Alex Joseph, winner of the 2007 BAFTA for Best Sound, goes to great lengths to obtain the sound effects he needs. His recent work, including "Hannibal Rising" and "Casino Royale," are no exceptions.
To create appropriately gory and gruesome effects for the Hannibal prequel, Joseph used pig hearts, sides of beef, racks of ribs, grapefruit, coconuts, melon, celery and sugarcane, and retreated with his stash to London facility Soundelux. His microphones of choice included the DPA 4060 for high sensitivity, while the low sensitivity 4062 mounted on the blades of various knives, cleavers, hacksaws and scalpels. Joseph's techniques included snapping celery and sawing sugarcane to emulate bones fragmenting.
For another scene, Joseph used DPA's 8011 Hydrophone underwater mic to capture the sound of Hannibal dunking an adversary into a vat of formaldehyde. This required an underwater recording of the victim's screams, one from Hannibal's perspective looking down at him, plus the sound of the machinery lowering him down.
DPAs were also featured heavily in the recent remake of "Casino Royale." Two 4060s were used as binaural mics inside Bond's Aston Martin, with a 4062 capturing the lower end sounds of the exhaust and the engine respectively.
The most-used microphone in Foley recording for the Bond film was a larger DPA model, the 4006 omni, especially for "bigger than life" effects that are associated with the long-running film franchise.
For more information, visit www.dpamicrophones.com.
