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attackfishCommentators: Benjamin Wynn, sound designer, and Dee Bradley Baker, animal voices.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Hi everybody, may name is Benjamin Wynn. I am one half of the track team, and we do music and sound for Avatar. The other half is Jeremy Zuckerman.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And this is Dee Baker. I do the sounds of Momo [Momo churr] and Appa [Appa roar] and all the creatures that populate the magnificent world of Avatar.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And we’re going to talk about this show together. It’s the first time we’ve spoken together, so it’s kinda… It’s going to be fun.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Going to be interesting.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So my particular duties on the show are sound design. Um, Jeremy does music. So that’s pretty much what I’m going to be talking about.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And you do this after everything is already visually rendered and they send it to you.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Right, they give me all the animation when it’s completely done, and then we just add all the sound and the music.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And do you also do the music too, or is the music given to you separately?
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, simultaneously we do music.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh!
BENJAMIN WYNN: So one of us is working on music, one of us is working on sound.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh, so, so, so there’s a couple of you.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Two of us. Jeremy could not make it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Okay.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So I’m voicing his opinions.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Okay. All right, okay. And um, as far as what I do in the show, normally I’m given the show with no sound effects and no music and I get to watch through it and see what Momo and Appa and any of the other creatures might be doing, and I just kind of come up with ideas, and come into the booth, and uh, see what happens.
BENJAMIN WYNN: That’s right, so you, you do your stuff before any animation. Is that correct?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: No, no, mine’s all done after the animation. In this show. This almost always is done afterwards. Which is unusual, which is unusual.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So give me your inspiration for Momo right there.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Uh, well, there’s sort of an ape-like look to the little fella, which is [Makes ape-like noises] but like everything in the show, he is a kind of a combination of things, so there’s got to be something weird to him.
BENJAMIN WYNN: He’s not just a lemur.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: No, he’s not, he’sm and there’s kind of a contemplative softness to him, and so I kind of added a purring [purring churr] to him also. [Monkey chittering].
BENJAMIN WYNN: Do you give him thoughts, or do you just kind of go for it? Are you a method actor I guess I’m asking.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Laughs] Uh, I don’t know. Ultimately I think the show is specific enough, and one of the great things about it is everything about it is very specific and there’s a real depth to it, even if it’s a comedic thing or a light moment, and um, and so any sound I make, I’m trying to, I’m trying to say something with that I guess.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. Yeah, I’ve known Bryan for a while, Bryan and Mike, and when they were originally talking about this show, turns out the sound design is very realistic, it’s not, you know, it’s not like you hear that magic sound and magic stuff happens. It’s supposed to be very realistic, very detailed. So you know, which is pretty tough, I think it’s harder sometimes making something sound realistic than it is making it sound magical, you know.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Mmhmm.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Like all these glider wind sounds. You know it’s interesting, like sound design, in lots of respects, it’s successful if people don’t really notice it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Mmhmm. Yeah, I’m happiest too if uh, if nobody thinks, uh what’s… sounds like some guy’s doing an animal sound.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: If they just think of the animal making that sound.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. It’s such a huge help for the show, it’s amazing.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I hope so.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Here’s Aang feeling a little, a little competitive.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I don’t know how they do this, but part of what, to me, what makes Aang so appealing is he has these superpowers, and yet he’s a very vulnerable, kind of a sweet vulnerable kid, and you always kind of on his side, because there’s a vulnerability to his superpowers.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. Mmmhmm. Again, everything with this show, everything is just supposed, you know, just supposed to be as intense as possible, as like hyper-real as possible. Which makes a pretty fun sound design, actually.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Laughs] I love the humor in this show. I just love it. I think it’s a really funny show. Aha, the reveal.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
TEO: Hey! You're a REAL airbender! You must be the Avatar! That's amazing! I, I, I've heard stories about you.
AANG: Thanks.]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Just kicked your butt!
BENJAMIN WYNN: I was quite worried about how to do that wheelchair to be honest. Luckily Foley did a really good job. This was kind of fun, this whole ambiance, this like um, kinda kooky noisemaker inventor guy ambiance, who kinda lives in this, who invented this crazy world, so, always like pistons going off, and like industrial presses and stuff.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah you’re right, it’s something you never think about while watching it.
BENJAMIN WYNN: It’s fun.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: But it really does add the whole dimension to the world.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Actually a lot of those sounds, like those motors, some… My mom somehow started giving me all these like really silly little toys every Christmas, turns out I use every single one of them in the show, so…
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh neat!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Got these funny little red lips that make a sound, so that was the elevator right there.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Laughs]
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: This is supposed to be the history of my people.]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitating Aang’s voice] They made it into a theme-park!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Scary. We always wanted to do a show, completely just with mouth noises.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah!
