Working With The Sound Designer

Originally when I spoke with Steve the sound designer I explained that with this film I wanted something less formalist and more free form in terms of the sound design, in particular the opening dream sequence, I spoke about how I'd like to take influence from David Lynch and the surrealist sound that he evokes in his films. I wanted to give Steve more control over the sound, we spoke about building a complex soundscape for the opening scene, I mentioned that I'd like to incorporate the sounds from what the main protagonist will have heard during his time fighting in Iraq, though audibly not so straight forward and easy to decipher. I pointed out some examples of sound design that I admired that Steve could potentially take ideas from, I mentioned the short piece of sound design from the film 'Saving Private Ryan', this particular piece of sound design blends the sound of rain drops that fall on leaves and the ground into that of gun fire in the forthcoming scene, the drops start at an intermittent gradually building to a more intense rate as they slowly blend into a machine gun. I explained to Steve that I didn't plan on replicating this motif though the idea of combining sound is something I would urge him to look into.


I did point out that I would be again using a song at some point within the film, though I wouldn't be asking a composer to make an original piece like the previous project due to time constraints and the difficultly of the task i was faced with last time. I mentioned that I would show Steve the track as early as I could in order for myself and him to find a place for the track within the film so that it didn't overlap work that he had already planned for sequences for the film.


To give Steve a clear idea as to how I'd like the opening scene to transition into the next I explained how I'd like the sound to come to a climax which would then cut out before the actor shoots his rifle. I showed Steve the opening scene of 'A single Man' where Colin Firth's dream sequence is illustrated which ends with climactic sound cut short by Colin waking up in his bed in panicked. With this Steve could clearly see what I wanted to achieve from this scene and what he had to do with the sound to make that possible.

Annotated Script

The Place Beyond The Pines - Fight Scene

I looked very closely at 'The Place Beyond The Pines' for inspiration for the whole film and referred to the film for guidance when directing, filming and editing certain scenes. Knowing the film very well I was very familiar with the way in which the fight scene was created, and so set about working the methodology from the scene and the information I had extracted from Blain 'Brown - Cinematography, Theory and Practice' into my film. I understand that Sean Bobbit the Dp for Pines had indubitably used a long lens to capture the shot where Luke Glanton played by Ryan Gosling attacks Kofi with a spanner to compress the space between the two characters. 

The movement is quick enough to disguise the assault with Ryan Gosling's body covering the other actor, the downward movement from the victim turning away from the attack also disguises the face which will then have make up on in the cutaway shot. The shallow depth of field also obstructs the viewers vision, the focus pulls from Kofi's face to Ryan Goslings back though not immediately.

 The actor covers his face masking the potential damage which like mentioned previously can be added once the scene cuts to another shot.

The next shot we visit is one shot just past the door, this almost seems to be from another perspective, we are able to see the actors expression as he looks upon the mistake he has just made, the shot seems to empower the character as we are able to see his physicality but his recklessness as well. Throughout the film we have looked at Luke (Ryan Gosling) as a protector of his son and lover Row (Eva Mendez) as he's attempted to provide for his family, however this scene has allowed the audience to see the much more reckless and volatile side of Luke, I feel that this shot helps to convey that transition of the character.

Choreographing A Fight Scene

In the script there is a moment when Shawn the main protagonist assaults his sisters boyfriend, I had the idea that he would do this in a surgical and efficient manor rather than an animalistic and brutal though still deadly, however this changed when on set. Having no previous experience choreographing a fight scene I googled the logistics of directing and achieving a convincing fight. A lot of what the scene required was camera trickery and little actual fight coordination, I worked closely with Tom Newsham the director of photography to plan the scene and work out how we would shoot it. We both watched videos on how indie film makers created theres, stumbling on a video that covered the entire planning and execution of the fight.

We found that using a longer lens would compress the space between the actors and this would be the main technique that we would apply to our film to convince the viewer. The longer lens then was used for the initial blow delivered by Mark and worked as explained.

We also found that shorter lenses decompress space between the action, the video explained that these are often used for throws and flips and so we tried to avoid using these as my fight scene would only be simple punches and kicks.

Having been the to the location for a previous shoot we knew the size and layout of the rooms in particular the room the fight would take place in. This allowed myself and Tom Newsham to plan the fight heavily before getting on set, having an idea of what type of punches and kicks would be used.

I had also referred to ‘Blain Brown – Cinematography Theory and Practice', I read into lens theory and how the choice of a lens can dramatically affect the image, the text clearly displayed the difference between what a long lens suggests and creates in comparison to a shorter lens. I was particularly interested in how these lenses would compress and expand space between subjects in the scene. For my fight scene a longer lens would be the correct choice as it would close the distance between the punches from the attacker and the person being attacked, resulting in a convincing fight, these longer lenses allowed the actors to leave a safe distance between each other which was of course an element that could potentially lead to unwanted consequences.