Brian Emrich
Something Completely DifferentBy Steven Ashby
"First, I used some solid fuel rocket engines mounted on wooden dowels. I launched the rockets into the water and recorded the bubbling sounds with an underwater mic," says sound designer/musician Brian Emrich. "Then I incorporated those sounds into a couple of the needle shots."
Sound designers are a fascinating lot, to say the least. Emrich's enthusiasm is obvious as he describes his unique approach to creating sounds for the painfully personal and up-close heroin injection scenes in Darren Aronofsky's Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated Requiem For A Dream. But going far beyond the usual door, car, nature, city, and Foley sounds of "traditional" sound design is this talented artisan's specialty. With Peak in hand he's taking film, music, television, Internet, kiosk, and radio audiences along with him into unheard of aural realms.
"I can honestly say that I have never worked without Peak on any project," Brian continues. "Even when I'm working with Pro Tools, I still import and export my new files back and forth between the two programs. I also re-master material through Peak when I burn vinyl and make mixes for my DJ work, I'm constantly editing with Peak in conjunction with Roxio Jam, and I use it to audition any and every bit of audio I need to hear. Peak is the main software tool I use for expressing design and creativity in all my work."
A New Branch of the Sound Design Vine
Creativity indeed. Emrich weaves his dynamic musical interests into each session he puts together, and it shows. According to one producer and thanks to the additional ambient music layerings he provided with his sound design tracks, this Peak user was the talk of the control room at a recent Nike commercial mix session. "Expect more work" was the feedback this grateful New York-to-Los Angeles émigré received, and he's stoked about the news.
"Sound design has been my main focus for the last few years and the artistic side of sound design scoring interests and excites me. Music is my number one passion, really, so I'm probably just a sound designer crying out to do film scores! But I do love approaching sound design the way I do it because being a musician has enabled me to think the way I do when it comes to putting sound to picture. The simplest thing of tuning a sound to be in key with a music cue, which is obvious to a musician, doesn't always seem so obvious to a non-musician involved in sound design. The director is likely to scrap a sound element over a piece of score during the final mix if it's not playing properly with that particular music cue."
Emrich has applied his sonic touches to Phone Booth, One Hour Photo, PI, and The Matrix Revisited DVD, as well as commercials and sound work for Adidas, Nike, Hyundai, MTV, and Fleet Bank. But his Online Film & Television Association-nominated work on Requiem For A Dream was just too intriguing to not explore further from a Peak point of view. Thanks to director Aronofsky's personal devotion to sound, this heavy sound-oriented film was a great platform for Brian to do his thing.
Based on a novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., Requiem is a drug-oriented movie that delves into the heroin and diet pill world of the story's main characters. The film contains several 10- to 12-frame segments dubbed "Drug Montages" by Aronofsky that demanded special aural treatment. Who with a shred of curiosity could resist inquiring further?
"Those segments focus on the procedure of doing heroin," Emrich says matter-of-factly. "From the Baggies, to the sizzling of the spoons, to the needles, to the close-ups of the blood traveling from the veins to the needles and back again, and the dilation of the pupils. I took real life sounds and then morphed them in Peak using several plug-ins. I don't like to go completely synthetic with any sound I do. I like to tie those sounds in with something that people can relate to, like the real sounds of bubbling from the underwater rockets during the needles scenes. I would slowly process that bubbling sound more and more in each new segment into something that corresponded with the characters' inevitable downward spiral."
The Ratio of a Circumference of a Circle to its Diameter: PI
Prior to Requiem For A Dream Emrich also worked with director Darren Aronofsky on PI, a film that garnered the latter a Best Director Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998. Beginning the similarly sound-centric sound design work for PI on hardware samplers alone was no simple task for Brian before he hooked up with the BIAS team and made Peak a part of his daily regimen.
"It was Peak that helped me get a nomination for sound editing," credits Emrich, who was kind enough to also tip his hat to BIAS in the Requiem For A Dream credits before he met anyone from Petaluma. "Peak was a lifesaver on Requiem. I really got into having the waveforms right in my face, and it was and still is such an easy program to get to know. [BIAS] Deck is in my laptop in case I need an emergency multi-track, but Peak is really what has saved me the most. All the sounds you hear in Requiem For A Dream, and anything else I've worked on ever since, are all processed through Peak."
Headlining movies, oft-watched commercials, and the new kiosks up in Fleet Bank lobbies aren't all that Brian Emrich's sound is about. In fact, given his druthers, this Burnt Hills, New York, native can't wait to start making some new music even if it's just for his own consumption. Don't count on the latter.
The Sounds of Music
"I do a lot of blending of sounds in Peak," the MIDI-centric musician says of his music production style. "If I have to do some sort of soundscape for a piece of music or a commercial or film, I'll use Peak instead of firing up the sequencers and synths."
Emrich, a.k.a. Psilonaut, is big on hardware analog synths for his eclectic range of musical compositions and productions. With solid roots in psychedelic trance and Three Dog Night alike, he can't wait to get his personal music tracks rolling this fall. He has played, composed, toured, recorded, and produced with The Toasters, Foetus, Steroid Maximus, and Congo Norvell, the latter alongside Kid Congo Powers of The Cramps, Nick Cave, and The Gun Club fame. He's also contributed songs to a couple of Pink Floyd tributes (The Other Side of Pink Floyd and A Saucerful of Pink), as well. Considering his talents, tastes, and desires, it's no wonder this multi-disciplined sound designer yearns for CD- and vinyl-only sounds that lay beyond his lion's share of movie and commercial work. But what would a new Brian Emrich song sound like?
"If it's my psychedelic trance/ambient stuff, it would be synth based," he concludes. "But I'm also really into '70s pop music that ranges from Alice Cooper to Three Dog Night. I'd like to tackle a project of that caliber. I'm very fond of singing and need to express myself in this way much more. But another side of me wants to create songs in the Human League, OMD, and early Ultravox styles, as well. Hopefully my schedule will allow me a break this fall to start digging into a few new original tracks to keep my personal desires satisfied."
Look and listen for Brian's latest cinematic sound design work in Wonderland, a movie about the final chapter of porn star John Holmes' life and subsequent murder due for a late September release from Lions Gate Pictures.