Magma Films’ new animated feature 'Niko & the Way to the Stars' will open nationwide on Friday 28th November. IFTN talks to Patrick Drummond from Ardmore Sound about creating sound design for the hotly anticipated feature animation.
‘Niko and the Way to the Stars’ follows a young reindeer boy who having never met his Dad, but knowing he is a member of the legendary Santa’s Flying Forces, sets out to find his real father which leads him on a difficult and exciting journey. The film was produced by Magma Films, together with Finnish film company Anima Vitae, Magma’s own daughter company Ulysses Films in Germany and Afilm in Denmark.
Sound post-production for the award winning feature was completed over a three month period at Ardmore Sound, based at Ardmore Studios in Bray, Co. Wicklow. Young Irish actor and voice talent Andrew McMahon lends his voice to Niko, while Morgan Jones, Paul Tylak, Aileen Mythen and Alan Stanford also feature in the film’s voice track which was originally cast and recorded in Ireland. Wicklow based composer Stephen McKeon has also created the orchestral film score.
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Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Editor Patrick Drummond (As Good as it Gets, Father of the Bride, The Actors, Boy Eats Girl) headed up the 12 week sound post schedule. Foley was shot over a 21 day period by Foley Artist Caoimhe Doyle (Eden, Becoming Jane, The Tudors) assisted by Jessie Mulligan and Steve Fanagan. The Foley Theatre is the latest addition to the sound post facility and is the biggest in Ireland as it comprises three spaces, including a 40 ft theatre with extensive surfaces and adjustable room acoustics, a car room containing a complete car, a kitchen area and an extensive props collection. The sound was mixed by John Fitzgerald and Michelle Cunniffe in Ardmore Sound's film mixing theatre - the only mixing theatre in Ireland licensed to produce Dolby film soundtracks.
IFTN talks to Patrick Drummond who discusses the new foley theatre at Ardmore and creating the sound design for the film.
IFTN: What is the difference between creating an animation soundscape with a live action movie?
PD: One of the biggest differences is that you don’t have a dialogue track that was recorded by actors on location on an animated film. Everything is ADR or looped for the actors so all the dialogue is very clean without background on it which means you have to create everything from scratch. You had to build up all your ambiances of each scene, from the wind to the water trickle of a little creek. There is nothing there on the track that you have got and consequently everything that you do is very focused.
Everyone will hear all the sound elements that you are bringing into that scene. It’s exciting from one aspect but it can be a little frightening because everyone will hear all your choices of the backgrounds, or even of the animal sounds. On 'Niko' particularly, all the little things, especially the foley where you do the footsteps for all the creatures, they really stood out. On a regular film with actors, the foley tends to get itself buried amongst the recorded dialogue so you don’t hear it much - but on an animated feature everything is stands out. All the footsteps stand out brightly which means they better be damn good when everyone can hear them!
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Everything has to then layer in from all the backgrounds that you put in from the foley and then the sound effects. One of the biggest sound effects on ‘Niko’ was Santa’s sleigh racing through the sky. The reindeer are some pretty racy guys and they of course take that sleigh and do all these antics with it so it was fun trying to create the sounds for that.
You didn’t get any real reindeer into the studio at all!?
We actually went and got some reindeer sound from the library, in the scene when they are being attacked by the wolves. We had some real reindeer sounds in there, such as the fear calls that they do and that really worked well. When you see real sounds working in with animation, the sounds of them eating, chewing, grunting, snorting - when you put that onto the animated reindeer it’s wonderful, it really gets that magic.
So generally it takes a lot longer to create the sound for animation?
Yes, definitely. It’s mainly because there is so much sound design involved and so much sound creating. If you do a normal film you can usually, or sometimes, rely on library sounds of traffic, birds, or cars. You can go and get them from a sound library that we have built up here at Ardmore Sound. We have a huge library here from the years and years of doing films, but with an animated feature you have to create everything so it takes quite a while in that aspect. Everything has to be kind of new as you are bringing an audience into a different world in an animation so it would have to be something special. It can’t just be a normal little sound effect that you get from the library. So yes it takes quite a bit longer to do this.
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How many people worked across the sound on ‘Niko’ altogether?
There had to be probably at least fifteen people that were either full time or came in for weeks and weeks at a time to produce that sound track.
Have you previously worked on other animations?
Funnily enough when I started my career many years ago I worked with a company Nelvana in Canada, which is now one of the best in the world, and worked on one of their first animated films. Then I went into just normal feature films in Hollywood till this opportunity to work at Ardmore Sound came up. It was a real treat for me because, as I say, all your sounds are standing out there.
Can you tell us more about the new Foley Theatre in Ardmore Sound?
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Yes, it is a brilliant place because you walk in and it’slike a playground, like kids love it!There are all these cool things hanging around. The prop cupboards are loaded with all these strange creations and contraptions, so literally you can really play and have a good time on a foley stage. Acoustically it is brilliant, it is as good as anything in the world because it has been designed by people from Hollywood and in Canada - which has one of the most brilliant foley walkers up there. It has been designed by and acoustically treated and is a state of the art foley stage. Foley artist Caoimhe Doyle has made it a point to get all the props from gathering around the world so she can create anything on that stage which she was challenged to do. All the reindeer feet in snow, and then the wolves, they were delicious in sound that’s what she came up with, so yes she had a great time on it too.
What else is going on in Ardmore Sound at the moment? What are you working on?
We have Neil Jordan’s ‘Ondine’ coming up and Colin Farrell is coming in to redo his ADR. He’s great, I did the ADR with him for ‘Triage’ and he is just really professional and he knows his stuff.
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'Niko & The Way to the Stars' is released from 28 November 2008.
- Visit www.magmaworld.com for further info
'Niko and the Way to the Stars' will screen at the following locations:
Movies at Dundrum
Movies at Swords
IMC Dun Laoghaire
Ormonde Stillorgan
IMC Dundalk
Santry Omniplex
Omniplex Mahon Point Cork
Storm Cinema Waterford
Storm Cinema Limerick
Omniplex Limerick
Gaiety Arklow
Gaiety Sligo
Carrick-on-Shannon Cineplex
Eye Cinema Galway
Omniplex Galway
Storm Naas
Vue at Liffey Valley
UCI Blanchardstown
UCI Coolock
UCI Tallaght
