Director Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II – now in theaters – is an epic tale made for the big screen. Here, Phaze UK supervising sound editors Matthew Collinge and Danny Sheehan share details on how they created massive, reactive crowds, designed the sounds of battle, recorded custom-made arrows, and much more! As a bonus, we’ve also included an in-depth interview with composer Harry Gregson-Williams.
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When did you get involved with Gladiator II and what did Director Ridley Scott want you to tackle first? Were there specific scenes or sounds that he was most interested in hearing?
Matt Collinge (MC) & Danny Sheehan (DS): Ridley was keen to get our sound into the cut as soon as possible – we’re talking early assembly cut stage. Sound is an important factor for him in his judgment of a scene. The Numidian Roman sea and land battle came to us first. Ridley was very specific about wanting the Roman weaponry to feel more polished than the Numidian’s. This, he stipulated, should be heard down to the grade of metal that the Romans had in their swords. The contrast between the two sides’ weaponry helped give the scene a dynamic.
Ridley would also play sounds on set to get the crowds into the atmosphere of the scene. For example, for the Rhino battle in the Colosseum, we supplied the sound recordist with some early design for the Rhino roars which he then triggered on set.
Was there collaboration between the production sound and post sound teams? If so, what were some key sounds that you wanted to get from production? How did your early communication help to elevate the the film’s sound?
MC & DS: Creating the sound of the Colosseum was a big challenge. From the very beginning of the project, the direction from Ridley was that the crowd in the film had to feel like a character in and of itself. It needed to make a considerable contribution to the storytelling and creation of place so his audience could follow the rise (and fall) of the characters throughout the arc of the film. We approached the film editors Claire Simpson and Sam Restivo to see if we could organize going to the film set in Malta, so we could physically direct and record the extras ourselves. Ridley not only agreed to this but he also put us on the call sheet so at the end of his filming day – with the help of the production mixer Stéphane Bucher along with our team – we were able to take the extras to various locations around the set and record them.
We recorded very specific cheers, boos, near misses, character chants, “live,” “mercy,” etc. and built a “toolkit” of sorts that crowd and ADR editor Kasper Pedersen and sound effects editor Rob Prynne from our team at Phaze later layered and expanded upon, transforming the recordings into the tens of thousands you see on screen.
We recorded using a Sound Devices Scorpio as the center of the multi-mic setup. We had two Zoom F3 which fed into this. The F3s were recording at 96k/32-bit and the Scorpio at 96k/24-bit. We used a Sennheiser MHK 8040 Cardioid LCR array to capture the main source of the crowd and four LOM basicUcho omnidirectional mics at varying distances to catch a wider sound. All of this fed into the Scorpios where we could monitor and adjust gain for each of the mics. Using the F3s in this way meant other members of our team could monitor what they were capturing locally as they were some distance away. 7 channels of mics plus a stereo mix track were recorded on the day which gave us great flexibility during the tracklaying process.
How did you craft the sound of the massive, reactive crowds for the film? Were there any sound tools or plugins that helped you get the size and dimension you needed?
The Kyma by Symbolic Sound helped with this along with The Cargo Cult’s Envy.
We had some great crowd specifics that we recorded on set in Malta with the extras from the Colosseum scenes. This was very much the basis of the chants. We then, with the help of Kyma consultant Alan M. Jackson, built a Kyma patch where we could trigger multiple instances of these crowd records. Each “instance” would have a slight variation in terms of filtering, delays, and pitch and that allowed us to control the size of the crowd without losing definition. We then had some judiciously edited crowds from stadium events that were amplitude following (in Envy) the chants. This gave another layer and depth to the crowd and helped sell the size and space of it all.
Behind the music of Gladiator II, with composer Harry Gregson-Williams
Want the story behind Gladiator II’s music? Check out Dolby’s great interview with Harry Gregson-Williams – here’s their official introduction:
Renowned film composer Harry Gregson-Williams joins guest host Jon Burlingame to discuss his sweeping score for “Gladiator II,” the highly anticipated sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Academy Award®-winning classic. Having collaborated with Scott on seven films now, Gregson-Williams shares his approach to crafting a fresh sound for the world of Gladiator while also paying homage to Hans Zimmer’s iconic original score. From using ancient-inspired instruments and choirs, to experimenting with vocalists from around the globe, Gregson-Williams reveals how he wove together a richly textured score that enhances the film’s epic scale and emotional depth.
