'Endure' Sound Editor Practices Addition, Subtraction

RICK RUNION | THE LEDGER

By Gary White

Published: Monday, November 16, 2009 at 4:16 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, November 16, 2009 at 10:49 p.m.

More than 80 years after motion pictures learned to talk, most viewers probably still regard sound as secondary to images in the movies.

Not Rick Morris. A veteran sound editor whose credits include the major-studio films "Face/Off" and "Blow," Morris knows that sonic elements are crucial to a movie's impact. Inaudible dialog can ruin a scene, whereas well chosen sounds can make an audience squirm, laugh or weep.

Morris, a 1977 graduate of Lakeland's Kathleen High School, is the sound design editor for "Endure," a Lakeland-based thriller whose progress The Ledger has been chronicling since its early stages. Morris, owner of the one-man company Maverick Sound in Winter Garden, has two general objectives for the small-budget film shot this spring: removing sounds that might detract from the story and adding sounds that will enhance it.

On a recent morning, Morris sat before three flat-panel computer monitors in his office, a crepuscular room with walls covered by blood red sound-dampening panels. Two mixing boards occupied his desk, their knobs and switches giving him command over every detail of the soundtrack.

Morris said he decided to be a sound man at age 12 as he watched a man at his church operate a four-channel sound board at services. Morris lat er learned more about sound mixing while playing bass guitar in a rock band.

Morris ventured to Hollywood in his early 20s and found work with one of the movie industry's premier sound companies. In addition to his film assignments, he worked on the TV shows "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order." He received an Academy Award nomination for best sound editing on the 1997 film "Face/Off."

Since returning to Florida, Morris has also done sound design for the likes of Universal Studios Florida, the Daytona Speedway and Kennedy Space Center.

Morris, a youthful 50, received the digital video files of "Endure" in mid-October. He said the sound editor's first task is to conduct an aural cleansing. He uses a computer program to remove unwanted noises, such as humming from air conditioners or electrical generators and camera crew clangor.

He also tweaks some vocal elements. He said "Endure" lead actor Judd Nelson has a much deeper voice than co-star Devon Sawa, prompting Morris to do some equalizing of pitch.

Morris adds sound in various ways. He layers on ambient noises, such as cricket drones, wind and thunder in outdoor scenes and background murmuring - known as "walla" - and ringing phones in interior scenes.

Morris' software program offers 96 separate audio tracks, 12 of which he has allotted for music. But Morris resists the temptation to fill every possible sonic nook.

"One thing I've learned from doing backgrounds is less is better," he said.

His role also involves "foley" work, the creation of sound effects to match visual actions.

"Basically, if you see it you have to hear it," Morris said. "If you see a car go by, you have to hear it. That's kind of the general rule."

A car crash occurs in the early moments of "Endure." Morris embellished the scene's recorded track, inserting sounds of a fracturing windshield, a ferocious thump as the car slams into a guardrail and the hiss of steam escaping a punctured radiator.

Other foley additions are less obvious. Morris inserts "body grab" audio and even the rustling of clothes, sounds often too subtle to register during filming.

Morris has a catalog of thousands of audio clips, but he often goes into the field to record fresh sounds. His office includes a soundproof booth, in which he regularly creates sound effects.

As the film's sound designer, Morris supplements the musical score of brothers Adam and Dennis Davidson with extra-musical noises.

"Sometimes in feature films I never get to hear the music," Morris said. "Independent films I love. I can usually interact directly with the composer and hear the music. I love to do sound design to actually make it part of the score. I hear the music, hear the pitch it's in, and I'll pitch things to make it part of the music."

He played the movie's opening scene, in which a young woman lies on a floor, a gag in her mouth. As she is dragged by the unseen kidnapper, an eerily warbling metallic sound blends with the music, compounding the sense of dread.

Lakeland resident Jim Carlton, the film's editor, said Morris' efforts are particularly important for the scenes in which the young woman, Daphne, is shown bound to a tree in the woods as the local police search for her.

"In this film, especially with Daphne on the tree and her inability to verbally communicate with the audience, the sound design is a critical element," Carlton said. "It's almost a character in and of itself. It's setting the mood and tone for each of the scenes."

Morris said his task is more than half finished. The producers are beginning to submit rough versions of "Endure" to film festivals and hope to have it completed in December.

Carlton spent months editing the film.,"It's amazing the difference from the sound we've given him and what he's added," Carlton said.