BENJAMIN WYNN: I think that would be awesome.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: It's nice to see even one part of the temple that isn't ruined.
Just then, the statue Aang is referring to is blasted into pieces]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Ah! You ruined it! Aw, Dad!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Here’s the kooky dude.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: You know that a guy who says: “What the doodle,” is probably not evil.
BENJAMIN WYNN: I should start saying that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s probably, he’s probably just misguided.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Silly voice] What the doodle?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s made some bad choices, but he’s not a bad guy. What the doodle.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Right, totally, he’s got a good heart.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: This is a sacred temple! You can't treat it this way. I've seen it when the monks were here. I know what it's supposed to be like!
THE MECHANIST: The monks? But you're 12!
TEO: Dad, he's the Avatar. He used to come here a hundred years ago.
AANG: What are you doing? Who said you could be here?
THE MECHANIST: Hmmm, doing here... A long time ago, but not a hundred years, my people became refugees after a terrible flood (he gestures for effect to show the size of the flood, then stands behind his son's wheelchair). My infant son, Teo, was badly hurt-]
BENJAMIN WYNN: You can feel the love for his son, you really can.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: I needed somewhere to rebuild and I stumbled across this place. Couldn't believe it! Everywhere pictures of flying people.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: I would stay there too if I stumbled across it I think.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Sorry about destroying your wrecking ball and blowing a hole in the side of the sacred temple.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: They gave me an idea. Build a new life for my son, in the air! Then everyone would be on equal ground, so to speak. We're just in the process of improving upon what's already here and after all, isn't that what nature does?]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Aww, crying. [Makes dramatic crying noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Getting so wrapped up… I’m just getting so wrapped up in watching this, I’m kind of just paying attention.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: The most boring DVD commentary ever.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Laughs] This was actually was a very hard sound design to do, believe it or not [Referring to the time-telling candle with exploding noises]. I think we ended up getting those uh snaps, you know those little toy snaps that are thrown down and they kind of explode.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Uh huh, yes.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: If you like that, wait till you see my finger safe knife sharpener! [Shows off three wooden fingers, removes them, and throws them to Sokka] Only took me three tries to get it right!
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Cackle]
BENJAMIN WYNN: I guess if there’s anything we can give to anybody watching this is that, if you’re a kid and you’re trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, I think we’re two good examples that you can pretty much do whatever you want when you grow up.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: As long as you follow doing what you like.
BENJAMIN WYNN: You can make sounds with your mouth, or with your computer.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes vaguely arachnid noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: What sound was that?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Referring to the hermit crap spider hybrid] What that little… What sound would that make?
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh man.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: That’s all I do when I watch these things is think what is that? What is that sound is that gonna be? What might that be?
BENJAMIN WYNN: How many takes does it take you to do these sounds?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Usually they like my first idea, maybe they modify it, or we end up modifying it a little bit, but they usually like what I do when I bring it.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So you’re something like a genius.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: No! No no. [Laughes] Nothing like that. I just like creatures. I always liked watching monster movies when I was a little kid.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Can you do bees? And insects and flies and stuff?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [referring to the sound from the hermit crab spider hybrid in the show] Oh, that was me.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Nice.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes hermit crab spider hybrid noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Make fart noises]
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: It’s filled to the brim with natural gas]
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Make more fart noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Kids, once again, you can do anything when you grow up.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitating the Mechanist] It’s filled to the brim with this plot device. We’ll release it later.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Salami Studios, the mixing, uh, the place where it gets mixed, they do a real good job too, the, you know, the mixing reverb and the sounds, and sort of placing stuff in the environment.
Sometimes I do the ADR over there, usually it’s over here at Nickelodean.
BENJAMIN WYNN: There’s another windy section. I love this music, so epic.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah, it really is. It’s just got a beautiful epic sense of spirit, and it’s also got the comedy right, it’s got the sweetness right, it’s got all these different elements that just beautifully-
[Interjection of Momo churring from the episode]
BENJAMIN WYNN: And it’s got you.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes Momo noises] It’s so easy to let these images just uh, suggest a sound to me.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, same with me, I mean you know, we do spotting sessions, each, before each episode, and you know, we sit down and watch the whole thing and go over notes and Bryan and Mike tell us what they’re thinking for each scene, but honestly um, the images are so descriptive that-
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah.
