New month and new guest! For July I’m glad to announce the visit of Bruce Tanis as our special guest. He is a veteran sound effects editor who will share his knowledge with us. We will have a fantatic month with several articles on sound effects editing and design. Hope you enjoy it!

Bio (written by Bruce)

I was born in Oakland, California in 1959. My father was in the Navy at the time so after a couple of weeks to get used to being on the planet, we moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. Several moves later, my family had moved to Reno, Nevada. I went to high school and college in Reno, ultimately receiving a bachelor of science degree in Forestry from the University of Nevada at Reno. Sadly, this was in the early 80′s after a decade of students deciding they wanted ecological jobs in the great outdoors so my prospects for employment weren’t great in an already full marketplace.

Fortunately for me, one of my professors in the Art Department at UNR was also the local film critic for the CBS TV affiliate in Reno and he was able to help me get a job there as a studio camera operator. This was an entry level position and quickly led to running the audio console for news broadcasts and specials. I like to think I was somehow drawn to the audio position as a matter of life choice but it was probably more a matter that no one else wanted to do it! I stayed at the station for a few years and it turned out to be a great education in sound work which allowed me to go on to the next step of my career. I already had a B.S. at this point but in order to get into film school in L.A., I had to begin again since no school I applied to wanted a student with a background in audio, whether I could recognize trees or not, as part of their graduate program. I began classes for a general film arts degree at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ca. in 1989.

Our Department Chairman at that time was Jim Jordan who had directed a lot of the Pillsbury Doughboy commercials among other things and I always thought that was kind of fun. I spent one year there and my film editing teacher told me they were looking for an assistant editor at Cannon Films in the TV spot & Promos Department. I applied on a Friday and started working at Cannon on Monday. Cannon was a good place to work in one respect: being non-union, although they didn’t pay well at all, I could walk into any room and ask whoever was there to show me what they were working on. Sound cutting, mixing, & picture editorial; it was all done in the same building on San Vicente Blvd near Wilshire in Beverly Hills. The people were great about explaining what they were doing so it really was a great place to learn all about post production.

From there I went to Todd-AO on Seward Ave. in Hollywood to work as a department assistant. I started as a television assistant moving units to and from stages, both foley or ADR stages and dub stages, and helping with whatever the editors might need in the way of delivering materials to them or helping with cue sheets or whatever. Two years of schlubbing heavy two-inch multitrack tape cases around was enough so I spent my time after work learning how to run one a Synclavier which, at that time, was the workhorse of Todd-AO’s fx editing rooms. I never made a conscious decision to edit effects instead of dialog but that’s the way it worked out. Todd-AO had basically divided it’s department into one or the other based on the gear installed in each room so I went down the effects path. I started cutting as a real job in 1992 and now, in 2010, I’m about to start work on, approximately, my 87th feature, “Yogi Bear” for Warner Brothers. Whew!

Awards

• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Long Form (Sound Effects & Foley) – And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Domestic Features (Sound Effects & Foley) – Road to Perdition
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing (Effects & Foley, Domestic Feature Film) – Black Hawk Down
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Mini-Series (Effects & Foley) – Dune
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special - And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries or a Special – The Shining

Featured Work

• Fringe (2009) – Sound Effects Designer/Editor
• The Pacific (2009) – Sound Effects Editor
• Watchmen (2009) – Sound Effects Editor
• The Incredible Hulk (2008) – Sound Effects Editor
• Rush Hour 3 (2007) – Sound Effects Editor
• And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003) – Sound Effects Editor
• X2 (2003) – Foley/Sound Effects Editor
• Road to Perdition (2002) – Sound Effects Editor
• Black Hawk Down (2001) – Sound Effects Editor
• Dune (2000) – Sound Effects Editor
• The Shining (1997) – Sound Effects Editor

Bruce Tanis at IMDb

Thanks go out to Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, and Al Nelson from TOY STORY 3 for taking time out to answer few questions about their work on the film!

TM = Sound Designer/ Sound Re-Recording Mixer Tom Myers
MS = Sound Re-Recording Mixer Michael Semanick
AL = Sound Editor Al Nelson

JAKE: “Day & Night” the short film that played before “Toy Story 3″ was so creative in the way it used sound. Were there discussions early on about how sound design would drive the story? Pixar has a rich tradition of selecting short film ideas from fellow Pixar employees’ pitches. Who does sound for these short films at Skywalker?

