Fritz Myers

This project came to me from the Backeast Brothers (Ross Kohn, Ed Stein).  The third in a series, I recommend you check out parts one and two for some context (I did not have a hand in the first two, but they are hilarious).  If you don't have 10 minutes to spare, part three certainly stands on it's own.

Internet videos are not something you typically associate with interesting sound design, but three sequences proved to be very fun to work on.  

The dream sequence:

At Ross's suggestion, I watched parts one and two and picked out a few lines I thought were nightmarish in addition to what was already in the rough cut. Next, I added simple delay and mixed in pitch-shifted duplicates to give "Tom Cruise" that nightmarish, demonic feel.

The front gate/entry hall sequence:

I layered a 16 kHz tone on the shots of the video monitors layered with a low-level industrial hum to give them a panic room kind of feel. The motor that opens the front gate is a sample of an electric engine I pitch shifted up and eq'd (I thought having a dinky sounding motor would be funnier than something big and foreboding).  Hearing "Juan Cruise" playing in the kitchen from the entry hall was accomplished with a short room verb and low pass filter -  I mixed down the production audio and played up the frequency-limited verbed audio giving the illusion he was in another room.  At the shot cut, I bypassed the verb and EQ an voila, we're in the same room again.

The bar sequence:

The transition from bar walla to a drunken sing-along required a bit of finessing to make it feel like the extras weren't coming in on cue.  When everyone did start singing, the production audio was about as distorted as you can imagine. Thankfully, there was a secondary mic (filmmakers take note!) that was further away, and although it was low level, I was able to gain it up to cover the most problematic parts.  Once I had the audio in a workable place, I enlisted the help of my roommates to add another sing-along layer, with pretty hilarious results.  We ended up mixing it back in the end, but if you listen carefully you can hear some pretty remarkable singing.

There are other funny little bits that I think help the short work (or at least make me smile).  Be on the look out for the aquarium bubbling in the background, dog food doubling as ice in a martini shaker,  and the fly defusing an otherwise very serious confrontation.