to create the initial composition. With this soundtrack completed up front, it helped to drive and establish the tempo, pulse, rhythm and pace of the subsequent filming.
But that was only part of a most ambitious soundtrack creation and development process.
With the properly synched images and soundtrack, Wave colleagues Hamilton and Tony Rapaccioli orchestrated the process of deconstructing that musical track and blending in original sound design elements.
Hamilton observed, “This work shows the benefits of people having the foresight to bring in the sound guys during the pre-production stage–and how that can help the film. People used to regard sound as an exercise after they shot the commercial. To get the chance to be involved in a significant way before the filming is gratifying. We find agencies now considering us more in the pre-filming stages of a project–I also wish there were more directors like Paul Hunter who are on board with the sound straight away from the very beginning of a job.”
More than a snapshot: Klyce on Fincher Yet while some projects underscore the benefits of a close working rapport between a director and music/sound artisans, these jobs are still individual snapshots. For the big picture–in light of this Music & Sound section falling within our Fall Directors Issue–we sought out a collaborative relationship which spanned many years as well as varied content, from commercials to feature films.
One showcase example immediately came to mind–the teaming of filmmaker David Fincher (whose spotmaking home is Anonymous Content) and sound designer Ren Klyce of Mit Out Sound in Sausalito, Calif.
Their ad collaborations over the years include such noteworthy spots as adidas’ “Mechanical Legs,” Coca-Cola’s “Bladeroller” (an homage to Blade Runner), and a mix of breakthrough Nike fare–“Magazine Wars,” “Gamebreakers” (a spot which helped Fincher win the DGA Award as Best Commercial Director of 2004), “Fate” (one of the spot entries–showing us the bond of friendship yet the spirit of competition between NFL stars Ladainian Tomlinson and Troy Pomalalu–for which Fincher earned a DGA commercials nomination earlier this year), and the recently debuted “Combat.”
On the feature front, Klyce served as sound designer/sound effects editor/sound effects supervisor and music consultant on Fincher’s Se7en, sound designer on Fight Club and Panic Room, sound re-recording mixer/supervising sound editor/sound designer on Zodiac, and sound re-recording mixer/supervising sound editor on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Klyce and Fincher met when they were 18 years old while working for maverick independent filmmaker John Korty in the Bay Area on an animated film Twice Upon A Time. Klyce was an art assistant in the animation department while Fincher was working in visual effects. Korty and others working on the movie started handing out shots to the various animators, giving Fincher what amounted to a second unit photography gig.
“David wanted to direct those shots–whether they be 8, 10 or 15 seconds–completely,” recalled Klyce, “and he came up to me and asked if I wanted to do music and sound. He knew that was what I was interested in pursuing.”
Around that same time, Fincher directed his first commercial, the American Cancer Society’s “Smoking Fetus,” which created quite a stir for its imagery. Klyce did the music and sound on the piece. “Even back then at the age of 18, David had this ability to get everybody to listen to him,” related Klyce. “He could describe ideas so passionately. It was like watching entertaining and engaging television. You could visualize what he was saying.”
A strong friendship was born but there was a prolonged stretch during which the two went their separate ways professionally. Fincher moved into the music video world while Klyce cut his teeth in the studio on music production and recording. Trained in musical composition, he started to explore the French musique concréte movement of the 1940s which experimented with sound as music, a philosophical precursor in a sense to sound design as we know it today.
Then what was to become a long fruitful collaboration on features and spots began when Fincher called to tell Klyce he had just landed a feature, Alien 3. At the time, Klyce didn’t have enough experience to be sold to the studio powers that be as a sound artisan on the film. Nonetheless Klyce helped out as much as possible, researching scores from the prior Alien films, and other works by composers who worked on those movies, assembling a catalog of music. Klyce handed Fincher a bunch of DAT tapes reflecting these relevant scores to be used as a foundation or starting point of sorts from which to build on.
Meanwhile commercials emerged as projects for which Fincher and Klyce could directly team. The first, Coke’s “Blade Roller,” came in ’90. And then there was Nike’s “Magazine Wars” in which people pictured on magazine covers at a newsstand come to life and engage in a raucous game of tennis. The spot won a Clio, helped bring Klyce into prominence as a sound designer and began his track record of notable work with Wieden+Kennedy for not only Fincher but other filmmakers such as Spike Jonze (Nike’s Emmy-winning “The Morning After” spot. Klyce’s collaborations with Jonze also include the big screen with the just released Where The Wild Things Are.)
Klyce’s start in the feature film arena came in ’93 when Fincher brought him on board Se7en.
Learning and growing “There are filmmakers who don’t really understand sound,” observed Klyce. “For a feature, they will handpick a cinematographer, their picture editor. But when it comes to sound, the studio usually turns them on to and hands them some sound people who handle the audio end.
“But there’s a way,” continued Klyce, “in which if the relationship between a filmmaker and a sound designer can be cultivated, then the filmmaker can realize all the power that film can render through sound. It’s only through working and learning from each other that we can realize more of our potential. I remember working on some director’s cuts for David on commercials many years ago and I told him that I cleaned up some dialogue, taking keys from other parts of the spot so that the words being spoken by the actress were more understandable and had better diction. I zoomed in on an “s” and placed it in her dialogue. At the time, David didn’t know that could be done. He not only discovered another possibility but the art behind it. The discoveries, though, go beyond actually working together. As friends over the years, we have conversations about craft and you constantly learn. I have learned way more from him than he has from me.”
Asked if Fincher’s success comes from giving creative space to those he works with, Klyce replied, “Yes and no. He will give me the creative freedom to explore things, certainly. But at the same time, it’s not like he doesn’t check in. He will want to hear something immediately–over the phone or via the Internet. I remember sending him different versions of Brad Pitts’ voice as a young boy in Benjamin Button. On the Internet, we very much go back and forth constantly over every little nuance. The beauty of all this is David gives you feedback. Often what happens with sound is there’s little communication between the filmmaker and sound designer so the sound designer doesn’t truly know what the creative people want and ends up all over the map. With David, he lets you get inside his head. You know if you have nothing or the right sound approach. You can get him on the phone. He’ll respond immediately to an e-mail. It all comes down to my being able to get good feedback, great direction from him throughout the process whether it be for a feature or a spot.”
The positive working relationship and trust between Fincher and Klyce also benefits other artisans. Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter of Rock Paper Scissors were nominated for the editing Oscar on the strength of their work on Benjamin Button. In a SHOOT feature story (1/30) exploring their editing contributions to the film, Wall and Baxter referenced Klyce.
Wall said that he and Baxter “leaned on Ren heavily. Ren helped us all the way through [Button] in terms of rough mixes, music from New Orleans that kept in time with scenes. Way before composers came in, Ren was there finding the right palette of sound to help drive our work. David and Ren have known each other since their late teens. There’s a trusting creative bond there.”
Trust came in handy all the way around as Button, while gratifying to work on, was also a daunting challenge given the sheer size and scope of the project. Major contributions were made by such VFX studios as Asylum, Digital Domain and Lola. “You don’t ever want to look at the top of the peak of the giant mountain when you’re climbing it,” said Wall. “You learn to watch your feet and that’s what we did on this film…David used to ask the question, ‘How do you eat a whale?’ The answer–‘one bite at a time.’ So we just worked long and hard each day. Part of what kept us going was that the film was so challenging.”
Klyce described Fincher as being “very disciplined, an absolute craftsman, the finest craftsman. It’s an amazing treat to work with him on his commercials and movies.”