TM: The sound duties for Pixar’s shorts are split between Skywalker and Pixar. For some of the earlier shorts, we did all the work at Skywalker, but over the last few years Pixar has developed a small staff of very talented sound folk. On “Day and Night” the sound design was done by Barney Jones at Pixar with guidance from Sound God Gary Rydstrom who splits time between the two companies. I did the mix here at Skywalker with the director Teddy Newton and Barney present.

MIGUEL: When did you guys start on “Toy Story 3″? How did Lee Unkrich interact with the sound department and what was his take on how sound would be utilized in the film?

TM: We saw a storyboarded version of the film in early 2009 and then had preliminary spotting sessions with Lee and composer Randy Newman. I started sound design in late 2009 and the rest of the crew started in January of 2010. Lee was very involved in the process and knew the library very well having been the editor on the first film and codirector on the second. He is very detail oriented, even spending time with the foley crew. His first concern sound-wise was that we make the third film a continuation of the world created in the first two. All three films needed to feel organically part of the same aural universe, just as they were visually.

AN: I came on the show for the first temp mix in the fall of ’09. This was a great broad stroke introduction to how Lee intended the film to sound. We walked away with some great notes to think about for the final, though, I didn’t actually start cutting effects on the film until late February. So, I’d like to acknowledge Dustin Cawood, Terry Eckton and Tim Nielsen who fortunately did all the hard work before I jumped in.

JAKE: How much sound did the animators request before you guys started sound editorial in earnest?

TM: The animators had much of the toy movement sound library from Toy Story 1 and 2 for the returning characters, Buzz, Woody, the Potato Heads, etc. The only new character for which they really asked new material was Big Baby. We gave them a larger palette of vocals for Big Baby that Lee was quite particular about.

MIGUEL: Given the toys’ size in relation to the human world, how important was the sound POV of our heroes? What realistic sounds had to be embellished to convey their size or perspective?

TM: With Gary Rydstrom we continued the conceit that when the toys are interacting with humans, (when they are inanimate objects), they should sound smaller in scale compared to the human “real” world. But when they are interacting with each other, and walking and talking, they have a larger, almost human scale to their sounds. We always embellished sound when a threat was implied, especially in the finale scenes with the garbage truck, bulldozers, conveyor belt, shredder, claw, etc.

AL: We had creative license during certain toy POV scenes to even go over the top a bit. For example when Big Baby is doing that creepy march towards Woody, Bullseye and the aliens, we added low end sweeteners to his footsteps. We also added some rumble and actual diesel truck sounds to some of the RC trucks patrolling to add a sense of tension and danger.

JAKE: Did sounds for reoccurring characters established in the first two films carry over to “Toy Story 3″? Were they cut from libraries built for the first two films and or what new sounds, were recorded or expanded on for these classic characters?

TM: We used all the sounds from the first two movies for the recurring characters. This was part of our mandate from Lee about making all three films an extension of the same world. We developed new material for Buzz when he went through his transformations, first to what we called “Militaristic Buzz”, (when Buzz gets reset and does the bidding of Lotso); Here we sharpened his movements making them more precise, more clipped and less rattley toy plastic . And then for Buzz in “spanish mode” we made him more fluid and romantic adding swishes, castanets and whip cracks.

MS: An interesting problem came up with voice futz’s from the original films to this one. Both Woody and Buzz have sayings or dialog built into them when a child pulls Woody’s chord or pushes Buzz’s buttons. These original futzes were done by Gary Summers. He used what we call a analog futz box. It is an inclosed box, with a set of speakers in them and a microphone. You route the dialog to this box , pick the speaker you want the dialog to come out of (might be an old am radio speaker, a telephone speaker, or a speaker taken out of an old toy) the microphone picks up the sound coming out of the speaker and comes back to the console to be mixed. Well, back on TS 1 AND TS 2 , They only futzed what they needed to, with no addtional lines. TS 3 Had new Woody and Buzz lines. Lee wanted the same effect or futz from the other films… no problem, right? Theoretically, we just pull out the old futz box and do it. Unfortunately, that old futz box had been thrown away. We tried every protools plug in, but we could not match the futz. Howie Hammerman, an engineer at skywalker who built the orginal futz box, is still working there. I asked him to rebuild it. With the new futz box and some tweaking we were able to match the futz’s very, very close, though still slightly different. I would say about-ten-years-or-so-of-wear -and-tear-from-Andy-playing-with-the-toys difference. Ha!

