Scoring CrackTreevor Cronin grives a bsehind the scenes look at recording the score for the new Australian feature film, Crackers. o longer a cottage industry that no one cares about, Australian cinema is now the Nsubject of close scrutiny by the cigar- toking Hollywood wiseguys. Films like Shine, Strictly Ballroom, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, along with hugely successful Australian directors such as Peter Weir and Baz Luhrmann have raised the standards of what we’ve come to expect from home-grown feature films. Of course, the film score plays a critical role in bringing cohesion and impact to the more glamourous visual and script-based elements of a film. Audio Technology’s Trevor Cronin worked on the Crackers project and gives his account of the recording of the score. Recording the music for a feature film has to be one of the most demanding assignments a music production team can be given. There’s a whole host of non-negotiable factors that put the pressure on: deadlines must be met, and budget restrictions dictate the manner in which you can produce the final product. The final say goes to the director who, in this case, also wrote the script. Crackers was David Swann’s first feature film as Director. Previously he was responsible for the hit comedy series, Let The Blood Run Free, and the award-winning short film, Bonza. Crackers has an impressive cast, including veteran English actor Warren Mitchell, and Aussies Daniel Kellie, Susan Lyons, Peter Rowsthorn, Christopher Chapman, Terry Gill and Maggie King. David Swann and Producer, Chris Warner, were very hands on, attending many of the recording sessions, providing input and encouragement. It was an intense and highly focused work environment, was equivalent to recording, mixing, editing and mastering a double CD of original music in just 3 weeks! The composer David chose highly regarded musician, composer and arranger Ricky Edwards to create the music for this film. Ricky has an impressive track record, having worked with artists such as Daryl Braithwaite, James Reyne and Jane Rutter. He was part of the very successful team that worked on the award winning Australian film Shine, Crackers was his first feature film as Music Composer. Ricky’s partner, Sandy Edwards, was the Production Coordinator. The timetable for this project was very carefully laid out by the Music Production Manager, Russell J. White. Russell also manages many of the industry’s top producers and engineers, so he has an intimate knowledge of the workings of a recording session. Computer generated spreadsheets were carefully prepared, clearly illustrating to all those involved the schedule of the tasks to be performed. The studio Melbourne’s Woodstock Studio was used as the recording location. Owned by The Black Sorrows front man, Joe Camilleri, it has the look and feel of a Mediterranean café. A veritable gallery of paintings and sculptures adorn the studio, while couches you just don’t want to climb out of keep clients comfortable. Downstairs in the main recording 48 area there are five rooms, the largest space being the control room quality processors such as Lexicon reverbs and delays, Aphex with the usual set-up of a console, outboard equipment, monitors compressors, Drawmer gates, and equipment from Valley People, and tape machines. There are three isolation rooms, the largest Klark Teknik, Dolby Labs and API. There’s some rarer gear like being the drum room. At the rear there's the machine room which custom-made Ross Giles valve compressors, mic preamps and houses the analogue two-inch 24-track tape machine as well as a valve equalisers. He has an extensive collection of microphones – small isolation cupboard suitable for a speaker box. The isolation a very exotic Calrec soundfield and various Shure, Sony, AKG and rooms all face the engineer, so artists can all see each other, Neumann mics. Add this to Woodstock’s own inventory (see making for easy communication. Apart from the drummer, the ‘Woodstock’s Equipment’) and it could only be described as a whole band can play together live in the control room and still sound engineers dream! enjoy good separation, which makes for a very pleasant recording The film was viewed on a 26-inch monitor placed at the rear of environment. It’s not a large studio, so the recording of a 17-piece the studio, so it was easily seen by all. A hi-fi VHS machine was string section was interesting to say the least. used for playback. The left channel was for the dialogue and sound Upstairs is a New York style open-plan apartment, which is a effects produced by the film studio, while the right channel self-contained home to be used while working on projects. The contained the timecode that was used to lock the