BENJAMIN WYNN: That I can get almost all the information from the images.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: The relationships are also so clear, and the plight of whatever people is also so clear, that you, that uh, I’m sure that suggests the tone that you want as well.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. I love Sokka, I think he’s hysterical.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh, he’s got really funny.
BENJAMIN WYNN: He’s really funny.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s kinda changed-
BENJAMIN WYNN: Uh huh.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: From Mr. Complainer to uh…
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Referring to the wind lock] This sound is kind of fun, we took a flute.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Ooo! Was that a computer? That looked like a computer animation.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah it was, I believe.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I’m commenting on things I don’t know anything about now.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Laughs]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Those things are many.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
SOKKA: If we put a whole mess of rotten eggs in the cellar where the gas seeps up…
THE MECHANIST: The gas will mix with the smell of rotten eggs...]
BENJAMIN WYNN: They’re best friends.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes farting sounds]
BENJAMIN WYNN: They should do a Smell-O-Vision feature.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
SOKKA and THE MECHANIST: You’re a genius!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Referring to the alarm bell ringing] There’s my bell!
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: What, like your doorbell?
BENJAMIN WYNN: It was chimes, yeah.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Referring to Teo, Aang, and Katara finding the Fire Nation war balloon] Ah, uh oh!
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: This is a nightmare.
THE MECHANIST: You don't understand.
AANG: You're making weapons for the Fire Nation!
SOKKA: You make weapons for the Fire Nation!?
TEO: Explain all this! Now!
THE MECHANIST: It was about a year after we moved here. Fire Nation soldiers found our settlement.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Another little tidbit of sound most people generally don’t notice is that howling ominous wind.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: I pleaded with them, I begged them to spare us. They asked what I had to offer. I offered... my services. You must understand, I did this for you!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: What would you do if your dad… If he was making weapons for the Fire Nation?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I’d turn my wheelchair aside, if I found out.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And shrug. With angst.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: When are they coming?
THE MECHANIST: Soon. [Spark candle pops] Very soon.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yet another hard sound to do for some reason. Candles don’t make a lot of recordable noise.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: So what do you do when you’re stumped? Do you just kind of, kind of start knocking things over and… Where do you start?
BENJAMIN WYNN: I start blowing stuff up. Uh, you know…
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Do you walk around the room and start flicking things and banging on things, or…
BENJAMIN WYNN: Nah, you have a general idea what type of category of sound so you know, you just get a vocabulary of where to look for that category of sound. And I’m sure it’s much the same with you and your vocal chords, or whatever. But you know, the sound kind of dictates where you’re going to look for it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Mmhmm.
BENJAMIN WYNN: A lot of these, a lot of the fire sounds are, are voice, actually. You might appreciate that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Hmm.
BENJAMIN WYNN: We recorded a lot of like, vocal explosions, like: [Makes a vocal explosion.]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh neat.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And then just processed them. Even for Aang a lot, we just kind of go wind, [Makes vocal wind sound].
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Wow.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And then um, you know, we’d take them and process them, and use them. A lot of the sounds are. Almost all of the firebending sounds are.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Neat!
BENJAMIN WYNN: From our voice. Yeah. It’s really amazing the um, range of sounds that the voice can produce, reproduce.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: It’s insane the stuff you can do with your voice. Like I work on trying to come up with stuff every day, and I just, it’s just, the freaky stuff that the voice was never designed to do, it’s just, it’s pretty amazing.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I’ll probably asphyxiate someday just making some stupid sound.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Another way we’ll use our voice is if you’ve got like a fire sound, and it’s like a raging forest fire, and you want it to follow the animation, because animation is like very dynamic. So you can take like a microphone, have the sound playing, and then follow the envelope of your voice and imply it to the sound, and so, you just kind of go [Makes vocal puffs] if that’s the action, and then the fire will do that, it will follow the envelope of the voice.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Wow
BENJAMIN WYNN: And then do that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Huh.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: Never underestimate the power of stink!]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh no, I’ve got two pugs. I know that, all too well.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And a baby, don’t you?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, here we start the incredibly long, epic battle, and the Appa
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes Appa and Momo noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: This scene was quite uh, intense, sound design wise, and music wise. We had to make that crowd sound huge, like it was like the sound of three people.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I love the uh, syncopation there. One two THREE ONE two three, ONE two, duh da…
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, these crazy huge tanks are coming.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yes, I just now remembered them actually.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, with these crazy grappling hooks.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: They’re digital, aren’t they? As I remember, they’re like…
BENJAMIN WYNN: I don’t think so.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Really?