AN: Tom was very thorough about providing us with notes and references to the previous Toy Story films as well as providing us with new material that was consistent. For example, Ken’s neck and arm squeaks which complimented Barbie’s elements from TS2. I think those Ken squeaks are some of the funniest moments in the whole movie. Gary would also come in and review our material. He could recall verbatim sounds he had made ten years ago. Also, kudos to our foley artists, Jana and Dennie who performed many of the signature sounds for the original Toy Story and Toy Story 2.

MIGUEL: How did you distinguish what toy sounds needed to be foley and what would be recorded and cut as effects? Did you start with using the actual toys for their sounds? What toy sounds are designed using sounds that the actual toys don’t or can’t make?

TM: Generally, all the footsteps for all the characters were foley. The movement for all the characters may have been half foley and half effects. Specific character trait sounds like the Potato Head pops and hits, Rex chicken squawk head turns, and Barbie and Ken squeaks were effects. We don’t always start with the actual toys as often times they sound too small. We look for something that is slightly larger in scale. For example, of Stretch the Octopus we used a rubber bath mat with suctions cups on one side.

JAKE: How did the tradition of using Skywalker sounds from previous films (Rex’s “Jurassic Park” roar) in Pixar films come to pass? Does Pixar request using these specific sounds in their films during their spotting sessions?

TM: It has more to do with what is dramatically correct for a given scene rather then paying homage to a given sound or film. They will use other films as a reference but rarely request a specific sound, unless it is something they have used in the guide track and it works perfectly, both dramatically and emotionally.

MIGUEL: I love the playful relationship between music and effects in these films, especially when music seemingly acts as Foley for on-screen action (like classic Disney cartoons). How was featuring music or effects for specific sequences decided on?

TM: This all came from Lee and his work with Randy Newman and with us. One example was the scene of Woody’s first escape from Sunnyside when he flies over the wall on the kite and then gets blown up into the sky, the kite breaks and he falls down into the tree where Bonnie finds him. Lee specifically asked for Randy to give that scene the “Carl Stallings treatment” in which he hits all the movements with musical beats and the we support it with sound effects.

MS : Lee was always the one making these final choices. We would experiment from time to time, like: “Try dipping music here”, or “Shift it slightly so that some of the sound effects can live with it” or “Lets clean out all sounds and only add what we need”. The music was very fun to mix; it had a real throwback vibe to it, like you said, very “playful”, playing the action. Lee and Randy had designed it to be that way. I think it fits the film perfectly. It did make it hard at times for sound fx and music to live together, but Lee was very clear and decisive about what was to drive the scene. One of my favorites is the music when Woody gets up in Bonnie’s bed and walks across it. It’s just great. Listen to the arrangement and watch Woodys fingers.

AN: Lee was very specific about how certain sounds felt rhythmically relative to the music. Ambient elements like the crows during Chuckle’s flashback as well as specific hard effects like that last horn honk as Ken and Barbie arrive during the credit roll were all placed in time according to how Lee felt they would sit against the music.

JAKE: With all dialog for the film recorded on a ADR stage, how much of it has to be “placed” in the scenes with reverb and/ or delay? What other creative ways are you able to use dialog when it’s as controlled and clean as it is in an animated film?

TM: Michael can speak more directly to this but every scene and locale had a specific treatment of reverb, e.g., inside the toy box, in the garbage bag, inside the box and outside the box. One of the trickiest scenes was inside the candy machine. The voice treatment had to evolve as Buzz got closer. Lee was keen on all this and playing all perspectives. Also, as all the dialog is clean there is a tradition of panning all dialog in Pixar’s movies.

