In anticipation of the March 4th release of Matt Reeves’ THE BATMAN, I’m excited to share my first major project of 2022; one which took me on my own journey through Gotham City alongside the caped crusader.
In early January I was contracted by my frequent client KOALA to work with them on a collaborative project for INTERNATIONAL LUXURY GROUP and WARNER BROS; the studio behind THE BATMAN. My brief was to design the sound for a suite of promotional videos for a limited-edition collection of watches inspired by the upcoming film. The collection would be released by POLICE; an ILG-owned brand.
KOALA were producing video ads to promote each of the four watches as well as an extended launch trailer to promote the collection as a whole. The videos would be used to promote the collection online, in stores, and at a February launch event on board the QE2 in Dubai.
Collection Launch Trailer
The launch trailer features action from THE BATMAN spliced with footage shot by KOALA on location in Birmingham, as well as intricate CGI views of the watches themselves. At the start of the project I was given a rare and welcome head start in the form of access to a WARNER BROS file repository which contained all of the sound material used in the film’s theatrical trailers. This gave me some great sounds, painstakingly crafted by very talented designers, which I could re-use, mangle and layer back together as I liked.
Naturally, this gave me a jump on designing sound for the shots taken from the film. I was keen to add my own flavour to these shots and not just mimic the work of others, so I made a point to not go back and re-watch the official trailers. I wanted to approach my sound design with fresh ears. For the shots where I had ready-made sounds available, such as the Batmobile shots, I experimented with layering different sounds together to give my interpretation a unique feel.
My sound design for the Batmobile shots contains layers such as a hairdryer, electricity pylons crackling, and other diverse sound sources manipulated and blended together. Messing with characteristics of these sounds, such as pitch or speed, and then running them through some extreme plugin processing gave a pretty fantastic sounding result.
Contrast and Pacing
Having access to the WARNER BROS sounds was helpful but the bulk of the visuals in our trailer had no original sound for me to repurpose. KOALA’S location footage and animations needed designing from scratch. For the location footage, the directive from WARNER BROS was to differentiate these shots as much as possible from the material taken from the actual film. Sound was one of the ways through which we could do this.
For the location shots, I chose to focus on atmospheric sounds (city ambience, sirens etc) to try and convey the dark, Gotham aesthetic. The atmospheric sounds helped to stand KOALA’S footage apart from the WARNER BROS content, for which I used sounds that were more gestural (impacts, vehicles, etc).
This contrast between atmospheric and gestural sound sections not only helped to subtly differentiate the footage, it also helped to pace the trailer. The impact of any trailer like this one depends on key points having maximum impact. If the audience is being bludgeoned with sound for a full minute, the impact of any individual moment is often lost.
Think of any rollercoaster you’ve ever been on; the slow rise and the pause at the top are just as essential as the drop. A film trailer, and it’s sound, should follow a similar pattern; pulling back at times, giving the audience’s ears space to breath, and then building again towards the next big bang.
Devil in the Detail
After the WARNER BROS shots and KOALA’S location footage, the last elements for me to work on were the watch animations. These feature in the launch trailer and also in four shorter promo videos for the individual watches. These animations were a true blank canvas sound-wise and an opportunity to get really creative in imagining how these watches would sound being rapidly self-assembled before our eyes.
Helping me realise the sound of the watches was raw sound material courtesy of SOUNDMORPH and IF A TREE FALLS. The fantastic MECHANISM library from SOUNDMORPH was a brilliant resource; chock full of ticks, clicks, cranks, scrapes and whirrs that fit perfectly with the watch components meshing together.
As well as sound for the watch components, I spent time designing atmospheric sounds for these CGI sections. I wanted to make sure that they had the same Gotham aesthetic I’d been striving for in the rest of the trailer. I tried to achieve this by layering recordings of a cave interior and dripping water behind the mechanical watch sounds, which I passed through a cavernous reverb plugin to give the shots a bat-cave-like atmosphere. I topped this off with some layers of oscillating high-frequency sounds to give the impression of, you guessed it… BATS!
Happy Customers
KOALA’S Creative Director JAMES REES said: “This was a real dream project to work on. To be alongside THE BATMAN, WARNER BROS and POLICE was a huge honour and privilege. The BATMAN film franchise means so much to so many people around the world. We had to treat it with respect, and we’re extremely proud of the outcome.”
ASTRA INGRAM from ILG said, “The KOALA team are highly efficient, professional, creative and committed to providing an outstanding end result. They’ve been able to match the uniqueness of the limited-edition watches with the look and feel of the film. We are delighted with the finished POLICE X THE BATMAN trailer.“
This was a great project to work on and I’m really happy with what we delivered. As someone who loves sound and the endless ways it can be used, it’s a pleasure to work on a project where you can sink your teeth in to the design process and create something unique. As a big fan of the BATMAN franchise, it was an extra bonus to get a little sneak peak of the upcoming installment and put my own spin on a small aspect of it.
If you want to know more about my work, the project, the collection or the film, GET IN TOUCH or use these links:
Interview quotes taken from: shorturl.at/uwBM2