Shaping the inner world of the characters and how the visuals transcend into a FILM.
This chapter probably will be one of the longest one, not only because it is one of the most interesting, but because it took us around six or more months to make the final sound design and mix, six months in which our sound designer had to go through hell in order to pull out a world class film sound quality.
I found out about our sound designer Kamen Atanasov after watching Viktoria directed and produced by Maya Vitkova, where he was the sound designer and sound mixer of the film. I was impressed by the sound design and the overall quality of the sound. However, in the spring of 2015 I went to speak with another sound designer and music composer, who I knew from a common friend of ours. He told me that he preferred to focus on music composing and less on sound designing. He recommended Kamen as one of the best sound designers and persons in the film industry in Bulgaria.
I was looking for a sound designer even before I finished the editing. I knew that we probably would spent most of our post production money especially for sound design and sound mix. I wanted to find a person who not only would be highly proficient technically but who would get on board creatively and who would impact the film artistically.
After my first call with Kamen I immediately found that he was the right man for that mission. Kamen is a person who understands cinema, but moreover understands the power of the sound in cinema. He had worked on other feature films before, but he told me that he really liked the idea which I shared with him, NoOne to have a sound escape which to bring to life the inner world of the characters. He told me that he would need at maximum two months to finish the film. He sent us an offer in which he charged us for two months of service.
He managed to convince me that we definitely needed the film to be 5.1. with really high standard sound quality. In September 2015 I sent him the final cut of the film and told him that we would need to start the work on the sound. He watched the film and was a bit shocked from its editing at the first half an hour of the film, but he liked the film and he said that for two months of hard work he would be able to create the entire sound, sound design and the final sound mix. Kamen and Emelina started to work and communicate about the music tracks and the soundtrack of the film. Emelina and Pavel were making the music on stereo tracks, Kamen needed to master the sound and to mix it in 5.1.
It was a crazy story, but I gave Kamen total freedom to create the soundscape of the film, I only told him that I needed the sound to be multidimensional and to carry a story on its own, to reveal our characters' feelings, emotions and thoughts. It sounds easy and simple, however it became a real journey on its own.
Kamen took charge over the sound post production, I was working much more with Emelina about giving her enough feedback and inspiration to continue to create the music,while Kamen was fixing first the dialogues of the scenes. They started around the end of September 2015 and I was expecting the sound and the music to be ready around the middle of December.
After around a month I received the first 20 minutes of sound design, mixed with the music. I remember very clearly how shocked I was from the difference between the production sound and the final mix. I felt as if I was watching a real film, the picture looked and sounded like a real film. It was without color correction but even then this part of the film was looking already as if it was finished entirely. There were sound transitions, atmosphere, clean and crisp dialogues, folly and even sound effects, however the more shocking thing was that this version which sounded incredibly good and believable wasn't our film. I was watching a different film, and this was achieved entirely and only by the sound. What I mean by a totally different film, Kamen did an amazing job and really, really put a lot of work to create a world on its own, but the world was from a different story, but not ours. The film went from a psychological drama, towards a psycho tiller-horror film.
I was stunned by this result. I never ever felt this before, and the work was executed extremely well, I was even at some point really confused whether I was right that the story which was in my head and was written on paper was the correct one, or what I was watching and hearing was the better version, the real and more truthful version. I didn't answer him for a day, I just told him that he did a really fantastic job. I was concerned how I was going to tell him that this version was a great piece of work but it wasn't for our movie, it was not the sound for our story. Yavor loved it. He thought that it was a really powerful beginning of the movie, however I still insisted that we had to keep it as close to the genre as possible. I wanted to start the film by setting up the right pace, atmosphere, mood and genre of the movie. I called Kamen.
We spoke for more than an hour, he completely understood my point and despite the news which he received, that he was supposed to begin from the beginning with the sound sound design, he was happy because he got understandings of what exactly I was looking for. He understood the nature of the story and its right genre.
Thus was how we were working, he was digging deep into the sound palette for a week or two and then he was sending me the final mix of the particular part of the film or just for a scene.
Interestingly I didn't meet him throughout the entire sound editing process, I worked with him only via skype and phone calls. Thus passed another few months and we were in December 2015, but he was very further away from completion with the final sound.
He was going to a really dark place, because he had never been in a position where he would receive 100% creative freedom to bring any ideas and thoughts about the film. As he says SOUND IS FREEDOM, so he got this freedom and it was a really demanding job to receive.
Kamen took the project very personally and was working as if he was the producer or the director of the film. He knew very well how we were producing the film, how we were raising the money about the project and what great amount of sacrifices we were doing in order to make it happen. He said that he won't charge us over what we had agreed, so basically he'd been paid for two months and He had worked two months above that in his expenses. He really wanted to prove that a great film, or a great micro budget film can sound really as if there were thrown lots of cash in it. Moreover he wanted to express his artistic vision in this film, he received the freedom to be free and he went 100% to not disappoint himself and the people who trusted him.
Kamen needed a few weeks to recover between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016. He was exhausted from the creative work, his health was trembled by the entire process too, he was experiencing one of the hardest periods of his life.
The post production phase, the communication with Emelina, Kamen and Pavel, about NoOne's sound and music was a time where I discovered the real magic of the sound and the music. They are the most powerful things which a human being knows, the most profound, universe, mystical, free and emotional tools which we've got. Everyone who works and lives playing with them has been blessed by the infinite.
Around February 2016 we got our sound completely finished. More than six months after its beginning. We were with a locked picture and sound, and what we needed was a great amount of luck and more dedication and hard work in the following couple of months. At least those were my thoughts back then. I was working parallel with the sound and music post production with the color grading of NoOne. A process in which I started to appreciate the colors, the light and the shadow and the variations between them.
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