BENJAMIN WYNN: These sounds were intense.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
FIRE NATION OFFICER: Take them out of the sky, now!]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh, that was me.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, you did the-
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Take them out of the sky, now!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Lots of explosions, avalanche.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I really respect that this show doesn’t have all these little cutesy phrases, you know, like when you’re dumping snow on people, you don’t say like “Hope you like your snow cones cold!” or something like that, you know. They commit to the universe that it comes from.
BENJAMIN WYNN: There, there’s those grappling hooks. I like that sound. Another trick is when you have one sound and you need to make it lots of sounds, it’s pretty tough. But you can actually, I mean we’ve built these kinds of things where you can repeat it with all these random variables like pitch and amplitude and panning, and then like you can turn one sound into many sounds.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I love how this show, it just surprises me. It’s just every show, it’s got inventions that just continually emerge from the story.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Well this show is, the story in this show is incredible.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: She that looks… That looks computer generated to me somehow.
BENJAMIN WYNN: All those fire Doppler sounds, those are fun. Man, looking back on this show, it just astounds me just how much work goes into it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I can’t imagine, just conceptually.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And the schedule is like two weeks, so… Like you were asking about what if I can’t come up with a sound, what would I do, I pretty much don’t have time to like experiment, you know. I think I don’t have time to be stumped for too long. Which can be a good thing, because you come up with stuff that you wouldn’t. You have less time to be scared.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And you’ve got a whole catalogue of sounds in your head, you know where it all is and where it comes from, you just kind of dial it up, I imagine.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah but on this show there’s always, like you said, on this show, there’s always something new that needs some new crazy sound effect. And it’s always something hyperrealistic, you know, like ice magic. There is no ice magic in the world, so.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And yet it’s utterly believable. There’s such a believability to all of this stuff in the way that’s rendered that just really knocks me out. And they maintain the drama of this so beautifully by, you’ve got these big metal horrible machines verses kind of little paper gliders.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And spirit, yeah.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And these people with no armor, I mean it’s, it’s really…
BENJAMIN WYNN: And he’s twelve years old. He’s quite the underdog.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: It’s all these seemingly incidental elements that must have been so thought through and fit together so beautifully.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. This thing [Referring to the war balloon] was kind of fun to make sounds for, because it’s this huge thing, but it’s supposed… He made it, and he’s kind of like rickety and crazy, so... So it needs to sound huge but also kind of fragile, you know, like not, not built to specifications.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
SOKKA: Oh no, that was the last one!
THE MECHANIST: Wait a second, You smell that?
SOKKA: Rotten eggs! There! That’s where the gas is escaping!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Smell-o-vision.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Fart noises]
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: What are you doing? That's our fuel source!
SOKKA: It's the only bomb we've got!]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s become a much more active element in the stories. He’s actually helping out here.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Here’s a big explosion.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Because I remember early on, he was just kind of putting the breaks on everything.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Referring to the explosion] Oh yeah!
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Nice!
BENJAMIN WYNN: That’s what it’s all about.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Silly voice] That’s the big explosion, the bad guys all went away.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: Look! They’re retreating!
CROWD: [Cheers]
SOKKA: [Screams] We’re going down!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Honestly, those huge moments are the most fun for me. The ones that are just totally off the wall. And you know, this was really the first show that I’ve worked on like this, so it’s kind of fun, you can see how you solve these problems, and all the things you invented, and how you did it, and it’s and how you can keep on using that. You kind of build a vocabulary.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes hermit crab-spider noises] There’s kind of a little ratchet sound in there.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, I like that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Very small, very incidental, and yet it’s nice to have a little life to it, you know.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, totally.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitating the Mechanist] We should never have invented that trap door that the Fire Nation could come through.
BENJAMIN WYNN: I like this ending. Very ominous.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
WAR MINISTER QIN: This defeat is the gateway to many victories.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: That leaves you wanting more, if nothing else.
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Evil.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Well, there we are, thanks everybody. Thank you Dee. I love this ending too.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Wow, what’s this?
BENJAMIN WYNN: I don’t know. This ending never shows on TV. They always make it smaller and talk about what’s coming up next. And this is like my favorite music.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitates the music]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, we did like Kecak, We did like Balinese chants. So that’s Jeremy and me on vocals.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Ohhh, you got the triplet going on in the background. I like that.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And that’s Jeremy on flute. Actually that’s me and Jeremy on flute.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Hi everybody, may name is Benjamin Wynn. I am one half of the track team, and we do music and sound for Avatar. The other half is Jeremy Zuckerman.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And this is Dee Baker. I do the sounds of Momo [Momo churr] and Appa [Appa roar] and all the creatures that populate the magnificent world of Avatar.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And we’re going to talk about this show together. It’s the first time we’ve spoken together, so it’s kinda… It’s going to be fun.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Going to be interesting.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So my particular duties on the show are sound design. Um, Jeremy does music. So that’s pretty much what I’m going to be talking about.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And you do this after everything is already visually rendered and they send it to you.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Right, they give me all the animation when it’s completely done, and then we just add all the sound and the music.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And do you also do the music too, or is the music given to you separately?
