Dark Knight dominance

This film is going to blow the doors off of the record books.

Its already setting preview and other records, and at least locally its selling out or nearly selling out every showing (including IMAX - no tix left the entire weekend) until Monday.

All of this is with good reason. I remember watching Batman Begins, and immediately thinking to myself "this is one of the best films I've ever seen." Well The Dark Knight is better, and by a lot.

As we made our way into the packed theater I was very concerned that the film, and Heath Ledger's Joker in particular, would not be capable of living up to the considerable hype that preceded them. Boy was I wrong.

This is a flat-out spectacular work of art across so many disciplines:

-first of its a near-flawless script. On a fundamental level, nobody says or does anything that doesn't make any sense in the context of the story, which is a big enough challenge in itself most of the time. The pacing is excellent (I did not expect the film to be as long as it was, and only after it was over did I realize that the run time approached 3 hours), and the content is top-notch. Most films don't challenge vigilante heros to justify their lawlessness outside of the context of "the govt is ineffective so I'll do this myself," but boy this one does and it does it in a way that is neither distracting to the rest of the film nor cheezy or pandering to the viewer. In fact, Batman's struggles with the legitimacy of his actions evolve into the primary sub-plot of the film - as opposed to the typical female love-interest sub plot. That falls to third. And of course we grow to care about all of the characters (including the villains) and to believe that everything that we're seeing could actually happen. Nothing was shoehorned in here. Everything had its place and served a purpose. Also, I love love love the fact that they never bothered to discuss the origins or true motivations of the Joker. Its the repeated and firm resistance to such non-useful story elements that allowed the writers and producers to pack this film with interesting and relevant stuff from top to bottom.

-Visually the film was spectacular. There are some shots of things blowing up and burning down that I have no idea how they accomplished them, because they don't look like CGI. The stuff that obviously is CGI is only identifiable as such because you know that it's the only way they could pull something like that off, not because it draws attention to itself visually. (with the exception of one minor traumatic spoiler effect that caught my eye as it was happening). I still love the fact that they shot Gotham in Chicago instead of NY, and watching the evolution of the
Batsuit was cool. Also there is a spectacular car chase scene.

-Casting and acting. Casting Heath Ledger as the Joker was probably intially seen as a bold stroke despite his post Brokeback Mountain star status, but we all know the story of both his acting in this film and what the role must have done to him as a person. Aaron Eckhart is an excellent Harvey Dent - so pretty that its all the more disturbing when he's not anymore. Of course, it helps the acting when you have a script of this caliber with which to work (I can imagine if Ledger and Nicholson were to switch Jokers that Nicholson would be getting the all of the glory out of the transaction), but this is one of those films in which the actors lived up to the characters they played, just about universally. With that said, Heath Ledger's Joker is bound to go down as one of the best villains in cinematic history - both because of the deranged and anarchistic acts that he was allowed to perform, and because of the wildness and intensity that he brought to the character. His passing at this point in both his career and this franchise is a devastating blow to the art of cinema, and it will be felt for a long while after the third Batman is released.

-Mix, sound design, and score. Here's where I geek out, and I love it. First off, here's an excellent article with the sound designers from Mix Magazine. They spent a month recording sound effects before production even started, and got to do cool things like mic up a Tesla car to use as an element for the bat-pod. All of the sound design was very gritty and real, which added remarkably to the overall believability of the film. The interaction between the sound design and music was obviously collaborated, and was done very well. The mix was constantly weaving between strong score, no score, heavy sound effects, no sound effects, and clear, intellible dialogue. I didnt notice any ADR, which is a good thing. There were also some very cool moments where the mix got very very stripped down during some climactic moments, and only the central sound design element was heard - like in the 18-wheeler flip. Its aggressive decision-making, and I loved it.

So go see this movie. I'm seeing it again as soon as I can get an IMAX ticket.

come on in, the iWater's fine!

so we've finally been assimilated and I'm telling you its great.

after standing in line for a few hours on wednesday and getting cut off, and then having the lovely and talented Mrs stood in line from 7:15 am till around 10:30 to get our two new sparkling shiny happy ...


iPhone 3Gs!!



















I'm flat out in heaven. This is just the biggest personal technology upgrade that I think i've every encountered (including the acquisitions of my first several computers).

much ink has already been spilled about this, and I can only really echo what the common knowledge is of the device so far.

