THE SOUND

                    Thirty years ago this week THE THING began it's final sound mix at what was then the best facility in Hollywood, Samuel Goldwyn Studio's Stage A. Having won the most recent Academy Award for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK the room was constantly in demand, the chief reason being the talent being brought to the table by the late Bill Varney  and his capable associates Steve Maslow and Gregg Landaker.

L to R: Bill Varney, Steve Maslow, and Gregg Landaker with their  Academy Awards for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

                     John had previously mixed ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK with the men and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We were scheduled for a full six weeks ( time was needed to make six track stereo masters for the 70mm prints, two track Dolby stereo masters for regular release as well as separate monaural masters for theatres not equipped for stereo, as was the custom then ) after the crew completed work on POLTERGEIST ( which, as it happened, was of interest to us - we held hopes that the audience that went to see POLTERGEIST might come to see THE THING a month later )...

                  Initially Universal made a concerted pitch to have us stay at the studio ( having recently upgraded their facilities and built the brand new Alfred Hitchcock Theatre), and have the film mixed in something called "Ultra-Stereo" as they planned to do with one of their other signature summer attractions, THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS. It certainly would have been easier to stay on the lot with all that was going on ( Rob's effects work was still in full swing, his operation a few minutes away ), but we made the case that it wasn't the equipment that made the difference, it was the skill and the instinct of the men who were utilizing it...

                   Our approach to monster sound - making was essentially the same as the method pioneered by the legendary sound engineer Murray Spivak on KING KONG - combining organic (animal) sounds, changing pitch, slowing them down, speeding them up, thinning, sharpening, running them backwards and anything else we could think of until we ended up with something we liked and seemed to fit - really, a process of sound shaping, of trial and error...

                     Work on this aspect began just after principal photography commenced, shepherded by David Lewis Yewdall and Colin Mouat. Originally the search was on for a signature sound for the monster, one you would have heard initially on the audiotape recording Copper finds at the Norwegian Camp, and again later. This concept was abandoned as we moved from the notion of the creature as one final form entity to the deconstructionist idea it could be anything, which certainly opened up avenues for audio experimentation. As John began editing the film these experiments were salted in to see if we were headed in the right direction, and were fully fleshed out on the mixing stage, with it's array of sophisticated processing equipment ( all analog ), some eight months later...

                          I wish I could recount with specificity exactly what went into, and in what proportion, the making of each individual sequence, but the fact is memory fails me. I do know that were looking for a sort of high pitched, painful, shrill sound for the introduction of the dog - thing which called for the extensive use of bird calls and and a pig squeal, all heavily processed. In the Blair Monster we were looking for a large, definitive, square sound and you certainly hear a great deal of lion ( and for those of you who find some similarity with KING KONG's final roar, you are correct - it was our tip of the hat)...

                     Benning's roar was created by custom recording human screams  and then have them individually synthesized by a gentleman named Craig Harris. These were later combined on the mixing stage with other, non human sounds and additionally processed to give you that haunting, forever lost in hell effect. You also hear the result of this particular processing in the off-stage, human sounding screams at the beginning of the kennel sequence, as well as during the Norris transformation...

                    Wherever possible, a special effort was made to custom record background tracks on location during breaks in filming. Many of the wind tracks heard ( including the steady state wind always present at the Norwegian camp ) were made this way. Also specific sounds indigenous to the location - helicopter start-ups, tractor engines idling, flamethrower whooshes etc. Despite the rigors of location filming there was very little dialogue replacement  done - less a dozen lines in all, a tribute to our production sound mixer, Thomas Causey... 

                      When we played back the completed kennel sequence for the first time we looked at each other and shrugged. There was something missing - despite all the meticulous work the scene fell flat. Our salvation lay in a track our music editor, Clif Kholweck, found at the last minute. The low drone sound that begins as MacCready and Co. slowly approach is a sound effect, actually background air conditioner hum sharpened, shaped, and eventually pushed to absurd levels ( the reveal of the dog - thing ) before being taken out on the first shotgun blast. But what the hell, it worked, and the scene came alive... 

                     This sound proved to be so effective we went back and added it to Clark's initial approach and confrontation to the kennel...

                       ... as well as MacCready's final confrontation with the Blair monster ( the sound begins as Mac drops the dynamite and is woven in and out until the first explosion ). Astute listeners will also hear part of Morricone's plucked-string cue "Contamination" thrown in for good measure...

                     My favorite sound effects story from THE THING is as follows... I asked one of the sound editors, Colin Mouat, how they came up with the ultra - realistic background sounds of the dogs howling in the kennel. He replied that he had his children gather together the neighborhood dogs on a Saturday morning, put them inside his house, turned on the recorder, left, and donned a hat and full trench coat. Pulling up the collar to hide his face, he then proceeded to furtively move around the house, tapping on windows and rattling doorknobs. The resultant hysteria is what you now hear ( I was assured the dogs were amply rewarded with waiting treats )...

Bill Varney

                 THE THING never sounded better than in Stage A, and it was for that reason we chose to have the first screening of the completed film there for Universal's President Ned Tannen. A crucial event, we invited a few close friends and relatives to help fill out the space. Ned was shown to the center seat in front of the mixing console, the sonic "sweet spot". The memory I will always carry with me was Bill Varney sitting at the controls,  watching the production executive sitting directly in front of him, and constantly making minute level changes in reaction to Ned's body language throughout the movie -  in essence providing him with his own custom mix in an effort to put our absolute best foot forward, the very definition of a professional at work...