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, simultaneously we do music.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh!
BENJAMIN WYNN: So one of us is working on music, one of us is working on sound.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh, so, so, so there’s a couple of you.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Two of us. Jeremy could not make it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Okay.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So I’m voicing his opinions.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Okay. All right, okay. And um, as far as what I do in the show, normally I’m given the show with no sound effects and no music and I get to watch through it and see what Momo and Appa and any of the other creatures might be doing, and I just kind of come up with ideas, and come into the booth, and uh, see what happens.
BENJAMIN WYNN: That’s right, so you, you do your stuff before any animation. Is that correct?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: No, no, mine’s all done after the animation. In this show. This almost always is done afterwards. Which is unusual, which is unusual.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So give me your inspiration for Momo right there.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Uh, well, there’s sort of an ape-like look to the little fella, which is [Makes ape-like noises] but like everything in the show, he is a kind of a combination of things, so there’s got to be something weird to him.
BENJAMIN WYNN: He’s not just a lemur.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: No, he’s not, he’sm and there’s kind of a contemplative softness to him, and so I kind of added a purring [purring churr] to him also. [Monkey chittering].
BENJAMIN WYNN: Do you give him thoughts, or do you just kind of go for it? Are you a method actor I guess I’m asking.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Laughs] Uh, I don’t know. Ultimately I think the show is specific enough, and one of the great things about it is everything about it is very specific and there’s a real depth to it, even if it’s a comedic thing or a light moment, and um, and so any sound I make, I’m trying to, I’m trying to say something with that I guess.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. Yeah, I’ve known Bryan for a while, Bryan and Mike, and when they were originally talking about this show, turns out the sound design is very realistic, it’s not, you know, it’s not like you hear that magic sound and magic stuff happens. It’s supposed to be very realistic, very detailed. So you know, which is pretty tough, I think it’s harder sometimes making something sound realistic than it is making it sound magical, you know.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Mmhmm.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Like all these glider wind sounds. You know it’s interesting, like sound design, in lots of respects, it’s successful if people don’t really notice it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Mmhmm. Yeah, I’m happiest too if uh, if nobody thinks, uh what’s… sounds like some guy’s doing an animal sound.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: If they just think of the animal making that sound.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. It’s such a huge help for the show, it’s amazing.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I hope so.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Here’s Aang feeling a little, a little competitive.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I don’t know how they do this, but part of what, to me, what makes Aang so appealing is he has these superpowers, and yet he’s a very vulnerable, kind of a sweet vulnerable kid, and you always kind of on his side, because there’s a vulnerability to his superpowers.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. Mmmhmm. Again, everything with this show, everything is just supposed, you know, just supposed to be as intense as possible, as like hyper-real as possible. Which makes a pretty fun sound design, actually.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Laughs] I love the humor in this show. I just love it. I think it’s a really funny show. Aha, the reveal.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
TEO: Hey! You're a REAL airbender! You must be the Avatar! That's amazing! I, I, I've heard stories about you.
AANG: Thanks.]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Just kicked your butt!
BENJAMIN WYNN: I was quite worried about how to do that wheelchair to be honest. Luckily Foley did a really good job. This was kind of fun, this whole ambiance, this like um, kinda kooky noisemaker inventor guy ambiance, who kinda lives in this, who invented this crazy world, so, always like pistons going off, and like industrial presses and stuff.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah you’re right, it’s something you never think about while watching it.
BENJAMIN WYNN: It’s fun.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: But it really does add the whole dimension to the world.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Actually a lot of those sounds, like those motors, some… My mom somehow started giving me all these like really silly little toys every Christmas, turns out I use every single one of them in the show, so…
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh neat!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Got these funny little red lips that make a sound, so that was the elevator right there.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Laughs]
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: This is supposed to be the history of my people.]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitating Aang’s voice] They made it into a theme-park!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Scary. We always wanted to do a show, completely just with mouth noises.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah!
BENJAMIN WYNN: I think that would be awesome.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: It's nice to see even one part of the temple that isn't ruined.
