Also see the production photo album.
The year 2015 has come to a close and I think it’s only appropriate for me to call it the Year of the Beluga. After eight months in production and four in post, Call of the Baby Beluga premieres January 28th on CBC-TV’s The Nature of Things.
It’s been an enormous project for the four of us (my Dad, Suzanne, 4-yr-old Christopher, and myself) and I’ve gotta say, calling the experience “life-changing” isn’t hyperbolic in the least. My family and I have worked together in the past of course (see: the Saving Luna saga), but this was the first major project since then and it was an entirely different beast.
I joined them in Quebec for two months over the summer during the heart of the production. We spent most days either on the boat with the researchers – flying the drone over belugas – or filming around Tadoussac. Since we were such a small crew, in addition to my duties as sound recordist and drone spotter and catcher, I took the opportunity to dig into the visual side of filmmaking in the months preceding my time in Quebec – learning everything I could about lenses, light, framing, depth of field, codecs, tripods, timelapses… you name it. I loved it, especially the timelapse photography. We used a motorized slider to bring the timelapses to life by giving the shots movement. Very cool.
The best part of the production experience, though, was getting to know the community of researchers and students surround the whales in the St. Lawrence. So many of them seemed to live in a culture of honesty, determination, and perpetual excitement, mostly free from the superficial pursuits I encounter in other parts of my life. It was extraordinarily inspiring. Also, I was astounded to learn how much is still unknown about the marine mammals of the St. Lawrence. The questions are there, the people willing to ask and answer them are there, but so often it’s the funding that isn’t.
I flew back out west on September 1st and, after a few months working on other projects, I returned to belugas on December 1st to begin the music. The instrumentation wasn’t evident immediately, but I eventually settled on clarinet and viola along with the usual suspects (guitar, piano, percussion, and a variety of ambiences). The primary theme is based in Dorian mode (natural minor with a raised 6th). This gave me the means to create a sense of the unknown and the difficulties that face the beluga population, but still retain a glimmer of hope. The clarinet attached itself nicely to the baby beluga and the viola came to represent the adult belugas (specifically the mothers). I finished writing the music on January 2nd. By this time my work schedule had shifted to a noon-4am cycle (helloooo, Winter). The studio session took place the next day at Electric City Sound with Becky Hissen performing the clarinet and Kenji Fusé performing the viola. That Monday I sent the sessions to mix engineer Bobby Hobart (aka producer B’Morales) who, miraculously, turned around the mixes for 20 or so cues in three days. Bringing in a team to produce the music was a fantastic experience, one I’d like to revisit in the future.
What’s next? Well, after the CBC broadcast we’ll do our best to get the film to an international audience. Then, hopefully, we’ll be on to the next life-changing filmmaking experience.
Also see the production photo album.