Take the ’80s, time travel, Kung Fu, Hitler, the God of Thunder, dinosaurs and sprinkle a bit of David Hasselhoff on top.
These are just some of the ingredients in KUNG FURY, a ’80s action spoof by director David Sandberg that raised more than $600,000 on Kickstarter (vastly exceeding their $200k goal) – and it just clocked in 16 million views on YouTube. Chances are you’ve seen it shared in your Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds more than once, too.
It’s a crazy, fun project and I was curious to hear the story about the sound for it.
To find out, I managed to get in touch with Patrik Öberg, sound designer on Kung Fury. And below, he shares how he got involved with the project, what it’s like being part of a viral sensation, and just how he created that ’80s feel and atmosphere in sound. Foley artist Tapio Liukkonen also shares his foley approach for the project – and the brilliantly cunning way he landed the job in the first place:
The official trailer for Kung Fury
Hi Patrik, please introduce yourself and the sound team on Kung Fury. How did you get involved with the project?
My name is Patrik Öberg. I am a creative freak. I do music and sound design for a living. I run my own company Nakatomi (yes, named after the greatest action movie of all time: Die Hard.. You know, the one with the building and the Ho-ho-ho jokes?!) which mainly focus on producing music and sound for films, games and commercials.
Linus Andersson, who is one of the film’s producers, called me just before Christmas 2014 and asked if I was interested in doing the sound. Without knowing more than that , I said yes. They invited me to the filming of the music video for the song True Survivor, so we could talk more about what it was they wanted me to do. It was basically everything. Usually you get a team of at least 5 or 6 guys, working around the clock on a project like this.
But the budget was limited and they wondered if I could do it all. I was not sure if I had the time, but all I needed was to see when they set fire to a stuntman while another shot with a M16 Assault rifle in the same take, and that was it. I was hooked!
My work on Kung Fury was, obviously, to do the sound design and edit for the film, but I also did some of the music. I did some foley, voice acting, voice casting, ADR recording, ADR edit, and of course, the final mix.
I had some help from a former colleague of mine, Jonas Andersson, who did some of the sound effects for the Hackerman part. I have worked with Jonas for pretty much my whole career. Just recently we’ve gone our own ways, but he has been a huge support to me during this process!
I also had some help from excellent foley artist Tapio Liukkonen who, I’m sure, smacked the hell out of a couple of Nazi salad heads.
Kung Fury started out as a Kickstarter project and has now evolved into a huge online phenomenon. What’s it been like being part of this ride?
I know, right?! It’s crazy! It’s been a true pleasure. Hard work, yes, and many late nights, sure, but truly a blessing to be a part of this project, and to have the chance to work with some insanely talented and awesome creative people is a dream come true, I think, for every person that does this kind of job. And then, to go to Cannes Film festival (!) and watch the movie together with 5-600 people clapping their hands like I don’t know what and laughing their asses of throughout the whole half hour was worth every late night spent in the studio working on this film. No doubt!
Watch the full-length version of KUNG FURY:
Want to watch the full 30-minute version of Kung Fury? Check it out below:
What does the ’80s sound like to you – and what did you do to capture that sound and style in the film? Any approaches or tools for getting the ’80s sound and atmosphere that proved particularly useful?
The thing was that when I asked David if he really wanted that true 1987’s tacky sound to go all the way, or if we should do some contemporary design as well, mixed together, he said that’s exactly what he wanted. The best of both worlds. Because the VFX did not have the typical ’80s “stopmotion vs. cartoony” look, but rather more Hollywood crisp 2014 (I mean the T-rex looks better than freaking Spielberg’s dinosaurs!).
So we kind of hit it off immediately, and I guess he gave me a huge freedom to create from my heart. He is great that way. You have this tremendous respect for this guy who just goes out of his way to do something he wants and really loves, and on this scale, and with such finesse! So the last thing you want to do is to disappoint him or screw something up.
I did a lot of re-sampling of “today’s effects”, recorded in 44.100kHz/16 bit, and worked hard on getting the EQ and reverb to match the films from that era. For example, during the animated part, when Kung Fury “goes to heaven”, I looked at hours of cartoons from that time. Several of which were my favorites when I was I kid, like “Transformers”, “Silver Fang”, “He-man” and so on… I think I did a pretty good job with that one. Of course, Mitch Murder’s track in the background obviously helped!
I also decided to do the ADR deliberately off and recorded with typical voice-over mics to get that studio-speak feel to it. David, however, is a terrific actor; He was almost too good during the dubbing sessions and nailed it spot on, every time. So I felt kind of bad when I “unsynced” it – But I kept it pretty close to the truth, though.
Another thing was that.. David always brought a couple of chocolate bars with him to the studio, and I never really understood why he ate all that chocolate just before he recorded his lines, but I thought, well, just that he simply must be damn hungry for chocolate. But in the end I guess he saw me staring, and eventually told me his genius move behind this crazy routine. It was simply a means to sound like Batman. Good tip to you guys out there wanting that kind of voice but don’t know how to deliver :)
Kung Fury naturally has its own theme song, performed by none other than ’80s legend David Hasselhoff
What was your workflow like, and where did you get the sounds for the project?
At the beginning, I was given short, unrendered sequences that looked nothing like the movie you see today, with awesome VFX and great edit. I had to imagine a lot of the stuff that was going on, for example, in the background, people getting blown up or lazer beems flying around.
Many of the environments weren’t done or in place until late in the process so I had to essentially guess, and then adjust. But they told me how they wanted it to look, so it was a matter of waiting for the VFX department to get their stuff done and delivered to me to see if I was right or totally off.
I had a lot of creative freedom so I tested many different things before I felt happy with what I wanted to do. And both David and Nils (the editor) knows sound pretty good so if they had any ideas, I listened and tried to realize their visions. But mostly it was just me and my crazy head figuring out this mad, dinosaur-robot-WW2-Viking saga in my studio.
What were the most fun scenes to work on?
Every scene in this film was, as you can understand, a favorite scene to get your hands on. But if must pick something, I would say the anime part. Just trying to get that authentic 1985 cartoon anime feel was both challenging and hard but I am really happy about the result.
And making the Arcade machine come to life was also a really fun thing to do. It was one of the first scenes I designed!
I also got to do many of the characters voices/dubs, and I mean, it is not Oscar material.. but my Swedish-English-Japanese performance was pretty close to greatness, I think.
David Hasselhoff shares what it was like being involved with the project
Looking back at the project and its way to success, any advice or hard-earned lessons you’d like to share?
If David calls and tells you that he has a crazy, really out of this world, over the top, nobody-is-gonna-let-you-do-this idea, don’t hesitate! Do it. It is all worth it!
What has Kung Fury’s success meant for you as a sound designer?
I’ve learned a lot working on a project of this scale. And I made a lot of good friends that’s bound for great things in this line of work. I have gotten some offers to do more fun stuff after the summer so I will be looking into that of course, but first I will release a record with my band Block 44, and than I will have a couple of weeks off, away from the studio and the musts. But I’m sure it will be a crazy autumn, so I need to recharge my batteries and just do other stuff during the summer :)
A big thanks to Patrik Öberg and Tapio Liukkonen for sharing the story behind the sound for Kung Fury!