Commissioned by Canon to showcase the visual prowess of its new 4K cinema EOS C500 camera, Man and Beast–a short directed by Dante Ariola of MJZ and shot by Jeff Cronenweth, ASC, a Best Cinematography Oscar nominee each of the last two years (for The Social Network in 2011 and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in ’12)–has paradoxically also made its mark on the aural front, nabbing the number one slot in SHOOT’s quarterly Top Ten Tracks chart with a subtle, sublime score from music/sound house Stimmüng.
Man and Beast tells the real-life story of Dr. Alan Rabinowitz who as a child had a severe stutter, back when those with such a condition were placed in classes for the learning impaired. His one outlet came in the form of animals whom he could speak to at home without a stutter (a gerbil, a snake, small pets that could live in a small New York City apartment setting).
As a youngster, Rabinowitz realized that these animals were like him–without a voice. And he made a pledge to himself that if one day he could control his stuttering and realize his voice, he would become a voice for animals.
Today, Dr. Rabinowitz is regarded as one of the world’s leading big cat experts and was described by Time magazine as being “the Indiana Jones of wildlife conservation.”
The Stimmüng ensemble on Man and Beast included composer William Flynn, sound designer Gus Koven, executive producer Ceinwyn Clark and producer Kristina Iwankiw.
Agency was Dentsu, New York.
Audio post mixer was Jimmy Hite of Margarita Mix.
Voiceover recordings were done by recordist Phillip Loeb at Heard Audio and Eric Schuiten of Amber Music.
Start of an era “The whole front end of the piece is very much based in post-war [WWII] New York City from which sprang a certain group of composers and sounds reflective of the time period and the style of buildings,” observed Flynn. “There were a number of New York composers who were influenced by the architecture and sounds of the city during that era and that in turn helped me shape the score for the early portion of Man and Beast chronicling his [Rabinowitz’s] childhood.”
But from that beginning, Flynn noted that he started to tone things down as the short went on, minimalizing the music to let the actor [portraying Rabinowitz] to be more at the forefront. “We started with a lot and from there went with a less is more approach. We tried to maintain a flow throughout the entire film to support the story. There are a few areas where the score dips to match the difficulty the character is going through or to reflect the little ray of hope he harbors about what he would like to accomplish in speech therapy. On the back end, we wanted the score to help build this world of tension as he’s looking for the jaguar. There’s both a tension and a hope that he can confront the animal he so much wants to find.”
From a sound design perspective, Koven noted that his charge was pretty much “to stay out of the way of the story. We wanted to make the world he inhabited feel real, to create his space. Creating that space through the score was more about the music, creating a mood which supported the actor whose performance was so good. We also wanted to be as true as possible to every moment. He’s a scientist and when he was in Central and South America, the insects you heard were the sounds of actual insects from that region. Authenticity was important. Here’s a guy who throughout his life–from childhood to adulthood–is intensely aware of the physical world around him. We had to be true to the sounds of that physical world. We honed in on that while staying out of his way.”
Similarly, the composer and sound designer’s collaborators stayed out of the way. “I didn’t have anyone over my shoulder pushing me in one direction or another,” related Flynn. “I was trusted to do my work, to be true to moments when I needed to hit certain things or minimalize. I only met Dante [director Ariola] once when we got to the mix and he had already made it clear what he wanted to achieve.”
Yagoda’s assessment Ariola at the time was also busy with his feature film Arthur Newman, which recently debuted at the Toronto Film Festival. “Much of the communication from Dante during the process was through his producer [Natalie Hill] and the editor, Andrea MacArthur [of Peepshow],” said Flynn. Additionally offering helpful input was Ken Yagoda, an independent artisan who produced for Canon.
Yagoda, perhaps best known for his long tenure at Y&R New York as director of broadcast production and creative resources (a post he left in 2005), observed, “Using a 4K camera–about as modern as you can get–and creating what amounted to a period piece without any pyrotechnics placed a great deal of importance on the honesty of the film. The music and sound design were a perfect blend of emotion and pacing to help drive the story along without necessarily calling attention to itself. To me, the work that Bill [Flynn] and Gus [Koven] did was haunting, beautiful and ultimately triumphant in a very understated way. What they did was hard to do and I’m very happy that they are being recognized.”
Koven had an added motivation for the project, compliments of his seven-year-old son. “We have a DVD about jaguars in which Alan [Dr. Rabinowitz] talks about the big cats,” said Koven. “My son is so into the subject and is a big fan of Alan. To him, Alan is a rock star and to be able to work on his story after seeing that video so many times with my son was quite special.”