Just then, the statue Aang is referring to is blasted into pieces]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Ah! You ruined it! Aw, Dad!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Here’s the kooky dude.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: You know that a guy who says: “What the doodle,” is probably not evil.
BENJAMIN WYNN: I should start saying that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s probably, he’s probably just misguided.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Silly voice] What the doodle?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s made some bad choices, but he’s not a bad guy. What the doodle.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Right, totally, he’s got a good heart.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: This is a sacred temple! You can't treat it this way. I've seen it when the monks were here. I know what it's supposed to be like!
THE MECHANIST: The monks? But you're 12!
TEO: Dad, he's the Avatar. He used to come here a hundred years ago.
AANG: What are you doing? Who said you could be here?
THE MECHANIST: Hmmm, doing here... A long time ago, but not a hundred years, my people became refugees after a terrible flood (he gestures for effect to show the size of the flood, then stands behind his son's wheelchair). My infant son, Teo, was badly hurt-]
BENJAMIN WYNN: You can feel the love for his son, you really can.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: I needed somewhere to rebuild and I stumbled across this place. Couldn't believe it! Everywhere pictures of flying people.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: I would stay there too if I stumbled across it I think.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Sorry about destroying your wrecking ball and blowing a hole in the side of the sacred temple.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: They gave me an idea. Build a new life for my son, in the air! Then everyone would be on equal ground, so to speak. We're just in the process of improving upon what's already here and after all, isn't that what nature does?]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Aww, crying. [Makes dramatic crying noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Getting so wrapped up… I’m just getting so wrapped up in watching this, I’m kind of just paying attention.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: The most boring DVD commentary ever.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Laughs] This was actually was a very hard sound design to do, believe it or not [Referring to the time-telling candle with exploding noises]. I think we ended up getting those uh snaps, you know those little toy snaps that are thrown down and they kind of explode.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Uh huh, yes.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: If you like that, wait till you see my finger safe knife sharpener! [Shows off three wooden fingers, removes them, and throws them to Sokka] Only took me three tries to get it right!
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Cackle]
BENJAMIN WYNN: I guess if there’s anything we can give to anybody watching this is that, if you’re a kid and you’re trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, I think we’re two good examples that you can pretty much do whatever you want when you grow up.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: As long as you follow doing what you like.
BENJAMIN WYNN: You can make sounds with your mouth, or with your computer.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes vaguely arachnid noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: What sound was that?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Referring to the hermit crap spider hybrid] What that little… What sound would that make?
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh man.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: That’s all I do when I watch these things is think what is that? What is that sound is that gonna be? What might that be?
BENJAMIN WYNN: How many takes does it take you to do these sounds?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Usually they like my first idea, maybe they modify it, or we end up modifying it a little bit, but they usually like what I do when I bring it.
BENJAMIN WYNN: So you’re something like a genius.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: No! No no. [Laughes] Nothing like that. I just like creatures. I always liked watching monster movies when I was a little kid.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Can you do bees? And insects and flies and stuff?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [referring to the sound from the hermit crab spider hybrid in the show] Oh, that was me.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Nice.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes hermit crab spider hybrid noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Make fart noises]
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: It’s filled to the brim with natural gas]
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Make more fart noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Kids, once again, you can do anything when you grow up.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitating the Mechanist] It’s filled to the brim with this plot device. We’ll release it later.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Salami Studios, the mixing, uh, the place where it gets mixed, they do a real good job too, the, you know, the mixing reverb and the sounds, and sort of placing stuff in the environment.
Sometimes I do the ADR over there, usually it’s over here at Nickelodean.
BENJAMIN WYNN: There’s another windy section. I love this music, so epic.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah, it really is. It’s just got a beautiful epic sense of spirit, and it’s also got the comedy right, it’s got the sweetness right, it’s got all these different elements that just beautifully-
[Interjection of Momo churring from the episode]
BENJAMIN WYNN: And it’s got you.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes Momo noises] It’s so easy to let these images just uh, suggest a sound to me.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, same with me, I mean you know, we do spotting sessions, each, before each episode, and you know, we sit down and watch the whole thing and go over notes and Bryan and Mike tell us what they’re thinking for each scene, but honestly um, the images are so descriptive that-
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah.
BENJAMIN WYNN: That I can get almost all the information from the images.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: The relationships are also so clear, and the plight of whatever people is also so clear, that you, that uh, I’m sure that suggests the tone that you want as well.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. I love Sokka, I think he’s hysterical.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh, he’s got really funny.
