“Submarine,” the coming-of-age film which delighted viewers at The Toronto Film Festival premiere and at the Sundance Film Festival, has used the new PenteoSurround stereo-to-5.1 system to create an immersive Dolby Digital soundtrack.
Re-recording mixer Nigel Heath, of the UK’s Hackenbacker Audio Post, created L,C, R, S audio from stereo mixes of music by Alex Turner from the band Arctic Monkeys.
“We were really keen on having the songs sort of ‘melt’ out of the dialogue scenes rather than ‘pop out’ like a regular ‘needledrop’ cue can sometimes do,” explained Heath.
“The nature of the songs themselves and the way we were able to incorporate them into the track, thanks, in part to the gorgeous sound of the Penteo processor, really helped us achieve our goal.”
“I used Penteo on all the two track material we upmixed to 5.1.”
“Submarine” is a comedy which follows a 15-year-old boy with two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday, and to stop his mother from leaving his father for her dance teacher. “
“At the film’s premiere in Toronto, executive producer Ben Stiller introduced the film, calling director Richard Ayoade an “annoyingly talented man.”
Before starting the screening, Ayoade brought out the two young stars of the film, Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige, as well as Sally Hawkins.
Alex Turner’s songs were produced in stereo by James Ford, and, with multichannel stems unavailable due to the nature of the recordings, Nigel Heath had to find a way to generate L.C,R,S audio from the stereo mixes and wanted an alternative to his usual method of achieving this.
Heath turned to the Penteo 5.1 processor, a hardware device which he says “is a superb machine which really looks after the music.”
“The stability of the imaging is rock solid and natural, the centre, left and right are free from ‘steering’ artifacts and most impressively, subsequent downmixes from the 5.1 generated by the Penteo are incredible.”
Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times, wrote: “The film features songs written by Alex Turner from the band Arctic Monkeys, for whom Ayoade has directed music videos.”
“It is another small touch that Ayoade gets just right, in that whenever a song comes up, rather than some vintage pop hit or deep-cut obscurity, it is rather a new song.”
Re-recording mixer Nigel Heath continued, “Working with songs such as these, especially with them being written and performed by such a world class artist, I was sure to treat them with the utmost respect.”
“The songs sound tremendous in the film and I’m quite proud of how they integrate into the overall soundtrack.”
“One isn’t taken out of the film when the songs appear, but due to both the nature of the songs and the imaging of the audio, they allow you to sink even deeper into the story, and ultimately they’re great songs, of course.”
Nigel Heath added, “I was particularly impressed by the compatibility of the resultant material in all the various downmix versions we had to produce as part of the delivery requirements.”
“The LtRt (Dolby Stereo) version sounds brilliant with a great soundstage, so does the stereo downmix. Thanks to PenteoSurround all of the delivery formats work wonderfully.”
