Watch that whoosh – Sound Design for I Am What I AM 2

The success of the first I Am What I Am (2022) in China set a high bar in Chinese animation. Yi Animation showed that China can rub shoulders with the best in the world, both in terms of the quality of animation and in audience reach. It made the number two spot in theatres during the busy Chinese New Year period. Crucially, Yi knew that a soundtrack of the highest quality was something well worth investing in. For the second installment in the film series, POW Studios was tasked with providing a Dolby Atmos soundtrack worthy of one of the most culturally sacred of Chinese subject matter: Kung Fu.

Yi engaged us at POW while still in pre-production. This allowed us to send flavours and versions of our sound material, so Director Haipeng Sun could provide feedback and steer us toward their liking, long before the final renders started rolling in. Hence we had the time and means to record entire palettes of new whooshes and swishes, develop bespoke punches and impacts, assemble authentic ambiences and schedule accurate loop group and crowd records. 

Swishes

Having links with various kung fu and karate studios here in Wellington, we approached some of the practitioners for advice and help. We knew that kung fu would be the essential martial form of the film, with other martial arts making appearances. This ancient idea of discovering that internal strength is the essence of kung fu is well understood, and gave us much scope to design sound layers that revealed this inner secret as they peeled away. We recorded swishes with real kung fu students, using authentic brushed cotton kung fu uniforms. We also used our connections to local dojos to borrow expert fighters to provide swishes in the thicker, flappier karate gi. Capoeira also featured prominently, so we used more modern, synthetic cloth for these swishes, giving a brighter, more airy sound. In this way, each fighting style has its own unique voice, to compliment the complex and specific animated fighting moves. 

Whooshes

In my early sound days, I remember one sound design book positing the question: what is the difference between a swish and a whoosh? I took that to heart, and made it my convention that a swish would be smaller, often human-made air or cloth displacement; while a whoosh would be a larger, heavier volume of displaced air (usually), made by vehicles, large bodies, ships, planets; or the more ‘designy’ effects used for like slo-mo, cameras moves and other abstract sounds. So we tasked our sound editor with developing many, many flavours of design whooshes. She recorded much new material as well as using various apps and plugins to produce a range of material to present to the Director, and have him steer us towards his preferences. 

Punches

We have a large library of punches, made throughout the years, through our involvement in countless action films. The key for this film was to provide material that was both exciting and believable, and able to deliver both without becoming samey. Not a straightforward task, given that one reel alone has no less than three hundred punches! We engaged all members of the team early – fx editors and mixers – to have input into the tracklay process, so that a workflow could be established early on. We also sent many temps and versions to the Director until he was happy with what he heard. This proved to be doubly useful, as since the pictures were unrendered, it was difficult to tell whether animated hits had made contact or were doubles, etc. We were given extremely detailed notes on what exactly was happening in each fight sequence, so that once the mix stage was up and running, everyone knew exactly what the action was supposed to be. This made the incoming of the rendered pictures a much easier process than it could otherwise have been. 

Crowds

Complimenting the action, was the reactions from the crowds. Having Chinese nationals on staff gave us the confidence that the regional dialects and idioms were respected and reflected. Our editor spent many gruelling weeks creating layers of crowds to dial up; from huge arena roar, to mid-distance groups of audience, to the nearby layer of spectators, to individuals. We requested ADR and loop group for every scene involving crowds (fight audiences, market squares, crowded apartment complexes, street pedestrians) which were placed on their own banks and mixed into the Dolby Atmos environment as necessary. We had 5 banks of crowds, definitely the most we’ve ever done for a single film. Just like punches, crowds can often become fatiguing to listen to, which made judicious selection on the mix stage crucial. The key was to hit the right emotional moments with the roar, or push them all away, almost into silence, just as our protagonist had to do during his fights. Because we had ample time to premix and position everything here in Wellington – and because we’d sent multiple iterations of the material for the Director to assess beforehand – the final mix in Beijing was in the best shape for the Director to be able to focus on the fun part: shaping and crafting.

Music in the mix

Luckily working with such an accomplished composer as Hui Luan allowed for a very rich and dynamic soundtrack. He knew when to sting action with music and when to leave it to sound effects. He knew which frequency range to use or avoid, to let either effects or music come to the fore. And since we had the benefit of each others’ bounces, we were able to get a bead on how the Director intended the scenes to be for the final event. 

Foley 

With the quickly changing pictures, we left the foley shoot as late as possible to allow for recording against the most recent version. Once it arrived, the icing was on the cake, and we had a real soundtrack! Any area that we were fretting over, wondering if it sounded real or interesting enough became complete and believable, once foley was mixed in. As many a decent mixer has said, even with the best sound effects and design in the world, you just won’t completely believe VFX without the realism of a good foley layer. It lends an intimacy and proximity to animation which by very definition is uncanny. A beautiful foley bridges the distinction between cartoon-style animation – where the ‘unrealness’ is part of the allure – and realistic animation, like I Am What I Am, which is much more akin to our own world.