MARLBORO — After a film is fully shaped and cut, and the director has fully signed off and “locked” the picture, there is still a lot to do to add layers of sound.
Some sounds, like those from trucks or cars, are taken from recordings. Others, like steps and door slams, are manufactured.
I remember working with a Foley artist for my 1992 film Where the Rivers Flow North. We wanted to add tension to the moment when power company muscleman, New York Money (Mark Margolis), bends over to threaten Native American “housekeeper” Bangor (Tantoo Cardinal) while she's dining at the local hotel.
“The leather jacket,” said the Foley artist. “When the bad guy leans in, we could create the stretching sound of the leather.”
He was right. We used a balloon to create the sound of leather.
Those details work to create mood, tone, and texture in a film. And of all these types of sound, no part of post-production interests me more than the music scoring.
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I used the already-recorded “White Man Sleeps” by the Kronos Quartet, for my 1980s short drama, High Water. But for the much longer Where The Rivers Flow North, I wanted to bring musicians fully on board for the collaboration.
A friend suggested banjo ace Béla Fleck, and we met for a fascinating conversation. Fleck had a strong following, and I loved his playing. Still, in the back of my mind, I had another option in mind: the unique and talented, Ithaca-based string band, the Horse Flies.
I'd met the Horse Flies during my 1980s impresario days, when they appeared as the opening act for South African rocker Johnny Clegg and Savuka.
The Flies electrified the audience with their animated playing, their Talking Heads–type art rock played on bluegrass instruments, and the way they added fierce percussive groove.
They created a totally original sound that immediately suggested what I saw in the natural world of my film - a magnificent but haunting beauty and unforgiving power that refuses to yield to the film's mulish protagonist, logger Noel Lord.
I love traditional bluegrass, but I often don't like it in film scores. John Boorman's 1972 picture Deliverance used bluegrass well, because the picture's darkness and hard edge prevent the music from becoming sappy.
But bluegrass is often used to create a clichéd feeling of “rural.” I liked Robert Duvall's Oscar-nominated performance in the 2009 film Get Low, but I believed that the filmmakers domesticated his character to please audiences. To me, the bluegrass track added to the flatness of the narrative.
The Horse Flies depart from bluegrass through Judy Hyman's wild fiddling, Richie Stearns's fearless banjo, Jeff Claus's mesmerizing uke, and Taki Masuko's fierce percussion on bongos and congas.
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The Horse Flies have added to my films in dozens of instances, and I'm always happy to have their music get out front when the moment calls for it.
In my 1997 film A Stranger in the Kingdom, I felt that the young itinerant Québécois waif, Claire LaRiviere, needed more dimension. The Flies composed a plaintive character theme that increased audience empathy, added dramatic weight, and stitched her more fully into the narrative.
My 2002 film The Year That Trembled takes place in the shadow of the turbulent 1970 events at Kent State, when protestors clashed with National Guard soldiers.
I opened the picture with a montage of period film clips showing the war, demonstrations, and Nixon's announcement of the Cambodia invasion. I wanted the music to create the sense of a world out of joint.
Horse Flies leader Jeff Claus came up with a reverse delay guitar motif that was ominous and otherworldly.
This opening montage then segues directly into night scenes of the Kent upheaval. I had one musical thought in mind: the San Francisco-based San Francisco sixties group, Jefferson Airplane, with its psychedelic sonics and incendiary politics.
Claus again understood and called in a talented rock guitarist, Billy Cote, to collaborate on a driving and inflammatory cue that was exactly what I'd imagined.
The Flies don't message narrative. They get inside it to shape character, evoke mood, and provide texture for place and time.
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With advances in low-cost technology, the Flies can now produce much of their music from a home studio.
But we recorded our first soundtrack together over Easter 1993, when we wrangled an off-hours deal at New York's legendary but now-defunct state-of-the-art Hit Factory, where hundreds of albums came to life, among them Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, Michael Jackson's Bad, and Paul Simon's Graceland.
Calling for late night take-out, we sustained our energy till 3 a.m. each night, through coffee, adrenaline, and that wonderful feeling of a dream where the Horse Flies' multiple tracks mingle and merge with images on screen, casting a poetic spell.