Chris Miller is one of the audio crew at Thillaye Productions, a Toronto studio that has done sound design work for more than 15 years, specializing in large-format 2D and 3D films, features, documentaries and special installations. It is headed by Peter Thillaye, who has worked on more than 25 IMAX films.

While a competitive marketplace has driven many audio houses to take on multiple projects simultaneously, others have geared their spaces to focus on one project at a time and have entered a similar creative mindset. At Thillaye Productions, we have found that the latter approach, combined with developments in the Pro Tools system, enables us to increase our level of experimentation and ultimately achieve better results.

Our space, located in an old warehouse in Toronto’s west end, is configured for large-format mixes with six full-range speakers and 5.1 surround to come. The studio has five edit workstations connected by a 100 MBPS Ethernet, and the mix room has two additional workstations for recording and playback.

The combination of all these elements allows a director to maintain a high level of supervision over every aspect of the soundtrack before it goes to final mix.

Our new facility was recently put to the test on the soundtracks for the large-format films Space Station 3D (Imax Corporation), Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees (Science Museum of Minnesota) and Straight Up (SK Films).

On the temp mix for Space Station 3D, the sound team worked with director Toni Myers to audition and approve music and to edit astronaut voice-overs, NASA radio communications, underwater dive-tank F/X, temp narration and special sound effects for the virtual-reality lab.

Myers oversaw every aspect of these elements and participated in changes almost immediately. This created a dynamic situation in which she could make her revisions in the context of the entire film, working on many elements simultaneously. The team built a soundtrack that could be examined, commented on and reworked in a continuous and integrated way before going into final mix.

All sound was converted to Pro Tools-readable files and assimilated into the pre-mix pattern for the film as soon as it arrived. This sound file integration or ‘common format language’ set the stage for a unique environment of experimentation. Because everything is put on one dynamic palette, elements can be combined in ways that otherwise might be overlooked.

For example, in one scene in Space Station 3D, sound editor Ed Douglas was able to take underwater recordings originally intended for the IMAX films Titanica and Galapagos, and finesse them to match the sound of the dive tank in which astronauts practise assembly procedures.

These tracks were then layered around the hydrophone conversations of the astronauts working underwater, along with complex sound effects such as water interacting with the support divers and bubble trails.

The sound team homes in on the specific character of a sound, distills, stretches and shapes it into the distinct voice necessary for the visual.

Another key element in the process is the ability to share information with other studios working on the same project. The common Pro Tools format allows us to send material to the footsteps foley studio while recording for the project is ongoing. The audio team can play back the foley work in progress and provide suggestions about what additional coverage is required. Dialogue between all parts of the sound team, on site and off, is essential to the depth of the soundtrack.

A good example of this is the work in Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees. The challenge was how to combine the hundreds of sounds and vocalizations of the chimpanzees and baboons recorded on location in Tanzania with the sounds created by the foley performances. The sound editors created a real movement track for the chimpanzees traveling through the brush to blend in their material and delineate the specific primate characters that are the focus of the film.

It is by tailoring our workspace and tools to the project at hand, which allows Thillaye Productions to create soundtracks that match the image and embrace the imagination.

-www.interlog.com/~pt/