TERMINATOR 2
SOUND EFFECT
T-1000
Transformation: Gary Rydstrom sprayed Dust-Off into a water and flour mixture and recorded the sound with a condom-wrapped microphone slightly under the surface. The bubble, slowly made by Dust-Off, has both metallic and evolving quality. The sound was fit with T-1000 since it had beginning and an end.
Bullets hitting T-1000: An inverted glass was used to slam into a bucket of yoghurt. It sounds like bullets were sucked into its body.
Passing through steel bars: Dog food was being sucked slowly out of the can.
The sound when T-1000 spiked the foster father’s eye: Gary’s dog eating puppy chow.
Frozen T-1000: His cracking steps and movements come from the sounds of footsteps walking slowly on a frozen river surface and the sound of squeezing ice cubes from their trays.
Frozen T-1000 got shot: The sounds of lots of iron nails falling onto to the grounds make audiences experience how T-1000 is blowed into thousands of pieces.
Terminator
Terminator’s vision: The sound comes from Termovision. Gary had to find a balance between the rhyme of sounds that seem data being processed or canculated. When in this vision, the external sounds were still added such as music or chatting, not just the digit, make the scene more effective and realistic.
Environment
Metallic key sounds in Terminator 2: A lot of banging in all kinds of metal. The team recorded banging on long girders in various ways to make the sound resonate. To make one single metal hit, Gary mixed different piches of metal hits together until they matched.
The wind in the opening scene: from a crack of an open door to the main mix room at Skywalker sound.
The molten pit:
_The sound was made by compressed air into lots of mud and boiling sounds which were pitched down. Audiences can feel something hot, huge and thick bubble in the pit seems to ready to blow at any time.
_Gary and his recordist team visited a still mill to record elements to make this one. Sony 2000 R-DATs was used and 7 hours of metal and machines were recorded.
Guns and Vehicles:
Guns: Gun shots were recorded with 1 Nagra and 2 R-DATs at Stembridge shooting range
_R-DATs was coupled with Sanken M-S mics.
_Nagra had Schoeps in one channel and a Neumann on the other.
_ Gary focused on the sounds of bullets hitting objects, not the sound of the gun itself.
Vehicles: from dirt bikes, motorbikes to SWAT vans were used to record, but mainly for suspension squeaks and running over boards, not for engine sounds.
FOLEY AND DIALOGUE:
_ All of the incedential movements were replaced. For instance,the whole scene of Sarah getting out of the straps in her hospital bed is nothing but foley. The leather creaks on Terminator’s jacket are also foley. Lexicon 2400, a TV studios main device, and Lexicon 480 were used.
_ADR: Most of the breathing and 70% of dialogue is ADR.
Music: Thrilling and fast spacing scores make Terminator 2 dynamic. Traditional violin sounds were not used to lead the fighting scenes. Brad Fiedel and Gary Summers worked together to enhance the tension of scenes
Further thought:
I have no idea that to create a sound element in a movie can take so much effort and time until I accidentally watched the video above on Youtube. For instance, a single shot gun sound in the hospital scene was created by mixing 3 different sounds together. I think terminator 2 would not achieve such a enormous success without the key element: sound. The movie won 2 Academy awards for best sound mixing and best sound editing. The sound makes this epic movie realistic. Even it was made 13 years ago, I always feel like I am living in it every time I watch. You can try to mute the sound next time you watch something, you will know what I mean. No matter how great the visual effect is, most of audiences will likely say : “Um hmm, It’s not real. It’s a movie” .
FREFERENCE
- Kenny,T 2000, Sound for picture: Film sound through the 1990s, Hal Leonard Corporation
- Carlsson,SE, Sound design of Terminator 2, Film sound, viewed 14 March 2016, <http://www.filmsound.org/t2/>