I'm working on a project - I want to completely sound replace the movie trailer for 'The Arctic', and I want to end up with something that rivals, if not improves on the quality of the original.
So with that in mind, I'm sitting down today to check out and analyse a different trailer that I'd like to find some techniques and inspiration from - The Mountain Between Us.
Intro:
The trailer starts off with a full bodied piano. This piano plays softly throughout the first 30 seconds of the trailer, setting the mood as intriguing and anticipatory through its use of low end consistency, spaced melodic high notes and generously reverbed high end. The subtle strings that drift in and out are used to add tension and assist with the sudden mood changes that many trailers exhibit.
Dialogue is played throughout this piano score at a volume that makes it become the main focus of the trailer, pushing the score slightly behind it.
To add dramatic effect to each scene change, a transitional effect is played across the top of the music.
Transitions:
They are different each time for the intro, from low bass whooshes to cymbal rolls, even to a deep thump as the plane starts to crash. All of these transitional effects are drenched with a smooth and heavy reverb, giving them space and in the case of the bass transitions; power.
After the intense nature and survival aspect of the film shows itself, almost every transition is accompanied by some sort of deep bass thump. This sound does change every time, different instruments or synthesisers, using vibrato or very long reverberant tails. Each time this effect is used it seems have have one of two intents; either it's suspenseful, reminding you that this is life and death, that this is exciting and on the edge, or it impactfully highlights the situation, emotionally triggering shock and despair in us. Either way it always reinforces the drama and contributes to the emotional conversation the trailer has with us.
When the transitions are accompanied by a single high piano note, I find that it adds tension and intrigue, leaving us hanging for what is to come next.
Trailers are such a flurry of images, that in most cases if you took out all the sound, it would be difficult to distinguish the sections. But, if you took all the visuals away from a well edited trailer, you'd still be able to hear the segues. - Derek Lieu
One last transition used here is denoted by heavy hits in a consistent music score. This is used from 1:08 to 1:54, and it instantly re-contextualises the viewer across different scenes. Maintaining the same dramatic position from scene to scene through the use of rhythm and film cuts.
Check out this article by Derek Lieu for more on how to make a great movie trailer
Atmosphere:
Throughout the trailer atmos tracks are used sparingly, seemingly only where necessary and still rather subtly when they are used. The engineers behind this trailer Nicolas Felix and Salvador Casais really wanted the music to tell the emotional story, so they've favoured orchestral compositions over atmos for most of the trailer.
e.g: When there is fire at 1:12 the music is favoured, and no atmos is used. And during many other fire and snowy/blizzard scenes, again music or sound effects take over without the use of atmos. I believe this works for this trailer, as they've already established the snow and wind in earlier scenes and have let the music tell the rest of the story.
The atmos during the airport scenes are very simple, including only paper noises and distant people shuffling. During the flight the whirring of an airplane propeller can be heard, a motor running, the sound of a plane overhead and even a high frequency electronic buzzing can be heard. Many layers of these sounds fade in and out from the plane taking off til it begins to crash, to me it seems quite a bit of time has gone into making the plane atmos sound realistic. One more major atmosphere in this trailer is the wind during the snowy scenes, but again this is not too over the top. They've gone for a calm wind which I believe is complimented with some pink noise to create this snowy biome sound.
Dialogue:
A lot of this trailer is dialogue, without it, it would be difficult to establish the personal connection between the characters. But if the main focus in this trailer is also the score, how do we balance the dialogue? Well here they've done a lot of level automation, while the dialogue stays at a consistent level throughout, when the music gets intense at 1:08, the dialogue starts to 'cut' into the music. This is another way of saying that the music dips down (around 5 or 6 dB) when dialogue is happening, it's done with a rather fast attack and release (100-200ms).
Rather than using side chain compression, I believe they've used manual automation here, as each time the attack and release times are different and some slightly longer pauses in dialogue do not trigger the music to raise back up in volume.
I also believe that this trailer is mostly ADR, meaning that they have re-recorded the dialogue again, off-set in a specific studio in order to get cleaner, crisper sounding voices. This is how a trailer without spurious noises and room tones is achieved!
Score:
An entirely new score has been composed for this trailer by Nicolas Felix, it is excellently executed and timed beautifully with the on screen cuts and edits.
The use of the full audio spectrum, or the entire orchestra in this faced paced dramatic score really climaxes the trailer giving the listener a huge and encompassing experience. Driven largely by the percussive drums, each scene is amplified and punctuated by the use of the single consistent high note, and the beat of the Taiko drums.
To sum it up:
Wow. What a brilliant job these guys did, even the small amount of foley and sound design is excellent and believable. While the majority of their great work rests on the score and edits of the music and dialogue.
The trailer ends suspensefully, leaving you wanting more with just the sound of wind atmos and a piece of dialogue with a large reverb/echo. These guys know how to make a trailer.
References:
1. Lieu, D. (2018). Good Transitions Make Great Trailers. Retrieved from https://www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2018/2/24/good-transitions-make-great-trailers
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