MS: Every scene had to have a specific treatment on it to fit the scene. It was mostly reverbs. I love the Lexicon 960, so I used it the most. I also used the tc6000 as well as the Lexicon 480. When Dialog is as controlled and clean as in ADR, it does allow you, at times, to get very quiet. When you do not have heavy background noise to fight through, (as you sometimes do with production dialog) it helps the music and sound effects give depth to the film. One of the fun moments of dialog effects, is when Mrs. Potato head sees with her other eye. I had to reach back to my days in the recording studio. I took her dialog, made a copy, advanced it several frames, put it in reverb, recorded only the reverb return, took that and reversed it or played it backwards, like taking analog tape and flipping it upside down and playing it. This effect proceeds her actual dialog slightly, so it had a type of “ghosting” sound. I then added a couple delays and reverb to her original dialog to help fill the room and surround the audience, and the sound effects from Tom helped the dialog sit in there. I think we got a fun “time warp” feel.

MIGUEL: How does the new dolby 7.1 standard allow you to do in the mix that 5.1 didn’t? Is this new channel layout addressed from predubs to printmaster?

TM: It allows you to be more precise in placing things in the acoustic space, pulling things, music, backrounds and effects off the screen and into the room which has the added benefit of clearing up dialog on the screen. We premixed all the effects in the 7.1 format and carried it all the way through to printmaster.

JAKE: Since filmmakers may change a cut to allow some breathing room after a big laugh in a comedic film, was there any attention paid to the potential of sniffles from the audience mucking up your mix during some of the movie’s sadder scenes?

TM: We were very clear where the big emotional moments were and worked hard, mostly through a process of elimination to not undermine or cut short any of these spots. The same goes for the jokes, though those are more precise and rhythm dependent where as the emotional moments are longer and more fluid. It’s a tribute to Lee and the story that there are so many of both kinds of spots in the film. I think of the film as being so funny but much of the feedback I get is of the emotional wallop the film has at the end.

Let’s get started with the Charles Maynes Special. I interviewed him about the general aspects of his career, his tools, workflow, creativity techniques, and more. If you want to ask something to Charles, please go here.

Designing Sound: Please give us a general overview of your career. How do you get started with sound? How was your first gig like?

Charles Maynes: I actually got started with the digital sampling revolution back in the early 80′s. I was massively effected in particular by an interview with Peter Gabriel that was done for the “South Bank” show on the BBC –  I saw a video of him breaking things and making funny noises with the Fairlight CMI- so with that, I saved and borrowed money to purchase an Emu Systems Emulator II (back then it was about eight thousand dollars- a lot of money for a 20 year old musician!) I started making sounds with it and got to record some pretty neat things- like some of the Harry Partch Instruments at San Diego State University. I also started working for the shop that sold me the Emulator, I guess because I was working with it so much.  While I was at that shop, which is now Professional Sound and Music in San Diego California, I had the opportunity to work on my first film and meet a long time collaborator Martin Lopez who is still doing outstanding design work now in Hollywood.  At the the time, he was doing the sound for a San Diego cult film franchise’s second installment- “Return of the Killer Tomatoes”. Martin was cutting all the sound on mag film and recording effects on a Nagra analog recorder came into the shop to see if we could help him with some of the more crazy design sounds.  It was an extremely low budget affair- (As I recall, I think he paid me about $200 dollars) but I did end up getting to meet one of the stars for whom I was an enormous fan of, the original Gomez Addams, John Aston. I have to say that encounter was about the coolest thing ever! Another star of the film was an up and coming actor who is now fairly well known, a very young George Clooney.

So from there, I also was making sample sounds for the Emulator which were sold by Emu Systems and a company called Optical Media which did the very first CD-ROM sample libraries.  I ended up in the 90′s working for a company that split from them called Invision Interactive that also did sample sounds for both samplers and hardware sythesizers and had the great fortune of crossing paths with Marc Farly who now works for SCEA in the Bay Area.   Marc at the time was a young guy, but probably was one of the most singularly impressive people (along with sound editor Jamie Hardt) who I have had the pleasure of working with and become friends with.