BENJAMIN WYNN: He’s really funny.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s kinda changed-
BENJAMIN WYNN: Uh huh.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: From Mr. Complainer to uh…
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Referring to the wind lock] This sound is kind of fun, we took a flute.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Ooo! Was that a computer? That looked like a computer animation.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah it was, I believe.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I’m commenting on things I don’t know anything about now.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Laughs]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Those things are many.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
SOKKA: If we put a whole mess of rotten eggs in the cellar where the gas seeps up…
THE MECHANIST: The gas will mix with the smell of rotten eggs...]
BENJAMIN WYNN: They’re best friends.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes farting sounds]
BENJAMIN WYNN: They should do a Smell-O-Vision feature.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
SOKKA and THE MECHANIST: You’re a genius!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Referring to the alarm bell ringing] There’s my bell!
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: What, like your doorbell?
BENJAMIN WYNN: It was chimes, yeah.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Referring to Teo, Aang, and Katara finding the Fire Nation war balloon] Ah, uh oh!
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: This is a nightmare.
THE MECHANIST: You don't understand.
AANG: You're making weapons for the Fire Nation!
SOKKA: You make weapons for the Fire Nation!?
TEO: Explain all this! Now!
THE MECHANIST: It was about a year after we moved here. Fire Nation soldiers found our settlement.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Another little tidbit of sound most people generally don’t notice is that howling ominous wind.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: I pleaded with them, I begged them to spare us. They asked what I had to offer. I offered... my services. You must understand, I did this for you!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: What would you do if your dad… If he was making weapons for the Fire Nation?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I’d turn my wheelchair aside, if I found out.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And shrug. With angst.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: When are they coming?
THE MECHANIST: Soon. [Spark candle pops] Very soon.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yet another hard sound to do for some reason. Candles don’t make a lot of recordable noise.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: So what do you do when you’re stumped? Do you just kind of, kind of start knocking things over and… Where do you start?
BENJAMIN WYNN: I start blowing stuff up. Uh, you know…
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Do you walk around the room and start flicking things and banging on things, or…
BENJAMIN WYNN: Nah, you have a general idea what type of category of sound so you know, you just get a vocabulary of where to look for that category of sound. And I’m sure it’s much the same with you and your vocal chords, or whatever. But you know, the sound kind of dictates where you’re going to look for it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Mmhmm.
BENJAMIN WYNN: A lot of these, a lot of the fire sounds are, are voice, actually. You might appreciate that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Hmm.
BENJAMIN WYNN: We recorded a lot of like, vocal explosions, like: [Makes a vocal explosion.]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh neat.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And then just processed them. Even for Aang a lot, we just kind of go wind, [Makes vocal wind sound].
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Wow.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And then um, you know, we’d take them and process them, and use them. A lot of the sounds are. Almost all of the firebending sounds are.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Neat!
BENJAMIN WYNN: From our voice. Yeah. It’s really amazing the um, range of sounds that the voice can produce, reproduce.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: It’s insane the stuff you can do with your voice. Like I work on trying to come up with stuff every day, and I just, it’s just, the freaky stuff that the voice was never designed to do, it’s just, it’s pretty amazing.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I’ll probably asphyxiate someday just making some stupid sound.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Another way we’ll use our voice is if you’ve got like a fire sound, and it’s like a raging forest fire, and you want it to follow the animation, because animation is like very dynamic. So you can take like a microphone, have the sound playing, and then follow the envelope of your voice and imply it to the sound, and so, you just kind of go [Makes vocal puffs] if that’s the action, and then the fire will do that, it will follow the envelope of the voice.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Wow
BENJAMIN WYNN: And then do that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Huh.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: Never underestimate the power of stink!]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh no, I’ve got two pugs. I know that, all too well.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And a baby, don’t you?
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yeah.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, here we start the incredibly long, epic battle, and the Appa
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes Appa and Momo noises]
BENJAMIN WYNN: This scene was quite uh, intense, sound design wise, and music wise. We had to make that crowd sound huge, like it was like the sound of three people.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I love the uh, syncopation there. One two THREE ONE two three, ONE two, duh da…
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, these crazy huge tanks are coming.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Yes, I just now remembered them actually.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, with these crazy grappling hooks.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: They’re digital, aren’t they? As I remember, they’re like…
BENJAMIN WYNN: I don’t think so.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Really?
BENJAMIN WYNN: These sounds were intense.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
FIRE NATION OFFICER: Take them out of the sky, now!]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Oh, that was me.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Oh, you did the-
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Take them out of the sky, now!