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. ]

NFocus to Produce Meetings for Publix

NFocus has been awarded the creative and technical management of the Publix Service Award meetings for the next five years (2010 – 2014). Each year more than 3,000 Publix employees and guests are recognized at five divisional shows for continued service representing 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45 years. NFocus won the job based on the presentation of creative concepts for theme, stage set, room décor, sound and lighting design, show agenda and logistics. Meetings begin next spring in Jacksonville, Miami, Atlanta and Orlando (2).

Publix employs over 140,000 associates and operates 1,015 stores across the southeast. With more than $24 billion in annual sales, they are among the Top 10 largest-volume supermarket chains in the U.S. For the past 12 years Publix has been recognized in Fortune’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For."

First Fest Submissions for 'Endure'

Pressing hard on 'Endure' this week to get first pass on coloring, sound design, and music done in time for works in progress submissions to Atlanta, Nashville, and DC fests.

Southern Wine & Spirits Shoot

Two days of this week were spent taping at Southern Wine & Spirits. NFocus is producing a video to be shared with employees introducing them to management philosophy and core business values.

ADFed Presentation

The NFocus gang will speak today on their feature film 'Endure' at the local Advertising Federation. Creating a 'buzz' on an indie film.

Southern Wine & Spirits Shoot

NFocus crew spent yesterday shooting at Southern Wine & Spirits. More shooting there on Friday.

ASCD Video

Check out this video we shot for ASCD http://video.ascd.org/services/player/bcpid18289911001?bclid=18291319001&bctid=44244958001.

You can also view it on their website at http://www.ascd.org.

http://video.ascd.org/services/player/bc...pid18289911001?bclid=18291319001&bctid=44244958001

Music for Polk Movie Coming From a Converted Garage

by Gary White of The Ledger

LAKELAND | There is a memorable scene from the movie "Amadeus" in which Emperor Joseph II, after hearing Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro," tells the composer the piece contains "too many notes."

Unlike the movie Mozart, the Davidson brothers don't take umbrage at such suggestions. Simplicity is their guiding principle as they create music for the low-budget detective thriller, shot in Polk County in April and May.

The Ledger has been following the film project with occasional reports since the filmmakers began seeking investors in 2007.

"This is not a movie like 'Star Wars,' where there's a grand orchestral theme that runs the length of the film," Adam Davidson said.

Instead, the Davidson brothers are putting together a small-scale, ambient score attuned to the conflicted state of the movie's protagonist, Emory Lane (played by Judd Nelson), a police detective pulled between his gravely ill wife and an urgent case. The music will lean toward keyboards and restrained guitar playing, with touches of violin and percussion.

Adam Davidson, 35, director of arts and worship at Lakeland's Trinity Presbyterian Church, provided music for O'Brien's short films "Blackwater Elegy" and "Wait." His chamber-music score for "Wait" won a silver medal for excellence the Park City Film Music Festival in Utah in 2007.

Adam Davidson read an early draft of O'Brien's script and has been close to the project all along. He also watched the shooting of several scenes and appears as an extra in one.

"Endure" has a budget of about $1.2 million, and Adam Davidson said all the money for the music went into recording equipment for his home studio, a converted garage. The Davidsons and the musicians they enlist will only be paid in the unlikely event the movie generates a soundtrack. O'Brien and his production partners, Rob Tritton and Jim Carleton, are still seeking a distribution deal.

Though the Davidsons want to create an uncluttered score, the process itself is complicated by geography - Adam lives in Lakeland and Dennis in Los Angeles. Dennis, 29, spent two months in Lakeland brainstorming ideas with Adam, and the pair now swap music files on a shared computer server.

The Davidsons began developing ideas well before they received the director's cut of "Endure" in mid-August. Adam said they aim to have the score complete by mid-October. He said Trinity Presbyterian is allowing him to devote one day a week to the project.

Sitting in his dimly lit studio , Adam Davidson played the opening 12 minutes of the movie, complete with music, on a large, flat-screen computer monitor.

The first sound heard is a countrified version of the hymn "The Old Rugged Cross" playing on a TV set. Adam Davidson arranged the tune, which is sung by Lakeland's Barbara Hart, an investor in the movie.

A short establishing scene yields to the opening credits and the main theme, which arose from an improvisation between Adam on piano and Dennis on lap steel guitar. For the finished version, Adam added accents on glockenspiel, a percussion instrument like a xylophone but with metal bars.

It is a somber piece, set mostly in the key of F minor, without a dominant melody. The title theme establishes musical ideas that will recur throughout the film.

"It was a good sense of accomplishment to get that musical piece finished and get our feet under us," Adam Davidson said.