Watch the video interview here:
Hear the full score here:
What was your approach to the battle sound design?
MC & DS: One of the key aspects of the Numidian weaponry was to get a tonality to the incendiary terracotta pots that were fired from the trebuchets and ballistas, which sound designer Rowan Watson worked hard to get. We felt if this tonality could be a feature of the sound it would give character and allow more movement with the sound. There’s almost an orchestral structure to the frequency of the sounds of the battle with the bassy impacts against the sea defense walls and the cymbal-like splashes of the water impacts.
The rhythm of the sounds was also something we tried to focus on, to give definition within a shot. The swarm of arrow impacts sweep up in frequency but have a defined rhythm and the oars of the Roman vessels have a trilled ripple effect as they enter the water.
Bringing all these things together – tonality, variation in frequency between sounds, and their rhythm – hopefully made for a dynamic, cohesive sounding sequence.
Can you talk about how you created the sounds for the arrows?
MC & DS: For the arrows, we 3D-printed arrowheads which we then recorded in the studio and outside. There’s open-source code that allows you to decide the size and number of cavities on the arrowheads which in turn dictates the pitch and harmonics of the sound. Some were designed to match Qing dynasty arrowheads, which have a five-tier cavity inside.
We also found someone in the UK producing traditional metal-tipped Roman piles that whistled; these make up a lot of the sharper, more refined sounds for the Roman arrowheads.
Rob Prynne used these recordings to model a patch in the Kyma where we took the amplitude variation between the L and the R in the recordings and used this to create an algorithm that we could apply to other samples. We then mixed in animal and human screams and screeches which had their pitch mapped to this algorithm and made it feel as one with the original recordings.
What was the most challenging scene for sound design? Why? And what went into it?
MC & DS: The Rhino scene was quite a challenging one. Sound designer Alyn Sclosa did some fantastic design for the Rhino vocals here using elephants, walrus, camel, and some bison recordings.
The Rhino had to be big and aggressive but after it was injured in the battle, we wanted a shift in the emotion to being much more vulnerable. The picture edit of the scene helped the dynamics with the up-close cut to the Rhino charging to the wide angles of the Colosseum where we could use the roars to give a sense of the size of the Colosseum. The details of the Rhino harness and the dust of the Colosseum floor helped bind the bigger sounds together.
Where did you final mix the film?
MC & DS: We final mixed at Twickenham Studios. It’s a fantastic room and has a great team with Manav Kher (mix tech), Dan Turner (mix tech), and Craig Irving (Sound Post Manager).
What scene went through the most iterations on the dub stage? Can you talk about some of your mix options and what decisions ultimately supported the story the best in that scene?
MC & DS: Because we’d fed so much into the cut and temp mixed, there weren’t any big rethinks on the final mix stage. That’s where we hope to be so we can get into the intricacies of the mix and get the most out of the time we have on the stage.
The crowd definitely benefited from this time – mixing between ADR crowd loops (shot by Kasper Pedersen and Filipe Pereira at Goldcrest and Twickenham) to the aforementioned bigger crowd layers. We’d often try and land the clarity of the crowd chant with the individuals and then feed in the wider layers. Tom Melling (assistant re-recording mixer) also helped with the crowd stadium spread where he built into the mix session mono sub paths of the 5.1/7.1 reverbs which were then sent with a delay into the Dolby Atmos objects.
What have you learned while working on the sound of Gladiator II? Are there lessons or insights from this experience that you’ll carry forward in your sound career?
MC & DS: We went into the final mix with a stable cut and a director who backed us. The six weeks we had on the mix stage were productive and we were able to hone the sound of the film, trying to achieve the epic scale but also having the detail in amongst it. So much fine work went into the sound design from Alyn Sclosa, Michael Fentum, Rowan Watson, Rob Prynne, Paul Carter and Rob Turner and it was a mix that allowed that to shine.
A big thanks to Matthew Collinge and Danny Sheehan for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Gladiator II and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!