On Sunday I went to Roland's to hear the first cut of the sound design. I have to say it was the same disquieting (sorry) experience I had on my last film when I first added the composer's music to the cut. It had became another film, like a child who has grown up, someone new, something else besides the parent that raised him.
It also lifted the film, brought it to another level.
It fixed or solved or completed ideas I had from the beginning, but which I had forgotten were there.
I would have to describe from the end: when the male character leaves the flat and goes into the world, the sound too pushes out and expands outward. The sounds of London are a whole universe, layer after layer of textures, close, far and near.
(And Roland experimented with something that I still can't decide upon: as the picture goes from him, looking out, to the close landscape, to the far landscape, the volume increased abruptly. It was odd at first, but then added to the expansion and widening affect).
Then, if one thinks backwards, some of these same sounds are heard inside the flat, in the silences between the couple, far in the background, a voice, children playing, the roar of traffic, so subtle you would not be certain you heard them (I could be imagining the whole thing).
And in the beginning, in the title sequence there is a low hum, and behind it, again very subtle, a birdsong, as if the means for their reconciliation were at close at hand.
Roland wanted to add a few more layers, that particular London white noise, heard from afar. Then he will post the next cut for me to hear. It's getting close...