-typing is tricky and slow
-the maps freaking rock
-the internet rocks
-the iphone apps are spectacular
-itunes is taking over my computer (and i'm a little miffed about that)
-watching tv on the iphone is kewl
-call quality and coverage has been good

other things that i've noticed are

-i have to keep it in my pocket while driving or I'll get in a damn wreck
-i have to figure out how to make it sync my photos without duplicating them on my HD
-i'll never be lost again, and for the most part I'll never need a local guide to help me find things like BOA atms or food in any stateside municipality again
-the pandora app makes kittens laugh and play with string

aftermath:blowing stuff up on the 4th

Went to Lubbock with the wifey over the holiday weekend to catch up with some friends and fire off some fireworks. (really, I just like getting in the car and traveling with her)

It was a pretty short, yet eventful trip. We showed up on the 4th and immediately got to drinking and lighting fireworks. As I listened to the barely legal mortars going off I realized that now more than ever do I regret not owning a solid portable recorder, but I'll get one soon enough.

All in all it was a good time, and it was good to see everyone again. I'm lucky to have the caliber of friends that I do.

The next day was more eventful though. While the lovely and talented Mrs Coronado was off at the lake with some of her friends, I ended up prepping to go to the gunshop to buy ammo with mine. Now, I've never shot a gun (my parents never even let us have bb guns when we were kids) but I've also never really found that to be something that's lacking in my life either.

In my opinion guns aren't good for much in everyday life, but hey I'm a guy and firing weapons at little paper targets at a range was bound to be a good time.

When I first bore witness to the arsenal that my long-time friends had collected I was pretty amazed. Shotguns, rifles, handguns, and of course semi-automatic weapons. Now I had always known that my friends were kind of West-Texasy southern Republican types, but I really hadn't mentally come to grips with exactly how how deep that particular vein ran. When I informed them that I'd never shot a gun in my life, everyones eyes got wide, fingertips came together, and big smiles started showing up. They were loving the idea of popping my weapon cherry.

So we loaded up on ammo (which is pretty expensive) and headed out to the firing range.

This is the first gun I've ever shot.
.
Its a Bushmaster M4, and it is a beast. Its a semiautomatic, though I was only shooting one round at a time. I expected it to have a lot of kick, but due to the compression chamber over the barrel there it was remarkably forgiving.

Here's me getting ready to shoot for the first time -




And here's my shocked expression after letting the first round go.


Dude, that think went BANG!

We also shot a few other rifles and some handguns that day. I was actually pretty ok with the handguns - hitting a bullseye at 25 yards and otherwise marking up the target pretty well. A lot of firing weapons seems to be about being able to breathe, so between that and Red Steel on the Wii I kind of had a head start.

The guys were kind enough to teach me how to set up, load and fire everything and I'm pretty grateful for that.

At the top of my mind now is a return trip with a good recording rig so that we can do it again and this time document it correctly.

Of course we got into a political discussion on the way back, but that was to be expected. I still love them despite their political views, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

review:Wall-E

man what a great flick.

It's true what you're hearing - it is a little preachy. But that's ok, because its a flat out masterpiece.

This film is a culmination of the collaboration of the best of the best in the story, animation, and sound design fields. As an audio guy, I think that this has to be the most interesting sounding films I've heard in a long time, and I loved every little sonic nuance about it.

so, I'm going to geek out for a bit now.

First things first, here are some short features with Ben Burtt - who was credited with sound design/character voice design, and the voice of Wall-E - and has been getting a fair amount of traditional media press since the release of the movie.

The La Times

In the end, Burtt used his own heavily tweaked voice for Wall-E's rudimentary speech. "I was experimenting with processing human voice input," he says, "and it was like Dr. Jekyll in his lab: 'Well, there's nobody else around -- I guess I'll drink the potion.'

Info and a cool behind the scenes movie courtesy of FilmSoundDaily

the Ben Burtt interviews on FilmSoundDaily (All kinds of gold in there. Check them out)

a thread on the Gearslutz forum about the film. This is a forum where pro audio guys hang out, and the response is universally positive to the film.

the Kyma, Burtt's most likely weapon of choice when designing the voices in Wall-E. (you can see him working his wacom tablet around on it in one of the filmsounddaily vids)

---------

I think the film is another in a string of superior efforts out of Pixar. The story always comes first, and in this film almost everything except for the story has been stripped away. Wall-E is an emotional flick, but it is one in a very universal and authentic way. With the language mostly stripped away, the robots of the film are essentially very intricate puppets that are masterfully coaxed around a series of spectacularly detailed sets. And they're not just dancing, they're genuinely connecting with their lives, thier work, and each other in a way that the humans in the film are not.

