In tough moments, Fred and Michele had a couple of lines from a favorite movie that they would trade back and forth. The movie was "Hickey and Boggs" and the lines came from the end of the film. One of them would say, "Nobody came." And the other would say back, "Nobody cared."
But today at this memorial service it is very different. So many people came. So many cared.
This morning the L.A. Times ran an obituary for Fred, and they listed some of the awards he had won and some of the titles he'd worked on -- but you simply cannot measure his impact that way. You can look at the titles, and the first thing you notice is: there are a lot of them. And many of them are classics that really stand the test of time: Elmer Gantry, The Hospital, Straw Dogs, Junior Bonner, The Exorcist. If you dig deeper into the credits you notice something else. Fred Brown was a loyal collaborator. Whether it was his own team of editors, or the composers, mixers, picture editors, producers, or directors he worked with -- you see a lot of repeat business there. People enjoyed working with this man; there was mutual respect.
Not long before he received his Life Achievement Award from the MPSE, I did a little interview with him, and I put the interview on the website at LMU where I'm teaching. I think that's why I was asked to give this talk today instead of someone else who may have known him so much better than I did, or worked with him much longer -- because in my small way I've been trying make more people aware of his work and to expose the next generation of filmmakers to a standard they can aspire to.
Actually, Fred did most of the work on the interview -- I would email him a few questions and he would write these detailed, witty, and beautifully written replies. That was just like him. It's like what he did as a sound supervisor -- he did all the hard work and made it look easy, laid it all out for you, and let you look good in the process.
I'll try my best to put his work in some perspective, but it's hard. It's especially hard for me because: I'm just not in his league. Not even close. Very few were. Here are just some of the contemporaries that he said he admired: "Don Hall, Jimmy Richards, Jimmy Nelson, Kay Rose, Gene Corso, Ross Taylor." These are the folks who did groundbreaking work in what today has the flashier title of "sound design." And today people like to point out the work that's done behind the scenes; it's part of promoting the movie. But before that, people like Fred were doing magic, and good magicians don't show you all the hard work -- they just keep pulling aces out of thin air.
You'd want to think twice before you'd play poker with a man who could do that. In fact, if you think of sound editing as a kind of big poker game, you had to keep your nerve to play with Fred Brown. Because every time it was his turn to deal -- the guy kept raising the ante. If you wanted to stay in the game, here was this man who kept redefining what a great sound job could be.
Take just one film, "The Exorcist." The original mix, not the new version -- still the best example of a soundtrack that works its way into an audience's subconscious, subtly undermines their usual expectations about reality, throws them just off balance enough that they completely suspend their disbelief and become totally engaged in a story that they otherwise would never believe.
I play clips from this film for my students and they're caught up in the story, and then I go back and forth through the scene and I point out little details in the sound. There are scenes where the audience is completely manipulated by the soundtrack. There's no rational explanation for what the sound does -- except to get this emotion from you.
And I watch my students and see the light go on, as they realize: this is art on a deep level. And it does not call attention to itself; it's magic. And gradually they learn to listen.
And it's not me making that light go on -- it's Fred's work.
Here's another example of Fred raising the ante, a technical one: "The Deep." A film with all these underwater scenes where they had to record foley for the detailed actions of digging around in the wreck and so forth. Now what was usually done at that time was to just take a regular foley recording and EQ it in the mix, or maybe flip the track and play it through the base to muffle the sound.
That was the usual trick. Fred took it to a whole new level. They built a big tank on a soundstage at Warners and he and Ross Taylor did all the prop foley actually underwater to get absolute realism with the tracks. And they used this ingenious system of underwater speakers to process underwater vocals. Fred and Ross and Michele did all the scuba tank breathing and efforts and struggling sounds for the three lead actors.
Fred was rightfully proud of his work on that film. And -- now this is a very hard quote to read on this day as we celebrate his life -- but he said, "I will take to my grave the pride of having participated in a landmark Foley enterprise."
Now maybe I spoiled the magic trick by telling you how he did it. But see the movie again and you will completely believe the illusion.
I asked him once, "Do you have any tricks, like tricks of the trade?" And he said: "There is one trick but it is impossible to carry out. DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF!"
And there are times when he came very close to doing that. But he also had very good crews. And just as an interesting side note -- this man who, again, worked on so many tough guy action movies -- consistently had more women working on his crews than anyone else in town. But also interesting: as a rule these were very small crews. At a time when most supervisors were delegating more and more to others, Fred kept churning out massive amounts of work himself.
Now here's a question: suppose you're the head of a production company and in the summer you have two big budget action movies coming out within weeks of each other. One stars Sylvester Stallone, the other stars...well, the new governor of California. [Editor's Note: Arnold Swarzenegger had been elected governor just weeks before.] Now these are going to be tough shows to pull off. So in all of Hollywood, which two sound supervisors would you hire? I mean: you would never hire just one.
