Vincent Arnardi : It was the passion for our work that guided us in the making of the soundtrack for Amélie, and our greatest concern was for the perfection of each detail. Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed us in the same way he directed his actors. He wanted to have the soundtrack represent Paris as a large town, but without traffic, without pollution -- a magical village whose inhabitants could rediscover the rhythm of life. The first great difficulty was to use as much of the original sound recording as possible, so that we could preserve the actors' performances, while eliminating all the bothersome noises encountered during filming. We were able to use 90 percent of the original sound with very little ADR. This was possible due to the work of Jean Umansky, the location sound recordist. The choice of the narrator was very complicated for Jean-Pierre. He wanted to have a particular sound to the voice, and a particular kind of performance. Ultimately, the narration was performed by André Dussollier and edited by picture editor Hervé Schneid. Jean-Pierre guided us throughout the sound editing, and he and Hervé decided on the choice and placement of the music. Gèrard Hardy edited the sound effects and ambiences. His goal was to give to the images a positive feeling, simple yet sophisticated, harmonious and gentle. Each scene needed to have its own color, its own universe. Laurent Kossayan was the sound designer. His role was to bring movement and humor to the images. I was responsible for the recording of the ADR, narration and foley, and the pre-mixing and mixing. The mix lasted six weeks at the Studios Boulogne in Paris and was done on a Neve DFC console. The greatest difficulty for me was doing a final mix without premixes, except for the dialogue. This was due to the fact that Jean-Pierre wished to have complete freedom in his choice of balances between the edited sound, the sound design, the foley and the music. For this film, it was imperative because the balances needed to be precise to the decibel. It was essential to give a location and a level to each and every sound, while preserving the overall harmony of the film. Jean-Pierre wanted to hear every detail while preserving the intelligibility of the dialogue and keeping a perfect harmony with the precision of the images. The overall sound level was strictly controlled and shaped because we wanted to give to the audience a comfortable listening experience, without being aggressive.
Reprinted from Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved, The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700 |
The Editors Guild Magazine
Publié le par av30733-ovh