digital multitrack living area is a big bright space with polished wooden floors and recorders to the picture. plenty of natural light. This was Ricky’s domain for the intense The recording was in three parts: the orchestra sessions, the writing period, and afterwards accommodated the orchestra during band sessions, and the final mixdown, with studio set-up days in scheduled breaks. between. Recording an orchestra is, as you can imagine, quite an A soundtrack is made up of many musical cues that reinforce expensive process, with every minute of studio time needing to be the emotions being portrayed on the screen. Crackers is principally used efficiently - everything was checked thoroughly beforehand to a comedy and required Ricky to compose some very comical avoid any delays. However, shit happens! On this occasion a huge pieces of music. His brief was to borrow elements from the likes of storm stopped proceedings when the gutters overflowed and sent Carl Stalling, the legendary American composer whose merry gallons of water pouring over the studio’s main power board! We melodies are featured in many classic Disney and Warner were pretty quick to shut it all down and, amazingly, no harm was cartoons. The compositional stage of the project was completed in done to any of the team or the equipment. just over three weeks. The Apple Macintosh workstation was Ricky’s main tool, incorporating ProTools, Logic Audio and Sample The orchestra Cell software. The film was viewed as an on-screen window in his Each section of the orchestra was recorded separately, partly due set-up, while a larger monitor was used for the full screen effect. to the size of the studio, but mainly to allow Ricky to refine each Guide reels were made with a tempo click and the various instru- section’s performance. It also offered a great improvement in mental cues were given synthesised representations. separation, even if the classical purists may disagree with this recording concept. The engineer Some of Melbourne’s top classical musicians, many from the Ricky chose Recording Engineer, Michael Letho, to ‘capture the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, were hand-picked by Ricky. All moments’. I was fortunate to get the gig as Michael’s Assistant on the parts for the orchestra were printed out using the score facility this project. Letho is one of Australia's top recording engineers. He in the computer software. Ricky conducted all the sessions and has extensive experience working on movie soundtracks, both here worked with the players till the desired result was achieved. English in Australia, and on big budget Hollywood Films. Some of his credits isn’t exactly the best language with which to describe music, include – The Black Sorrows, Bonnie Raitt, Daryl Braithwaite, Jane Rutter, Kim Carnes, Look Who's Talking 1 & 2 (film score), Ricky Lee Jones, Rush, Jesus Christ Superstar, Shine (film score), Southern Sons, Sussanah Hoffs and The Seekers. As well as having a great set of ears, he has a comprehensive technical knowledge and is a great communicator. He uses some clever descriptive phrases at work, such as, “dig a bit deeper on that guitar!”, (strum with more attack); or, “I’ll just add some more bog to that”, (body filler, to fatten a sound with EQ and/or compression, etc). Maintaining a good vibe in the studio, and concentrating on the job at hand for 12 hours a day, seemed to come easy. He’s one ‘very on the case’ chap! Letho brought his ‘toolkit’ to the session,which consisted of a large © Marty Williams collection of equipment in tall road cases, Ricky Edwards conducts the orchestra while Michael Letho mans the MCI console. (his ‘fridges’). These contained lots of high 49 however phrases such as ‘tee duh da dah’, combined with lots of The band hand movements, and a few colourful Italian expressions, seemed The orchestral score accounted for the high impact cues, but the to get the point across. majority of the music was performed by a select band of session The guide tempo click and instrumentation were fed into the musicians. The guys in the band were consummate professionals headphone monitor mix, and delivered to the orchestra using fresh from Kylie Minogue and John Farnham gigs. It was particu- single earpieces (generally on the right ear), with the other ear larly interesting to witness these guys playing a section that was used by the musician to listen to their own instrument. Because meant to emulate a church band that played in one part of the of the open back cans, bleed caused a few problems, (we also film. This band was tight, and it transpired that they were way too had to keep an eye on some players, as they had a tendency to tight to convincingly sound like a raggedy church ensemble.