Adam Davidson said the brothers want to craft two other distinct motifs, one for the scenes between Emory Lane and his ailing wife (Joey Lauren Adams) and another for a sinister character played by Tom Arnold.

Adam said the brothers' influences include Philip Glass, a minimalist composer known for rhythmic patterns that repeat with subtle variations, and Brian Eno, a pioneer of ambient music. Another model Adam cites is James Newton Howard's understated score for the 2007 film "Michael Clayton."

Adam Davidson said the average movie contains 30 to 60 minutes of music. He expects the "Endure" score to be on the low end of that spectrum. O'Brien describes the Davidsons' music as "integral but not pervasive."

Big-studio movies often include well-known pop songs. The "Endure" filmmakers don't have the budget to pay hefty licensing fees, so any music emanating from a TV or radio will likely be either an Adam Davidson composition or his arrangement of a song in the public domain.

For example, Adam wrote a country song to play on radios in successive early scenes. He has invited Rachel Plating of the Lakeland-based band Pemberley to sing it.

Adam Davidson said he talks to O'Brien regularly and plans to meet with the director at regular intervals to review the music. He said established film composers normally complete a score without consulting the director.

"I don't have confidence in my abilities enough to work that way," Adam said.

O'Brien, though, has plenty of confidence in Adam Davidson.

"What Adam is creating is essentially a story in its own right, and it really does help bring out a depth that we wouldn't get with just the picture and dialog alone," O'Brien said. "Sometimes it's surprising what results in our collaboration. I may come in with something in my mind, but when he's done working it's an altogether different feel and many times it's better."

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. ]

ASCD Shoot

An NFocus video crew spent the day of September 16 in Naples, FL video taping a promotional video for ASCD.

W. S. Badcock Annual Dealer Meeting

A crew from NFocus spent the week of September 10 - 13 in Savannah, GA producing W. S. Badcock's Annual Dealer Meeting. NFocus provided complete show services which included everything from direction to sound, lighting, video imaging and speaker support. This is the 10th year NFocus has provided such services for this event.

Endure - Picture Lock

We are almost at picture lock on 'Endure'. Adam and Dennis Davidson have already been hard at work on music scoring. They are coming up with some awesome stuff. From a creative perspective, the film is really starting to come together. Exciting.

Pickup Shots for 'Endure'

The NFocus crew spent two days doing some pick shots and reshooting some establishing shots for their feature film 'Endure'.

Post-Production Process For 'Endure'

By Gary White

THE LEDGER

Published: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 3:25 p.m.

RICK RUNION | The Ledger

Jim Carleton, producer-editor, works on the film "Endure" shot in Lakeland.

Jim Carleton leaned close to the flat-screen monitor, peering at the video image of a criminal profiler's face. As Carleton's right hand worked a computer mouse, the scene slid forward and backward, sometimes slowing to a frame at a time.

"... his use of restraints ..." the woman on the screen said. Carleton backed up, seeking the exact right moment to cut from one camera view to another.. " ... his use of restraints ..."

"This is the tedious part," Carleton said.

Carleton is in the midst of editing "Endure," a movie shot mostly in Lakeland in April and May. He hopes to complete a director's cut this week, after which the sound editor takes over.

Carleton, a partner in Lakeland's NFocus Visual Communications, has been a video editor for nine years. He and NFocus partners Joe O'Brien and Rob Tritton serve as producers on "Endure," a small-budget detective thriller written and directed by O'Brien. It stars Judd Nelson, Tom Arnold and Devon Sawa. The Ledger has been following the project since 2007.

The 16-day shoot ended May 10, and eight days later Carleton began editing the results. Carleton, 49, has been working 10- to 12-hour days in his dimly lit office, where he has an Apple Mac Pro computer and two large, flat-screen monitors at his command. He uses a program called Final Cut Pro to edit the footage, shot in digital video.

"Endure," like most movies, was shot out of script sequence, but Carleton edits it in narrative order.

Carleton said he's averaging about one minute of "rough cut" footage for every hour of editing, or about 10 minutes a day.

"I don't know if that's good or bad," he said of his editing pace. "I just know it's very time-consuming, but we're really liking what we're seeing."

The finished movie will be about 90 minutes long.

SCENE NO. 69

On a recent morning, Carleton began on scene 69, set in a fictional police station created inside the former Southside Baptist Church.

The scene opened with a split view of a hallway and a detectives' bullpen. The police captain, played by Dennis Neal, turned a corner into the hallway and rapped on an interior window for Detective Emory Lane (Judd Nelson).

