Bionic Audio 2014 – recap – Jan to Aug

Bionic Audio – Jan to Aug 2014

Recap of the year so far…..

2014 started off with a major bang, consisting of some of the loudest sounds I’ve ever created – Sound Design for the sci-fi horror film Extraterrestrial. A huge custom sound library was created over a 5 week period. UFO elements, Alien Vocalizations, Scare Hits and Drones were a few of the many different types of sounds that I designed for the film. Native Instruments Massive was a big player in creating the sci-fi elements, while my old-school Roland Juno 106 synth was instrumental in adding the sub-harmonic layers. Other favourite go-to effects were Sound Toys Decapitator and SoundHack PitchDelay. The final mix was at Post Modern Sound with Gord Hillier mixing Dialogue and Music and I mixed SFX.

 

 

Immediately after wrapping the mix on Extraterrestrial, I began work on the polar opposite project. Eadweard, a period piece film set in the late 1800s based on the life of Eadweard Muybridge who was the pioneering inventor of what we now know as the moving picture.

I had access to some of the antique cameras from production and set up a recording session to capture the mechanical movements. The film also needed extensive work with the dialogue tracks, removing unwanted background sound that would distract from the time period that the film took place (traffic, planes etc). Gord Hillier edited the dialogue and masterfully removed mic bumps and artifacts with Izotope RX3 software, and I did an extensive premix pass on the tracks before the final mix at DBC Sound.

During the months of May and June, re-recording mixer Greg Stewart and I were busy mixing season 4 of The Haunting Hour at Post Modern Sound. This was to be the last season of the successful multiple daytime Emmy winning series. 4 years – a great run!

In early June, sound editing began on the Jason Bourque directed film Black Fly. The dark themed thriller required a gritty sound scape but was also primarily set on one of the BC gulf islands, so the background ambiences required a feeling of quiet isolation. The mix was somewhat subdued at the beginning of the film and slowly rises with intensity as the tension builds. Mixed at Bionic Audio and DBC Sound, the film will be premiering at VIFF in late September 2014.

Sound editorial and mixing also wrapped recently on Preggoland which will have it’s world premier at TIFF this year. Festival favourite Jacob Tierney (The Trotsky) directs this saucy, sharply-written comedy-drama about a boozing, live-at-home thirtysomething (screenwriter-star Sonja Bennett) who finds her world turned upside down when she lies about being pregnant.

 

Also in progress is post sound work on the UK/Canada co-pro The Brother directed by Ryan Bonder. Final mix will be at Bionic Audio and DBC Sound in early September.

Bionic Audio is already heavily booked for the rest of 2014 with multiple projects gearing up as the summer ends.

Music based dramatic film Tumbledown starring Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis begins post sound Sept 2nd. The film is about a young woman who struggles to move on with her life after the death of her husband, an acclaimed folk singer, when a brash NY writer forces her to confront her loss and the ambiguous circumstance of his death.

Bionic Audio will also be posting A Search For Freedom. Directed by documentary film maker Jon Long, the film explores the origins of extreme sports with footage and interviews of the original pioneers as well as many of the current athletes who are pushing the boundaries of surfing, base jumping, extreme motocross, downhill mountain biking, rock climbing, skiing and much more.

Rounding out the year will be several TV movie mixes for Front Street Films, as well as the animated web series Food Flix.