How ‘Halo’s’ Crew Built a Library of Sounds To Bring X-Box Game to Life
variety.comKaren M. Peterson Supervising sound editor Jane Tattersall, sound designer Brennan Mercer and rerecording mixers Matthew Chan and Lou Solakofski knew the stakes were high for Paramount+ series “Halo,” based on the wildly popular Xbox video game, which for years had been trying to make the leap to movie theaters.“There was enormous pressure,” says Tattersall of the series, which is in the middle of its nine-episode first-season run on the streamer.
Also head of sound for Toronto’s Formosa Group, which was responsible for post-production sound work on the show, Tattersall says producer Sheila Hockin had told them that “it’s very important to learn not only the world of the game, but also respect the fans.” Set in the 26th century, “Halo” focuses on a cybernetically enhanced super soldier known only as Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber), who leads his fellow Spartans in defending humanity from an alien race.
Hockin connected the sound designers with 343 Industries, the studio behind the video game. There, they received a “massive amount of sound” that was “the root of everything,” says Mercer. “Every vehicle, every weapon, we got a source session,” he adds.
These include a vast array of plasma weapons and vehicles as well as the Artifact, a mysterious object that generates visions — accompanied by a different blend of energy pulses and crackling electricity — each time Master Chief holds it.Once they had that foundation, the team could begin to build an aural future world at war with aliens.
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