Nelson rose to meet Neal at the front of the room. After a brief exchange about a dead kidnapper, the pair walked out of the room and down the hall, still talking.

Carleton scrutinized each take, looking not only for technical errors but also assessing the composition, the performances of all the actors, including extras, and the timing of the action.

In one take, a boom mike showed at the top of the frame. In another, Neal slightly flubbed a line. In another, Carleton noticed an extra failed to react to the chief's rap on the glass.

"There's a lot to pay attention to," he said.

During shooting, a digital time-code generator synchronized the sound and picture, but in some takes technical problems occurred and the audio and video did not match up. For those, Carleton had to do "old-school" editing, manually aligning image and sound through the visual cue of the black-and-white slate clapped before each scene.

TRIAL AND ERROR

Carleton said editing is a matter of trial and error. He splices a segment together and then watches the result to judge whether it works, often repeating the process many times until everything seems right. It took him 40 minutes to construct scene 69, which lasts about 20 seconds.

Carleton moved on to the next scene, a meeting of Nelson and Neal with a criminal profiler (Candace Rice) who suggests a second suspect may be involved in the kidnapping. He watched several takes of the scene from three camera positions.

"She did a good job in this scene," he said as Rice delivered her lines crisply in take after take.

Carleton decided on an opening shot of Rice seen over Nelson's shoulder with the camera panning slowly to the left. He cut in a reaction shot of Nelson and then cut back to a tighter image of Rice.

Carleton assembles segments of eight to 12 minutes and then consults O'Brien, who watches the footage and suggests revisions. Though this is their first feature film, the men have worked together for years and Carleton said he has a good sense of O'Brien's preferences. As a result, he said O'Brien rarely requests significant changes.

The "Endure" team's post-production schedule is geared toward having a finished version ready for submission to film festivals in the fall in the quest for a distribution offer.

"Since we're doing the editing here, we do have a little luxury in time," Carleton said. "If we took it somewhere else, we would have to adhere to a very tight schedule because it's money, money, money. Doing it here, we can be a little lax and make sure we get what we want."

Local Press Covers Endure Production

The local newspaper has covered Endure almost from conception. This past week, Ledger writer Gary White focused on filming in the South Lake Morton district of Lakeland:

Over the past two weeks, Lakeland has been transformed into Lakeridge, an outwardly placid small city punctured by unspeakable evil. The lawn of the Lakeland Public Library became a cemetery. The former Southside Baptist Church became a morgue, complete with a corpse on a slab. -- Residents Get a Taste of Hollywood in Their Own Back Yards

Ledger reporter Shoshana Walter has the crime beat, so it was only natural she wrote about Technical Advisor Gary Gross. The Lakeland Police Department Sergeant has been a tremendous asset to the film:

Gary Gross is used to the strange hours, the gore and the stress. The police profession has one of the highest rates of suicide and divorce, so he's used to the drama. Now the Lakeland police sergeant has helped bring it all to the film set of "Endure," the Polk-based crime thriller written and directed by Joe O'Brien. -- Lakeland Cop Fits Right Into Film

Walter also took an interesting look at how Lakeland women have responded to Devon Sawa's time in Lakeland:

Ever since “Endure” began filming three weeks ago, something strange has happened to the young women of Lakeland. We giggle. We blush. We fantasize. Why? Because Devon Sawa, one of the film’s stars, is in town. Our town. -- Girlhood Dreams Return Because of 'Endure' Star

Finally, White also published a series of tidbits from the production.

'Endure' Pre-Production

'Endure' Pre-Production Meeting

We are currently in pre-production on our feature film project. We begin principal photography on April 20. You can keep up to date on what is happening by checking the film's blog - enduremovie.blogspot.com.

Lakeland Filmmakers Snag Judd Nelson

By Gary White

THE LEDGER

The three Lakeland men behind the planned independent movie "Endure" are all in their 40s, meaning they were in target audience for the mid-1980s films "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire."

They remember John Bender, the shaggy-haired high school hoodlum from "The Breakfast Club," and Alec Newbary, the philandering post-collegian from "St. Elmo's Fire." Judd Nelson, one of a group of young actors of the era labeled "the brat pack," played those roles.

Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that when the three Lakelanders began mulling possible lead actors for their first feature film, their thoughts turned to Nelson, among other candidates.

Last week, with the arrival of Nelson's signature on an e-mailed contract, "Endure" took a massive leap toward becoming reality. Rob Tritton of Endure Pictures said Nelson has committed to playing the lead in the small-budget thriller. The Ledger has been following the filmmakers' venture in an ongoing series since 2007.

