First Sound Design Notes

This is the first pass of post-production notes I delivered to the team after our initial picture lock on Desires of the Heart. Five reels, organized by timecode, addressing audio design, visual effects, and titling for the feature.

What this captures is the film's sonic architecture being built from the ground up. The fly buzzing that opens the film and returns at the end is a destiny motif, marking the bookends of Kris's reincarnation arc. The Woman in Red has her own sound signature, a supernatural gust we hear before we ever see her. Cicadas swell and stop like a faucet, marking the boundary between Kris's waking life and his trance states. The supernatural thunderstorm in Reel Two mirrors the supernatural sandstorm in Reel Four, two halves of the same metaphysical weather system spanning Savannah and India.

Pay attention to how specific the timecodes are. Every cue is locked to the frame because every cue was designed in the edit, not improvised in the mix. The note at 02:09:04:16 to cut the word "feels" out of Kris's line so the dialogue lands as "You know how everything is brand new" is the kind of granular work that separates a finished film from a rough cut.

For anyone reading this who works in post, this is what a director's first pass looks like when the sound design carries the film's mythology.