By: Julian Ebacher
Dreamwork’s Animation Studios recently released, “The Wild Robot” in theaters to critical acclaim.
A heartwarming tale of growth and death, the cycle of life torn in two, and the fallout that happens when that disruption is foisted upon nature. It asks, “what life is,” and then deconstructs whatever ideas the audience may hold.
It’s also profoundly mediocre, the script wholly lacking in the gravitas it needs in order to fully drive that point home. I do not exactly fault it for it — clearly, the film is meant to be a comforting movie designed for children and those who find themselves despairing in this wonderful world, but it does force the overall message to grasp its meaning.
Regardless, it does two things absolutely wonderfully: its animation and its sound mixing. The former is apparent, the latter less so.
Sound mixing discussion has been having a bit of a renaissance in 2024, with some very polarized films combined with a sort of “subtitle culture” skewing the perception of those films.
Bluntly, for those who do not know, sound mixing is the film deciding the various volumes of the different outputs for their finished work. For example, determining which of the microphones in this shot are louder, and how they relate to the volume of the music.
“The Wild Robot” uses its sound mixing as almost a Steinbeck-esque signifier of optimism in a broken world. Even as everything breaks around the characters, the sounds of a world that cannot be broken still drift to the audience. A fundamental reminder that this world is far too grand, it stands far too divine in order to be affected by the actions of man.
It has a remarkable effect upon the tone of the film, and that tone is one of its most redeeming factors. Sound mixing made the film what it is. It told the story.
Now, it isn’t a particularly flashy topic. One would hardly expect it to be, given the fact that the audience barely processes it — it’s almost completely taken for granted by modern movie-goers.
That changed this year, the art being thrust into the public eye with two films that epitomized good and bad sound mixing: Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Lord and Miller’s “Across the Spider-Verse,” respectively.
The former is a very cute, slice-of-life adventure of the Höss family, as they do ordinary things and as they have Mrs. Höss’s mother over — the significant distinction being that the family lives just outside of Auschwitz, and the family is that of the commandant therein.
The sound design in general is the saving grace of the film, but the sound mixing in particular is the most recognizable factor. Hearing the activities the family engages in combined with the barely audible, immensely noticeable screams in the background is harrowing, and more significantly, offers a profound insight into the lives and the moral dilemmas of the characters.
Eventually, the viewer begins to be able to ignore those haunting screams that never truly fade away and focus on the active story that the film tells. At that point, the game is over. The audience becomes just like the family it follows, with those who are murdered being nothing more than an afterthought. They are dehumanized, not just in the world this film takes place in, but in the very eyes of the last witness to them. The sound mixing that leads to those cries’ quiet omnipresence is the key to making the film as effective as it is.
The latter, “Across the Spider-Verse” is what happens when you have a popular blockbuster with terrible sound-mixing and the consequences of that.
The sound itself isn’t bad; the score received almost universal acclaim, the voice acting was excellent, and they lined up with the visuals in a quite exemplary manner. Unfortunately, its sound mixing means that regardless of the volume the film is played at, it is absolutely incomprehensible for a good chunk of the runtime. It ends up being a film that almost requires subtitles in order to view it.
For many, this was the only complaint they had with regard to the film, but it does mar it in a significant way. Because the actual script is so hard to hear in comparison to the score and sound effects, it dampens the theatrical experience, which the film clearly intended to capitalize upon with the breadth of its beautiful animation.
In conclusion, sound mixing is an integral part of the movie-making process, if under-discussed.