I knew early on that sound design was going to be an important element in this film. Not only did we need an overall ambient track (because absolutely no production sound was recorded) and a clean, strong voice-over, I also knew I needed to create the woman's world through sound. Fairly early in pre-production I went to a friend of mine, Alek Vila, who had composed the score for an earlier short film that I directed and photographed called Wall, and asked him to design the sound for the film. Alek was excited by the project and instrumental in creating the overall mood I wanted from the piece.

Alek's first involvement was as recording mixer for Tonya's voice over (see Voice Over section in Production). Once the film was edited, I went back to Alek and basically gave him carte blanche to dive into the world - and he had a lot of room to play because other than the temp voice over we placed on the film - it was a silent movie. Alek and I started by remixing and re-editing Tonya's voice over to the cut film - further nuancing the timing of her ranting. We discussed some basic directions, metaphors and ideas and then Alek spent the next week or two creating the film's sound design from scratch including, the room's general ambient tone, the sounds of the night outside (traffic, the buzz of the neon sign flashing), the sound of the woman writing in her book, door slams, Beetle screams and a horde of general creepy mood effects. I met with Alek two or three times during this process and had very little to say about his input other than I love it!

While Alek was working, I began the quest for a composer. Although Alek's work on my previous film, Wall, was extraordinary - his career had moved in a different direction and I couldn't convince him to go back to composing film scores to take on this film. Additionally, he was working on his own album and the overall sound design and couldn't afford the time it would take to produce the score as well. I hooked up with a young multi-media producer in Arizona who was very interested in the film. He had only done music a small handful of times in the past and was not classically trained - but his work was outstanding, so I invited him aboard. A few weeks later he sent me a very unique rough draft, which I liked quite a bit. However, dispute over the contract agreements for the work he was doing led me to severe the collaboration and seek another composer. I listened to several demo reels and met with a handful of aspiring composers, but nothing was clicking for me.

Through a good friend of mine, I had the fortune of having met met Marco Beltrami a few times in the past. Marco has scored such films as Scream, Mimic, Nightwatch, Halloween H20, The Minus Man, Dracula 2000 and Angel Eyes as well as a few television series such as Land's End and The Practice. Although I knew Marco's plate would be full, I figured he would be able to recommend someone for the project.

Enter Buck Sanders. Buck and I met on a warm Saturday morning and I knew I liked him immediately. He was excited about the film and he went off to produce a sample for me.

Two days later I got a call from Buck telling me he had a rough draft of the score and would I like to hear it. I was aghast. I couldn't believe he produced something so fast. With great skepticism, I met with Buck and popped in the tape he made - and I was floored. It was not only great - it was damn near perfect. With a few minor changes, Buck went away and returned a few days later with a final copy of the score.

Mixing the film was a bit of a challenge for me. Buck had done a temporary mix of the film to present his work to me, but - of course - the score was a little hot overall. Then Alek did a mix of the film and - as fate would have it - the sound design was a little too overpowering. My previous experiences with sound were never satisfactory and I was determined to do everything I could on this film to make it perfect. Unfortunately, I was not able to utilize resources to get studio help to mix the film and I wound up mixing myself in the Avid bay at Black Box digital where the film was edited. It took a little more than two days to finalize the mix, but in the end I was very pleased with the outcome.

Any of you who have frequented the website over the first few months are more than likely familiar with the music right debacle we went through. When I finally found out that the rights were going to cost me more than a quarter of a million dollars (for both songs) I went back to Buck and asked him to create a new cues to replace the opening and closing cues to the film. He then collaborated with musician Dawn Fintor to create the hauntingly beautiful, and apropos "Lucky" as a closing theme.

The links below are RealAudio files of one sequence in the film at the end of the third act. The first link is the sound design alone, the second is the score alone and the third is the final mix of the sequence including Tonya's voice over of King's poem.