‘Apocalypse Now’ — The Kick in the Chest
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a freshly-new edited cut featuring enhanced audio and sound and remastered moving images from the film’s original negative.
Under Coppola’s supervision, a team of audio professionals remastered the film’s visuals in 4K Ultra HD using Dolby Vision, and also transferred all soundtrack lines to high-resolution 96 kHz digital for remixing and remastering in Dolby Atmos. As covered in previous articles, we’re going to take a deep dive into the whole process and how the film’s audio was brought to this new level of excellence.
New Technologies
The film’s final cut audio and sound post-production process definitely took advantage including Meyer Sound’s Sensual Sound, which focuses on using ultra-low frequency sounds to increase audio during specific key moments of the film. This technology, trademarked by Meyer Sound, allows post-production of any film’s soundtrack to reach incredibly great creative heights.
The company recently developed VLF subwoofers capable of delivering sounds down up to 13 Hz — below the human hearing — , but able to provide a physical sensation of vibration. These low frequencies are also bolstered by a corporeal sensation of feeling a kick in the chest. Sensual Sound was implemented in both the post-production of the soundtrack and during the film’s exhibition.
The film’s audio post-production first started off at Coppola’s Napa facility, where the vast majority of the initial work on sound editing and enhancement was carried out thanks to the fact that the facilities are fully equipped with Meyer Sound cinema systems. The mixing was further equipped with two VLFC elements especially brought for the final cut. The final Atmos mix, performed at Dolby Studios, also relied upon a pair of VLFC elements to extend low frequencies into the infrasonic realm.
Feeling the Sound
Coppola has always portrayed a distinct interest in sound, in fact, according to Meyer himself, Coppola had a similar interest in low frequencies to re-create the film’s outstanding power of sound. His initial idea was to take advantage of these new technologies to make the film sound more realistic and represent real life.
This idea is nothing new, however. Given the pace at which sound technologies are being developed, filmmakers have been wanting to feel the sound even before they hear it. And the best example is the explosions in films. Since sound travels faster through the ground than through the air, filmmakers and sound developers started doing a lot of measurements around explosions in hopes to determine how to achieve such a goal: being able to feel it first and then hear it.
After several months of research, sound developers realized that really low frequencies travel faster through the ground and they don’t get attenuated either, so audiences will be able to feel that even before the explosion boom comes.
For Apocalypse Now, Meyer noted that back in 1979, subwoofers were able to go down up to 60 Hz, but with today’s technology sound will take a whole new dimension, especially for the film’s most iconic scenes such as the helicopters advancing on Vietnam alongside Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.
This new dimension is also bolstered by the fact that low frequencies release adrenaline in the body. Meyer said that in order for that to happen you need to get below 20 cycles — that way your body will release adrenaline trying to get you to wake up to deal with what’s going on.
Ahead of His Time
Francis Ford Coppola was actually ahead of its time back in 1979. His vision for the film was hindered not only by the limits of budget but also by the limits of technology. In an interview, one of Coppola’s collaborators said that what the director wanted to do back when he was shooting the film was to use a technique called sensurround. A technique that had been employed earlier by Universal for the film Earthquake in 1974. The technique essentially allowed filmmakers to use a low-frequency sound to enhance moving images; however, due to budget and the inability to get a similar sound, the idea was ruled out.
According to Coppola, this new version of the film has been achieved according to the way he thought it would be best for the audiences who have not seen it and the ones who thought both the original and the redux version are rather surreal. Thanks to audio and moving images restoration, this new version is a beautiful technical rendition of the film.
Once Coppola started the conversations about remastering Apocalypse Now, Meyer Sound was soon brought on board, and the whole team started thinking about the possibilities given today’s technological advances in sound.
The film’s original soundtrack only went down to 30 Hz, and for it to be real, they needed to go much deeper. As mentioned earlier, both Meyer and Coppola started thinking of ways to actually convey the characteristic feeling of being surrounded by guns and explosions. The kick in the chest. And the original soundtrack doesn’t quite provide that.
After several rounds of mastering and trials, the final version of the soundtrack was achieved, and initial reviews assert it delivers, which ultimately confirms that sound is pivotal for any film striving to tell a story.