From Invision I moved to working at Digidesign about a year before ProTools hit the market, spending time first in the their Customer Support department and then in the Software testing department.  Digi had so many notably wonderful people at the time that it would be boring for me to go on and on about the experience. Those were truly good times at Digi, I did sort of gravitate to the post production end of the product line, and ended up meeting a few people in Hollywood who encouraged me to make a jump to film sound.  In particular, Rob Sephton at Disney and Randy Thom were tireless in putting up with me. Then at Universal, Harry Snodgrass actually took me in and helped me find my way in film sound, so you can blame him for everything…  I have since been at this endeavor since around 1995 and could not think of a better job in the world!

DS: Did you have a mentor early in your career? Someone you admire?

CM: The most influential person has to be Gary Rydstrom,  I am a disciple of his work. Randy Thom as well, he is just a wonderfully generous man.  Randy has probably shared more wisdom with me than anyone else and I treasure the kindness he has shown.  Other folks who had a big influence on me were Steve Flick who snapped me up as and imparted me with the big budget film soundtrack mentality and the precious people he had working for him at the time. Specifically,  Warren Hamilton,  Marvin Walowitz, Chuck Smith, Greg Hedgepath, David Yewdall, Dave Stone and Bill Jacobs.  I owe them so much that I will never be able to pay.

I think guys like Dane Davis and Ren Klyce have done some extraordinary work as well. As to inspirational sources- I love history- so there is no end of inspirational figures to draw upon there. One particular guy I have unending admiration of though is Jay Wilkinson.  Next to Warren Hamilton, I consider him to probably be one of the most under appreciated sound editors in the history of the craft.

DS: You’ve been working in this industry for more than 15 years… How have you seen the evolution of the industry/technology since then? Is there something you miss from those days?

CM: When I came into the Industry ProTools was just getting established as a tool for this job so it hasnt changes that radically.  The biggest change has been the generally crew downsizing that the increasing power of computers is bringing to the job.

DS: What do you like about being a sound designer?

CM: I love field recording the most. I just like being outside and trying to capture the excitement of the physical world and to be able to create new sounds with those recordings.

DS: What are the main tools you work with?

CM: In the Studio- ProTools and Soundminer. I spend about 99% of time using those two applications. I also love using sample based manipulation tools which I’ve been leaning on the program “Keymap Pro” by Redmatica.  I dont really use sampling so much in the Pro Tools environment, but I do use both Structure and Kontakt from time to time.  As for plugins, there are so many that  I cant really think of any true “desert Island” ones because they all can be irreplaceable depending on the task. My particular favorites though would have to be the Sonnox plugins, the Eventide Anthology package and McDSP plugins.  I do also like GRM Tools, Sound Toys “Sound Blender” plugins and anything Steve Massey makes.

In the field – Sound Devices 744′s and almost any microphone you can think of.

DS:  How do you dealt with bad sound design/mixing moments? When you’re working on a sound/ scene, and it doesn’t work was well as you want. What do you do in those moments?

CM: For me, it is sort of a holisitic process.  Ideally you have music that is being used or at least a general sense of how the music is going to be used.  Probably one of the more challenging things I have had to come up with was for the film “The Fantastic Four” the sound for Sue Storm being able to disappear was very elusive and to my utter astonishment we used a very early design piece that was developed for it.  Quiet or subtle sounds like that tend to be the most difficult I think. As what is desired, it really depends on the visuals. Usually there is some sort of metaphor which can be pulled from the image to imply a sonic approach.  I personally tend to not favor heavily processed sounds though, so I like to try to spend some time thinking through allegorical sound approaches to the problem. I have personally found that intuitive approaches seem to be more satisfying in those moments.

DS: You’ve worked on films, tv, and video games. If you had to choose just one industry to exclusively work for, which would you go with and why?

CM: I think i would tend to lean towards film since it is a “big idea” sort of format. The one exception I can think of was working with Sound Supervisor Ben Cook on “The Pacific” which was sort of like 5 feature films.  As to why a film is unique that way,  you have to tell the story in a relatively short, single sitting.  With a game and a TV series you can redefine the world somewhat easily and episodically. That is not easily managed in films.

DS: You’ve worked on lots of different genres and styles, do you have a favorite?  Are you interested on a specific challenges for the future?