(I'll note that our lack of ability to connect is a very prominent recurring theme in lots of the films I've seen recently - There Will be Blood, Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride, even back to The Matrix and V for Vendetta. Maybe that speaks more to my taste in film than to the state of filmmaking, but hey whatever.)

The point is that the story is told to a large degree in pantomime, and it's done brilliantly. It so flat out refreshing to not have plot hammered down my neck. The subtlety of all of it - story, imagery, and sounds - survives, and the film is all the better for it.

Go see it. I've run out of words and i have not done it justice.

the passing of George Carlin

I really liked George Carlin. He was a personal hero of mine, and I'm greatly saddened by his death.

This man was brilliant mix of fearlessness, intelligence, wit, and personality.

I recently missed an opportunity to see him play a set over in Fort Worth. I'll regret that forever now, since that was really the only opportunity I'll have ever had to watch him in person.

He said in an interview that in another life he'd probably be a teacher. I think he'd make an excellent journalist as well.

The world needs more people like George Carlin, and it will mourn its loss and feel the emptiness he leaves behind for quite some time.

RIP, and we'll miss you.

personal showcase:the airforce technology site

I did the sound design for this website recently, and I'm really pleased with the implementation and the way that it all came together.

The fine folks over at Tribal DDB did the flash implementation, and once the site was pretty much complete they sent it to me. I did a full report of the sounds that I thought it needed, they revised the list and we got to work.

I used a lot of cameras as my source audio for this stuff, running it through dopplers and other sound-bending things, and I'm really happy with the results.

I need some more servo-type machines to record for future stuff, but the library elements that I added as a result of this project have become staples of my arsenal and are just incredibly useful.
Any comments and critiques are welcome!

showcase - some minimalist sound design

I really like what the modern world of animation has done for those of us who make a career as sound designers. Now it's true that a lot of modern animation has become overblown and confused, but those elements of our digital lives just serve as the perfect backdrop against which to lay the minimalist things I'm about to present.

I'll also state that I certainly don't believe that all complex animation sequences are bad artistically speaking (see Transformers and Iron Man), I'm just saying that the truly minimalist stuff forces the sound designer to bring his absolute best game because the audience is guaranteed to have the capacity to perceive every detail.

When complex visual and aural elements are done at the highest level the viewer can watch a sequence repeatedly and see new and cool things each time. When minimalist visual and aural elements are done at the highest level the audience can be focused in enough to catch the nuance of each element on the first or second pass.

Toyota's Yaris spots are an excellent example of this:





There are tons of those on youtube, but the net effect is pretty stark. Lots and lots of whitespace visually, which removes the need for ambient sound in the sound design - leaving room for all of the little reverb tail, and dog-tag jingle details to shine through. It also means that the sound designers have to start with the highest quality recordings for everything not synthesized because of just how naked everything is.

Here's another from dydree Media for Nickelodian. (sorry, couldn't embed that one)

IMO the sound design is just a notch down from the Yaris stuff, but its still a very high level and many of the same minimalist elements and restrictions are in place. No defined environment so therefore no ambient sounds and a very stark soundscape which leaves lots and lots of room for detail.



All of this eventually culminates into an event that I really can't wait to experience. Pixar's Wall-E

Wall E's lead sound designer is the full on modern legend Ben Burtt. You might recognize some of his work:

-The Star Wars franchise where he dreamed up the sounds for (among other things)
---R2 freaking D2
---the lightsaber
---the x-wing
---etc
-The Indiana Jones franchise
-Wilow
-The Dark Crystal
-
-...well, you've got the wiki link there. He's the man.

So here are some of Wall-E's minimalist beginnings:



and here's a pretty straightforward evolution from minimalist to full on film-level complexity.



Based on what I've seen so far, I'm very hopeful that the film will allow all of that room for Burtt's creative genius to come through. Taking on a project of that nature has to be one of the most difficult things a sound designer can hope to get himself into, and I'm just flat out excited to see what Burtt has come up with.