Who would have thought one of the most interesting indie films to come out of the festival circuit over the last two years would be a no dialogue, black and white slapstick comedy about a lumberjack trying to take down a bunch of beavers?  Offscreen Central had the privilege of speaking with the film’s sound designer and mixer, Bobb Barito, about what went into making this film stand out thanks to its zany sound effects.

Jessa Hay: What was your main approach to this project knowing that it was going to be a “no dialogue” film?
Bobb Barito: The sound design had to be constantly exciting because dialogue wasn’t going to keep our interest.  The sound effects had to not only match all the creativity that had gone into the visuals but also be interesting in their own right.  The movie is so jam-packed with creativity so I had to match that on my end and in terms of making sure it suited what was already shot and also added dimension and creativity made hearing it also unexpected.

Jessa Hay: What was the process like adding sound effects to the film but without making it seem too “goofy”?
Bobb Barito: I think one of the big things was, it is kind of a Looney Toons movie, but we didn’t want to use the stock Warner Brothers sound effects, which I think would have made it sound too goofy.  There are a lot of those kinds of sound effects but for the most part I made my own version of it.  For like the Tweety Bird sound I just got a whistle and did the sounds and pitched that up.  For the rope wobbling when the trap is all set up it’s stretched tight and it’s supposed to convey that this thing could pop any second, I got a plastic sheet and just wobbled that. So stuff like that makes it just the right amount of cartoony without feeling like it’s a callback explicitly.  Also just laying the groundwork realistically, which our foley team did a lot of, and blending your own sound effects just makes it feel more real.  It doesn’t make it feel too goofy in an abstract way.

Jessa Hay: So I know this film was filmed outside in the freezing cold Wisconsin weather.  Were you out there capturing the sound and if so what was that process like?  If you were not out there, was it hard to eliminate those sounds of nature especially with how this film had to be very specific with its sound?
Bobb Barito: Thankfully I was not in the cold with those guys; it sounded like it was pretty brutal out there.  I didn’t come in until after it was shot.  Pretty much no production audio was used.  It was built from scratch.  There were maybe one or two scenes where the production audio was too funny so I had to salvage what was in there.  But for the most part it was all ADR and the sound design was built up from scratch.

Jessa Hay: I feel like as I was watching it, it seemed as though some of the characters or animals had their own special sound effects or music associated with them.  Were there certain sound effects you knew you wanted to use for certain characters that were shown in the scenes or was that something that just naturally happened?
Bobb Barito: Mike’s [Cheslik] thing was that he wanted the animals to have real animal sounds even though they were people in mascot costumes.  So while I wasn’t using each animals’ “correct” sound – he picked a lot of animals that don’t actually make sound – i was using chipmunk sounds for the rabbits, wildcat sounds for the raccoons, and then the beavers were a combination of baby camels and cat sounds.  Music-wise, our composer Chris Ryan did 20% of the music and the rest was stock and also did some of the animal cues.

Jessa Hay:  Did you work closely with Chris to build the sound and music together?
Bobb Barito: It wasn’t so much of a back and forth between me and him as much as it was a back and forth between him and Mike.  The music was pretty much already in place and wasn’t changed how it was sound designed but how it was mixed.

Jessa Hay: Who were some of your inspirations that you drew from for this film?
Bobb Barito: Roger Rabbit was one of mine.  I feel like that movie has a good balance of realism and cartoonish-ness.  They also make their own sound effects so it doesn’t sound too canned.  They also have a lot of good wooden sound effects which are very specific.  Wood has a nice hollow sound and when you distort it, it sounds really funny.  I took a lot of cues from distorting hollow wood sound.  I was also referencing Star Wars with the sled race at the end of our film with the Ewok scene with the Stormtroopers riding the engines.  Mike also referenced Jacque Tati and Jan Švankmajer because those guys are really comedic filmmakers with original sound design.  There’s a lot of over-the-top foley, like a really loud door squeak when someone opens the door which is just kind of funny.  Those guys were good references for us.

Jessa Hay: What was your biggest challenge while working on this film?
Bobb Barito: The whole thing was pretty challenging.  I remember spending a lot of time on a few sounds.  When he [Jean Kayak] is slipping on ice, there was a very specific part of the balloon that I had to squeak with just the right amount of moisture on my finger and it took many takes to get that right.  When he hits the pole and is sliding down, it took a long time to figure out the perfect “eeeeeeeek” as he’s sliding down and I tried finding different glass surfaces in my apartment to slide down.  It ended up being a happy accident because I got a YouTube ad for this sound library of thermal reactions and it ended up being a thermal reaction of ball barrings being melted and slowed down to 20% and that was the perfect sound for someone sliding down a pole.

Jessa Hay: What are key elements that you wanted to make sure were included to help with the slapstick comedy aspect of the film?
Bobb Barito: Trying to make my own versions of the slapstick sound that have a classic callback quality to them but it’s their own unique sound.  I think one thing that was really helpful for things to be funny was running it through my tape deck and distorting it because things are way funnier when they’re distorted.  Which is something we don’t get to experience that much anymore because everything is digital and pristine now.  You don’t really get the opportunity to just run something through a tape deck in a way that sounds like it shouldn’t do that.  It’s funnier because it sounds like it’s overloading the sound meter.

Jessa Hay:  Thank you so much for taking this time to speak with me!
Bobb Barito: Thank you Jessa!

Hundreds of Beavers is available to watch on Tubi.