CM: I love doing military themed films and games.  I guess because it is so much fun trying to live up to the expectations of the audience. As to future challenges… that is hard to gauge.  Just keeping employed seems to be a big enough challenge over the last few years.

DS: What is the best advice you can give to a sound designer? (both young and experienced)

CM: Make it your passion. The thing I always ask is “would you do this if you weren’t getting paid for it” if the answer is yes- then you are ready to get to work. The passion though is what I see to be the driving function.  People like Charles Deenen and Jay Wilkinson are like that (many more too) we often turn off the money clock and spend long nights making our best work, not so much for the clients benefit, but so that we are satisfied with what we present to the client.

DS: What are your favorite sounds to create/record?

CM: I like doing gun sounds and I love ambiences. One of the films I am quite proud of was “Tuck Everlasting” which was a period piece set in early 20th century Mayrland.  The forest sequences were wonderful to design.

DS: When and how do you typically find yourself at the most creative?

CM: I like quiet…. so I personally feel my most insightful work will happen when not much is going on around me.  Most times that is late at night.  As to workflow,  I actually try to conform to the people I am working with.  Everyone has preferences and I not into making a fuss. For creative decisions, I rely a lot on my intuition and I have probably done far more charity work than I should have, but thats just a part of life I guess.

DS: In the book “Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound” David Lewis Yewdall talks about you and your work. He gives you as an example of a sound effects editor working on his home, with his own stuff, using tools such as DigiDelivery, etc. Do you still working with this freelance position? Why do you like to work in this way?

CM: As far as working freelance, I think it is a great thing especially to be able to specialize in stuff I think is rewarding and a challenge to create sounds for- unfortunately it can sometimes work against you though in the sense that one, you get pigeon-holed- for instance even after doing sound editorial for 15 years, there are some people who think I only record effects…. The other downside is that people in the industry can sometimes assume that because you aren’t around all the time- They might assume you are already busy (because you havent been in touch. or even that you are simply too expensive to hire for the work)- something that I have certainly run into more than a few times. The other thing that is pretty neat about being independent though is that you can take on projects which strike your fancy without impacting the people you might typically work with. I guess for me sometimes it has been great, and sometimes it has created financial hardship.

DS: I see you’re very active in social sites and forums such as Gearslutz Forum, Facebook, commenting on blogs, etc. How important is networking for a sound designer? What do you think about the great online community that has been evolving in the last years?

CM: I like to participate in the exchange of ideas and the musician in me loves Gearslutz- Jules also tracked and recorded Siouxsie and the Banshee’s awesome single “Cities in Dust” which is one of my all time favorite rock songs. Regarding networking I think as a freelancer it is very important… I have sort of become one of the leading weapons recordists currently working  (42 weapons recording sessions so far…) so it is nice to make sure people have access to me for work and what not.  I have a pretty wide net of clients which covers the globe who hire me for recording and design which is sort of neat too.  Facebook is an interesting phenomenon as well.  I think what Chuck has done with his fan page is a good idea because a personal page cant really serve as a professional billboard without getting cluttered up by things that are largely irrelevant to your work.  So all in it is only good.  Instant Messaging allows one to stay in nearly immediate touch your associates.

DS: What do you think about projects such as Tim Prebble’s HISS and a ROAR and Chuck Russom FX? Would you like to sell your own sound effects on your own label?

CM: I think they are great.  I am still not certain how well they will work out on the long run but the ideas behind both Chuck and Tim’s sites are really cool.   I am actually going to be participating in the door library Tim is putting together, that should be a wonderful thing.  As to doing producing my own libraries, I am on the fence. I already have associations with Sound Ideas, Hollywood Edge, Blastwave and Sound Dogs so I have a fair amount of sounds out there already. Doing a private label would require an unknown investment of time and effort, and at the present I would be reluctant to guess how much interest there would be. I do a fair amount of custom library work for Bangolia Music as well.

DS: Is there something you would want to see in the the industry’s future?

CM: That is something I cannot even guess.  I would like to see the industry thrive though and us as craftsmen and women be able to be afforded the consideration to contribute in a way which truly elevates the experience.

DS: What’s next for Charles Maynes?

CM: I am recording Ospreys with the Marines soon, beyond that, I can never guess what I will be called to do next….