Why sound and creative processes in post-production play a special role in the adaptation of bestsellers
A 900-page global bestseller that was published 20 years ago and was long considered unfilmable: Frank Schätzing’s science fiction thriller “The Swarm” has now celebrated its premiere as a six-part series at this year’s Berlinale. With a budget of 40 million euros, the series is considered one of the most expensive German series adaptations of all time. Showrunner Frank Doelger (“Game of Thrones”), director Barbara Eder, Luke Watson and Philipp Stölzl and an international crew produced the novel as a mystery series event under the auspices of ZDF after more than five years of preparation. The Potsdam-based experts from Rotor Film were commissioned for post-production, including sound, mixing and picture editing. The story: An unknown swarm intelligence in the sea threatens humanity. In various places around the world, humans are attacked by sea creatures. As the situation becomes increasingly threatening, a team of scientists sets out to find answers. To make the silent underwater threat tangible for the audience, sound design has become an essential element in the production.
In an interview with the MediaTech Hub, mixing engineer Gregor Bonse from Rotor Film talks about how challenging, enriching and creative working on “The Swarm” was. In addition to the complex production processes of an international series and a post-production time of 20 months from the start of shooting, a framework was created that is rare for TV productions in terms of budget, which allowed us to try out a lot and create a sound that was coherent with the story.
Eerie “swarm noises” instead of a sonorous musical carpet
In the very first scene, the sound sets the atmosphere of the series: in Peru, a fisherman is prevented from surfacing by a dense shoal of white, silvery fish and drowns. The swarm gathers over the surface of the water, buzzing menacingly, and the background music is deliberately restrained. The threat, the “unknown monster” that cannot be seen by humans, plays a leading role, but the sea is also an important protagonist in “The Swarm”. It not only represents water, but also stands for a being with its own physicality. Sound designer Noemi Hampel experimented with many sounds in the run-up to the production. Her research included looking for material such as “The strangest sounds ever recorded under water” in order to approach the element and give it a character – as she reported during the Berlinale on the panel of the Berufsvereinigung Filmton (bvft). In the series, the sea is given a lot of narrative time, it is combined with haptic, muffled noises, sometimes it sounds as if you are sitting under a bell.
“In general, music was used more carefully, especially in the first episodes. There’s no need for a so-called landscape score to narrate places or anticipate emotions. The swarm meets people in a certain ordinariness, a fish market in France, a beach in Canada. The right sound design is crucial here. However, the element of water already achieves a kind of foreshadowing with the corresponding sound effects: Regardless of whether the Peruvian fisherman is about to set sail or a lobster washes down the drain: the fact that it is more than just water always resonates here. The really great musical moments only come in the subsequent episodes, when the audience has already been able to get closer to the characters and empathize with their conflicts,” says Gregor Bonse, describing the work.
There is even a description of sound in the book – Schätzing’s novel speaks of a “scratching”, an eerie noise that can be heard. A distinct sound, but one that had to be approached differently for the movie. “Concrete sounds can also seem silly and trivialize the threat. That’s why Granularsysthese developed a “swarm sound” that also contains musical elements,” says Bonse.
What role does budget play in sound design?
On the bvft panel, which takes a look at the production circumstances and budget costs for sound design, Bonse and Hampel both rave about the optimal working conditions that the budget allowed them: “We had time, we could also experiment and had the opportunity to add something completely new in post-production or revise it elsewhere. For example, entire dialogues were re-recorded during the final mix to make the scene more coherent overall.” Tim Greve from Constantin Film, who is presenting another project at the Berlinale, also describes how differently sound is recorded during filming or in post-production. The more sound assistants (and therefore budget) there are on set, the better the original sounds of the actors can be recorded using sound rods. What happens on set is always more authentic than in post-production. But today there are many projects that are produced at a faster pace, with less shooting time overall and fewer pauses in the film, which means that the actors speak into each other. Here, several sound engineers, i.e. a larger team, can better cover the recording of the original sounds.
Sound is often the last link and, depending on how the production and filming develop, the budget becomes smaller and smaller towards the end, as Bonse also confirmed in a direct MediaTech Hub discussion. However, the general trend is that post-production costs are constantly increasing compared to production, which must be taken into account in budgeting.
In addition to sound design, many visual effects are an essential part of the production process for “The Swarm”. And here, too, sound plays an important role. Because in order to make the fantastic computer-generated worlds, creatures or elements such as icebergs or fire look realistic, the VFX elements need a sound design. Only in the interplay of image and sound are they not only visually perceived as real, but also become a real part of the story. Digital water, digital sky – all of this can only ever be a compromise that only becomes a real part of the story when it interacts with the image and sound.
From March 6, “The Swarm” will be shown on analog television on ZDF at 8.15 pm. The first three parts can already be seen in advance in the media library: https://www.zdf.de/serien/der-schwarm/schwarm-langtrailer-104.html
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The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector but in a wide variety of industries. For our MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog, we talk to tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and researchers once a month and tell the stories behind their innovative business models, ideas, projects and collaborations.