Andy Vajna did. But it was an easy call because: he just hired Fred Brown. With anyone else that would have been risky. With two big, complicated, heavy sound effects films. But in this case the editing and dubbing of both shows went on simultaneously, Fred went back and forth between the stages, and both films ended up sounded great.
And if he was ever worried about pulling this off you'd never know it. Completely unflappable.
That was my introduction to Fred. I'd hearing about him for years, mostly because of Jay Wilkinson, who worked with Fred on a long string of movies. Jay dragged me to see Rambo Part II. I have to admit, I hated the movie. But I loved the sound job. It definitely raised the bar for action movies. Yes, there were great helicopters, and big loud guns, and this wild sounding bow and arrow. But what I remember was a scene with an oscillating fan in the background, and the fan had this funky little rattle. That's a kind of Fred Brown signature: the unusual detail that is somehow just right.
So Jay helped me get a job with Fred. Now I was way too inexperienced to be working on a Fred Brown show, let alone two of them. But Fred was too much of a gentlemen to point out my mistakes. He had this gentle way of guiding you, one of hallmarks of a great teacher. I guess he thought I couldn't do too much damage and I maybe I'd learn from his example.
And I did see a great example: of grace under pressure. And I learned that this could be a very high stakes game, this big-time sound editing, and maybe I should sit out a hand or two. And so I took a break to do some teaching. But some of his example must have stayed with me because I found one of the best tools for teaching was to use clips from Fred's work.
I went looking through "The Exorcist" and there are so many obviously great moments, but one little scene struck me. And so I called him up and said, "So, Fred, that bit where Lee J. Cobb finds the little clay figure at the foot of the steps."
And he said, "Ah -- you noticed." And he seemed kind of pleased that someone would notice. Because there's nothing flashy about the soundtrack. It's just traffic...and yet...
I play it for students and ask, "How does the scene make you feel?"
And they say: It's creepy. Something bad is going to happen. It's like the devil's right around the corner.
Well, let's listen and see what we can learn. What do you hear?
Traffic. What kind of traffic? It's like a truck revving. No, it's like a groan. No it's more like a growl. It's like some kind of big animal.
Okay. What's that little clay thing look like? It's like the devil statue in the desert at the beginning of the movie. What'd you hear then? These dogs were fighting & growling. Okay -- and? And the growls got bigger, and they turned into these big demonic roars and howls. Like the devil.
Well that's interesting -- that a room full of students could get that far just by listening.
Now according to Fred, what the director asked for in this case wasn't terribly specific -- and you can just hear Billy Friedkin saying this, "I want to hear a symphony of offstage traffic."
You know, it's almost like a dare: I bet you can't do this. And so Fred the magician goes to work and comes up with this unsettling, moody, "traffic." An ambience that is all made up of individual elements, carefully choreographed and mixed.
In the very next exterior shot of this detective -- after the film cuts inside the house for a bit -- we see Lee J. Cobb at the top of the steps huffing and puffing. There's a totally different feel to this scene.
I ask my students: what do you see? Well, the detective stops and looks up and sees Regan's bedroom window. Ok, what do hear? Uh...Kids playing. Happy kids.
Really? Then I point out that we're just 30 feet from the bottom of the steps and just a moment later from what we saw before and yet the ambience is completely different. But we, as an audience, accept this. The audience doesn't notice the little sleight of hand, they just feel a different emotion. They see the bedroom window of this poor little girl who really should be out playing with the other kids and they're reminded of what the story is really about.
That's another lesson you can learn from Fred's work. It's always focused on supporting the storytelling.
He told me that this was the film that really altered his thinking about sound, where he raised the ante for himself as a sound editor. A phone ring is not just a phone ring; it can have character, an edge to it that makes you jump. Traffic is not just traffic. Surf is not just surf.
I do my very best to pass that lesson along. I'll actually play a bunch of different types of surf in class. Which one feels peaceful and idyllic? Surf #3.
Why??? Well, it has a kind of steady rhythm. Really? What kind of rhythm? Does it remind you of anything? Is it kind of like a simile for something else?
And when I ask that question I get the kind of blank looks you'd expect. For one thing: it's an early morning class. But that's useful in a way because there's usually one student in the back I can point to. Sort of slumped at the desk, eyes closed...
Or maybe I will act out the part of a drowsy student, and mimic the sound of a deep inhale and exhale. Like this: shssshhhs -----shhsshshsh. And that SLOW LABORED BREATHING turns out to have the same rhythm as the surf.
So: Surf is not just surf. Sometimes it taps into into the most basic primal rhythm. That's why it's soothing.
Maybe that's one of the things Fred liked about the ocean, the sound of it. And maybe that's one reason he wanted his ashes scattered at sea.
Remember: here's a man who worked. He said "Everything worthwhile takes time so it's up to the individual to go the extra mile, or hour, or whatever, to elevate one's craft." That's what you remember vividly -- his tremendous capacity for hard work.
But the sound of the ocean is what we hear when the work is done, it's the rhythm of ourselves at peace. We can all learn something by listening to it. That's the great thing about the sea.
It's a good place to rest.
While the rest of us can still listen and learn.