Exclusive Interview with Dave Whitehead, Sound Designer of District 9

Designing Sound • by Miguel Isaza

District 9 was one of my favourite films of this year, an amazing history, utstanding visual effects, and really great sound design, by Dave Whitehead, new zealand sound designer with more than 15 years in the Industry. I have a nice talk with Dave about the sound of the film, the sound effects, the alien’s lenguage and more, don’t miss it!

Designing Sound: First of all tell us some about your career. How and when did you getstarted with sound design?

Dave Whitehead: I was offered a job in 1990 at the University of Waikato Music Department, running a small MIDI/recording studio. My job was to figure out how to use all the gear they would buy and then help student’s record compositions for their assignments. It was incredibly fertile ground and I was very fortunate at the time.

My boss at the time Professor Ian Whalley, had me compose music for the campus television production company. He also allowed me to record local bands and do the sound and music for student’s short films.

I worked on many short films and theatre productions before being offered my first feature film. It was a horror thriller called ‘The Ugly” and I was credited as sound designer. It was a definite crash course in sound post production and design. There was certainly a bit of sound library milking in the early days, but I did my best at the time to manipulate sound to create something unique. Through that process I learnt the importance in recording a fresh palette for every film.

DS: I can see that you are working in other projects with Peter Jackson… How is your relationship with him? How did you become involved with District 9?

DW: Peter is a driving force in the New Zealand film industry and he has an incredibly good ear for sound. He is always fantastic at articulating his minds ear and appreciates what we as a team bring to the table. I think most people who have the privilege of working with him would say any “relationship” would be one of respect for him.

We were all based at Park Road Post and we had just come off ‘The Lovely Bones’. The sound team down here in Wellington was primed and ready to move onto the next film. Fortunately for us, it was ‘District 9’.

DS: How was the communication with the director and the rest of the team?

DW: It was absolutely brilliant. Neill Blomkamp made himself available to us on any given day. He was fully open to experimentation and gave insightful and focused briefs. He really did know what he wanted, and enjoyed happy sound surprises from us too.

Supervising Effects Editor, Brent Burge and I discussed what needed to be done and he mapped out who was going to do what. My job was to come up with the alien technology palette and the language. The rest of the team new exactly what they had to do so the process of moving toward predubs was very smooth.

Dave Whitehead at Niah Caves in Borne

DS: How the concept of the film affect your decisions as sound designer?

DW: Initially on seeing the artwork I started building a very hi-tech palette for the alien technology. The Exo Suit is the classic example. We had an intensive record at a New Zealand Air Force base for hydraulics and all kinds of servos and tech devices. Version one was definitely more classic blockbuster sci-fi. Neill reviewed it and said he wanted it to be far more grungy, more real. He wanted it to be based on real world sounds, but with an alien core. So my concept took a 180° turn and I started on a new palette.

Neill also said the aliens were insect like and that their social structure was very hive like. The decision to record as many insects as I could was an easy one and the concept became one of the keystones to the design.

One of the major concepts was the lo-fi treatment in the security cameras. It was decided early in the piece that this would be done on the stage by re-recording mixers Mike Hedges and Gilbert Lake. That way they could control the amount and type of futz that was used in the final.

DS: Which were your main tools/processes for recording, edit and design sounds?

read the full article on designingsound.noisepages.com

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Can I have my music mixed but not mastered?

Answer:
You will receive both mastered and un-mastered versions from us so you can choose which one to use

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Will you do editing on the song?

Answer:
No, this is not included in this package.
Editing, sound replacement and vocal tuning can be carried out on demand. Contact us with the work you want us to do and we will tell you how much it will cost.

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My song has far more than 144 audio tracks, can you mix it?

Answer:
We can try. Contact us and describe what your needs are and we’ll do our best to mix your music.

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How good the recording must be to make an amazing sounding mix and master?

Answer:
Of course better the recording easier is the mixing process, but now with the use of computers a decent home recording, if in the right hands like the one of our engineers, can be turned into a top quality production.

We recommend to use professional recording studio to record your music but for experience we know that a good home recording can sound as good as most of the music in the chart, if the performance is excellent.

Our Mixer and Mastering engineer have been working in many different mixing and mastering studios for many different productions and have learned the secret of making the best out of any sound quality. They are able to make a digital recording sound as good an analogue, a good demo sound like a record.

Their secret is not just on their Knowledge on sound and acoustics but it’s also in the good taste, creativity and music sensibility, this can be seen in any of the projects they have mixed and mastered.

Listen to their showreel to get an idea on how good small budgeted productions can sound.

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When I send the files, which format should they be in?

Answer:
For higher compatibility, we work only with 16 and 24 bit files at 44.100 KHz.
The files have to be .WAV or .AIF. Make sure that a file extension is present to each file (e.g. your file is named ‘lead-guitar.aif’ and not ‘lead-guitar’).

If you want to upload your music to our Drop Box, you have to compress the folder containing all the files. Make a .zip file which will be compatible with any computer’s operation system. You can send several .zip files but each file cannot be greater than 2GB.

To know more on how to prepare your music to be mixed and mastered visit our how to guide

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What happens if you are not able to open the file I sent you?

Answer:
Keep a copy of whatever you send us, so in case this happens we will be able to show you what went wrong and what to do to fix the problem. Before you send us the files you can check that everything works properly by opening a new session on your music software and importing all the files as we will do when we receive your files: if it works well on your system it will work on ours’.

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