Having secured their lead actor, the filmmakers - producer Tritton, writer-director-producer Joe O'Brien and editor-producer Jim Carleton - have set a start date of April 20 for shooting, with a budget of about $1 million. The schedule calls for two weeks of shooting in Lakeland followed by a week in rural Polk County.

Nelson has agreed to portray Emory Lloyd, a small-town detective who leads a race to save a young woman bound to a tree somewhere in a vast wooded area. The script opens with a car crash that kills the kidnapper and reveals a photo of the woman.

"We're fortunate to get him; we're jazzed," O'Brien said. "He's got a pretty big following, and what's great about him, too, is I think his personality fits the role. It just seems to lend itself to this kind of pensive character that is our lead here. I think he's going to really excel at the part, and I'm just looking forward to working with him."

Nelson is scheduled to arrive in Lakeland the weekend before filming begins. Tritton said he expects to hire established Hollywood actors for another three or four roles, with the remaining parts going to Florida actors.

Nelson, 49, may be best known for his "brat pack" roles, but as O'Brien noted, he studied under the revered acting instructor Stella Adler. He had a recurring role on the Brooke Shields TV comedy "Suddenly Susan" in the 1990s, and he remains a busy actor, even if his roles are less prominent than they once were.

The three Lakeland men have been trying to turn O'Brien's script into a movie for about two years. They raised money from investors, and Tritton said those funds, combined with an expected rebate from the state of Florida, should cover the budget.

Last year, Endure Pictures forged a deal with a production company and announced plans to shoot the movie in Tennessee with an expanded budget. The filmmakers eventually returned to the original plan of shooting in Polk County, though Tritton said Endure Pictures retains a partnership with the Tennessee company.

The filmmakers hope to have a finished version ready for submission to the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

O'Brien co-wrote and co-directed the award-winning 2003 short film "Blackwater Elegy," shot in Lakeland and starring former "Northern Exposure" actors Barry Corbin and John Cullum. Based on that experience, O'Brien said he expects Nelson to add depth to the written version of Emory Lloyd.

"What's great about working with actors of his caliber is ... you can write something on paper and create a script, and you kind of build an image of the picture in your head, but when they get hold of it, it just really turns it into something much better than you could have imagined," O'Brien said.

NFocus Providing Services for Salvation Army Conference

NFocus producers and crew will be spending the week of March 13 - 18 providing live event production services for The Salvation Army’s triennial National Social Services Conference. NFocus will be providing sound, lighting, visual communication elements, live camera feeds and production direction as part of its event management services for this conference. The conference is being held at the Marriott in downtown Chicago. Volunteers, clergy, and social work administrators from all over the United States and Canada will gather together to advance The Salvation Army’s mission of practical Christian response to human need.

NFocus is excited to partner with The Salvation Army for the third time in support of the National Social Services Conference.

Aline's Gift Project

NFocus recently completed a promotional video project for the Women's Ministries Department of the Pen-Florida District office of the Assembly of God. The video will be used to raise funds for missionaries and their families. The fund-raising effort is entitled Aline's Gift, named after Aline Johnson a long-time supporter of missions work across the globe. NFocus produced, directed, and handled post-production throughout the entire project.

Endure Pictures Inks Deal with Judd Nelson

Endure Pictures has finalized negotiations with Judd Nelson for the lead role of Emory Lloyd in its feature project entitled Endure. Producers of
the project are excited to have landed Judd for the lead character. “He will bring a great wealth of experience and depth to the character – We are fortunate to have him.”, says director Joe O’Brien. Judd is best know for his work in The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, and New Jack City.

Endure is a crime thriller in which the main character Emory Lloyd must risk everything to identify and find a missing woman before it’s too late. Central Florida will serve as the backdrop for this fast-paced highly emotional film. With a principal photography start date of April 20, the project is being produced by NFocus Pictures in partnership with producer Philip Glasser and Hi-Def Entertainment out of Franklin, TN.

Judd Nelson was born and raised in Portland, Maine; the first of three children to (attorney) Leonard & (retired 5-term State Representative) Merle Nelson. After graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Judd attended Haverford/Bryn Mawr Colleges in Pennsylvania where he studied philosophy. He also began acting in college theatrical productions, and performing in "summer stock." Ultimately, Judd decided to leave college for NYC to study under the legendary acting teacher Stella Adler. After two years with Ms. Adler at her conservatory, Judd made his motion-picture debut in the film Fandango, and has been working in film, television, and theatre ever since.