BENJAMIN WYNN: Lots of explosions, avalanche.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I really respect that this show doesn’t have all these little cutesy phrases, you know, like when you’re dumping snow on people, you don’t say like “Hope you like your snow cones cold!” or something like that, you know. They commit to the universe that it comes from.
BENJAMIN WYNN: There, there’s those grappling hooks. I like that sound. Another trick is when you have one sound and you need to make it lots of sounds, it’s pretty tough. But you can actually, I mean we’ve built these kinds of things where you can repeat it with all these random variables like pitch and amplitude and panning, and then like you can turn one sound into many sounds.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I love how this show, it just surprises me. It’s just every show, it’s got inventions that just continually emerge from the story.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Well this show is, the story in this show is incredible.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: She that looks… That looks computer generated to me somehow.
BENJAMIN WYNN: All those fire Doppler sounds, those are fun. Man, looking back on this show, it just astounds me just how much work goes into it.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: I can’t imagine, just conceptually.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And the schedule is like two weeks, so… Like you were asking about what if I can’t come up with a sound, what would I do, I pretty much don’t have time to like experiment, you know. I think I don’t have time to be stumped for too long. Which can be a good thing, because you come up with stuff that you wouldn’t. You have less time to be scared.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And you’ve got a whole catalogue of sounds in your head, you know where it all is and where it comes from, you just kind of dial it up, I imagine.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah but on this show there’s always, like you said, on this show, there’s always something new that needs some new crazy sound effect. And it’s always something hyperrealistic, you know, like ice magic. There is no ice magic in the world, so.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And yet it’s utterly believable. There’s such a believability to all of this stuff in the way that’s rendered that just really knocks me out. And they maintain the drama of this so beautifully by, you’ve got these big metal horrible machines verses kind of little paper gliders.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And spirit, yeah.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: And these people with no armor, I mean it’s, it’s really…
BENJAMIN WYNN: And he’s twelve years old. He’s quite the underdog.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: It’s all these seemingly incidental elements that must have been so thought through and fit together so beautifully.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Mmhmm. This thing [Referring to the war balloon] was kind of fun to make sounds for, because it’s this huge thing, but it’s supposed… He made it, and he’s kind of like rickety and crazy, so... So it needs to sound huge but also kind of fragile, you know, like not, not built to specifications.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
SOKKA: Oh no, that was the last one!
THE MECHANIST: Wait a second, You smell that?
SOKKA: Rotten eggs! There! That’s where the gas is escaping!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Smell-o-vision.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Fart noises]
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
THE MECHANIST: What are you doing? That's our fuel source!
SOKKA: It's the only bomb we've got!]
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: He’s become a much more active element in the stories. He’s actually helping out here.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Here’s a big explosion.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Because I remember early on, he was just kind of putting the breaks on everything.
BENJAMIN WYNN: [Referring to the explosion] Oh yeah!
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Nice!
BENJAMIN WYNN: That’s what it’s all about.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Silly voice] That’s the big explosion, the bad guys all went away.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
AANG: Look! They’re retreating!
CROWD: [Cheers]
SOKKA: [Screams] We’re going down!]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Honestly, those huge moments are the most fun for me. The ones that are just totally off the wall. And you know, this was really the first show that I’ve worked on like this, so it’s kind of fun, you can see how you solve these problems, and all the things you invented, and how you did it, and it’s and how you can keep on using that. You kind of build a vocabulary.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Makes hermit crab-spider noises] There’s kind of a little ratchet sound in there.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, I like that.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Very small, very incidental, and yet it’s nice to have a little life to it, you know.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, totally.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitating the Mechanist] We should never have invented that trap door that the Fire Nation could come through.
BENJAMIN WYNN: I like this ending. Very ominous.
[Interjection of dialogue from the episode:
WAR MINISTER QIN: This defeat is the gateway to many victories.]
BENJAMIN WYNN: That leaves you wanting more, if nothing else.
BENJAMIN WYNN and DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Evil.
BENJAMIN WYNN: Well, there we are, thanks everybody. Thank you Dee. I love this ending too.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Wow, what’s this?
BENJAMIN WYNN: I don’t know. This ending never shows on TV. They always make it smaller and talk about what’s coming up next. And this is like my favorite music.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: [Imitates the music]
BENJAMIN WYNN: Yeah, we did like Kecak, We did like Balinese chants. So that’s Jeremy and me on vocals.
DEE BRADLEY BAKER: Ohhh, you got the triplet going on in the background. I like that.
BENJAMIN WYNN: And that’s Jeremy on flute. Actually that’s me and Jeremy on flute.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-19 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-19 07:27 pm (UTC)