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Loveland

Director and writer: Ivan Sen
Production house: Bunya Productions
Producers: David Jowsey, Greer Simpkin and Angela Littlejohn
Starring: Ryan Kwanten, Jillian Nygen, and Hugo Weaving.

The story.

Loveland is the 2022 feature film from acclaimed Australian Director, Ivan Sen. Set in an unnamed, futuristic city, the film is a love story that tackles urgent issues of our time. Through Ivan’s signature thought-provoking style, the audience is left to ponder their own answers as the film paints a picture of a near future where privacy is a thing of the past and human connection is rare. Beautifully shot against the backdrop of a Hong Kong in turmoil, Ivan cemented his status as a true auteur – writing, directing, shooting, editing, creating visual effects, and scoring the movie.

We wanted to take the technology aspects of design into new territory, but to really push the envelope we needed to sell all the elements in real-world audio scenarios.

A new sound for a new world.

To adhere to the ground-breaking style of the film, we needed a unique never-before-seen world that still felt completely organic and believable. Ivan wanted the futuristic Hong Kong to be a metropolitan hub – a place filled with different races, languages, and creeds along with organic technology sounds that no one had heard before. This gave us the challenge and freedom to bring our creative flair to core aspects of his world.

 

A unique challenge.

Unfortunately, a large amount of sound recordings from the film shoot were lost, meaning we had no production sound to work with during the mix, and all dialogue had to be replaced with ADR. So, we built the soundtrack from the ground up and underwent a mammoth editing job that involved cutting ADR without a guide track – a difficult and time-consuming task. As there were no sync effects, everything had to be replaced with Foley and balanced precisely to make it feel gritty and real.

A glimpse into the process.

To build this environment, Thom had the opportunity to travel to Hong Kong and spend 5 days recording the city with Ivan. After spending an extended time living in Hong Kong, Ivan acted as a tour guide while they explored the diverse urban landscape, weaving through shoot locations, alleys, markets, rooftops, and restaurants with a slew of microphones in hand.

The languages.

After receiving the first edit, we struck upon the idea of accessing the extensive VO network of an artist we’ve worked with, and asked people across the globe to read advertising slogans in their native language and accents. The idea of creating a global city was already established in the script, so it was a natural progression to extend this into various background elements like talking billboards, street announcements and advertising material. The VO community came to the party with an overwhelming response of 70+ reads in a dozen languages, so we were able to fill the film with a cacophony of real voices from across the globe.

Using sound to create subtle effects.

One of our main concepts throughout the sound design process was splicing animal DNA with human DNA. We approached this by finding opportunities to layer animal vocalisations into sounds like elevator doors, vehicles, and ambiences. During the mix, we made extensive use of surround sound to convey the city and envelop the audience in atmosphere by incorporating layer upon layer of VO recordings to create a world inundated with advertisements from every direction.

Embedding them into the world.

We “worldised” the recordings using our studio’s atrium and multiple speakers (including large, full-range cinema horn systems) to create natural movement and sound resonance. By recording at 96KHz with an array of microphones, we could slow down sounds and exaggerate delay as it panned around the room. Through combining these with traditional reverb and EQ, we created immersive textures that formed a crucial part of our backgrounds layup.

A chaotic, abundant, visceral world brought to life.

Being a futuristic, sci-fi film, we were able to conceptualise our own ideas for what this world might sound like and develop the world with a sonic paintbrush, creating sounds for things that don’t exist and using sound design to craft dense, overwhelming atmospheres. Swirling billboard ads, drones, and all manner of noises place the listener at the centre of the environment. We’re proud of the organic technology sounds that were so important to Ivan, and the huge effort from Thom and Lachie in crafting every detail of this fictional world.

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Folklore Sound acknowledge the Turrbal and Jagera people as the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we operate, and that sovereignty has never been ceded. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

We respect that First Nations People have a deep connection to this land, and appreciate the enduring role that art has played on these lands for countless generations, spanning thousands of years. It is a privilege for us to collaborate with artists who carry on the rich creative heritage of one of the world’s most ancient and thriving cultures.

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