'Twas The Night Before Christmas

Ungh.  It’s about 10:00 pm and I just got back from Silver Sound Studios finishing the final edits on the Season Finale.  I was there for about 6 hours today as we’ve been pushing hard to get the episode ready for drop in little more than 24 hours. As many of you guys know by now, the episode has a run time of about an hour and forty minutes.  Now imagine stopping about once a minute for edits (this is our third draft – first drafts I usually stop once every 15 seconds) and you can see how just a simple “listen-through” can become a major time suck.

If I told anyone that you could be exhausted from listening to audio tracks, they’d say I was mixing tequila and codeine again.  The funny thing is, I barely physically move for the 6 hours.  The way it works in the studio is that Robin Shore and I sit frighteningly close to each other staring at the computer screen for hours on ends while running Vegas or Pro Tools.  Actually, Robin usually stares and I typically close my eyes and fold my hands in some pretentious Japanese manner to convey how deeply I’m listening.  I did that once after a red eye flight from L.A. and fell asleep only to have Robin deck me in the arm.  Hard.

But since we both have headphones on (usually at loud volume to pick up details in the soundscape), it’s hard to communicate verbally so we seem to have developed this set of subtle system of hand signals to indicate what I want done.  I saw myself doing it today and just started laughing when I realized that we’ve somehow created our own Leviathan sign language.  I swear I can flick my index finger a certain way and Robin knows exactly what I mean.  He’s amazing.  I can’t believe he puts up with me.  On the other hand, I’ve given the flick of my middle finger to other people and they seem to have no difficulty discerning my intention.

Almost all of the edits to the first draft involve spacing of dialog.  I cannot express how important this is to create a proper sounding audio drama and also what an incredible pain in the ass it is to do.  It takes HOURS to get it right.  I can completely alter the mood of a scene by delaying or speeding up the response of one character to another.  I know it sounds crazy but tenths of seconds really matter.  You don’t realize it but try listening to the way you and your friends talk.  You’d be amazed at how instantaneous your responses are.  My goal for Leviathan is to make the story and our characters sound as realistic as possible.  I think we do a better job than most in this regard.  So much of it comes down to dialog spacing.  I drive Robin crazy on this but it makes such a difference.

But my point is that by the final draft, I can listen more continuously and get a better sense of how the overall story and soundscape are shaping up.  And listening to Chapter 25, I really, truly got a strong sense of pride.  I loved hearing how the characters came together, how the various plot lines began to merge, and how well the effects resonated.  I know it sounds weird (“Hey Christof, didn’t you actually write this thing?”), but hearing it and writing are two completely different things.  The actors did such a great job, and I feel so lucky to have them working with me.  Listening to the whole chapter really gets my head spinning imagining all the spin-off stories I’d love to write in addition to Season 2.  Hope you guys enjoy the episode…