Stormtroopers 3

It felt great to finish Stormtroopers 3, a short film set in the Star Wars universe. The latest in a series directed by fellow Corkman Micheál Fitzgerald, it stars Carolyn Bracken, Pius McGrath and Peter Cosgrove.

Timeline

My journey with this project began back in 2019. I was recommended for the job by Eoin Lee aka Electric Foxx, who did excellent work scoring the previous film.

I first met Micheál while visiting Cork that September. We could never have imagined what would happen in six months’ time. Production had already commenced and was due to finish in early 2020. And we all know what happened then.

Fast forward to 2022 and filming was finished. Micheál had assmbled a brilliant team, with Cork-based Dog Day Media shooting the film as well as fulfilling the post production duties of editing and VFX.

By May, they were ready to share an assembly edit. It looked great and the VFX was already shaping up really well.

Roles

My roles were composer and re-recording mixer. It was a pretty mammoth job and one which, if I’m being honest, I underestimated at first.

The film is just over 20 minutes long, and while the score isn’t always in the foreground, it is more or less constant music throughout.

This is half the length of an album, folks!

Electronic Score

As with Eoin Lee’s score for Stormtroopers 2, Micheál was keen to stay away from the orchestral style used in the Star Wars franchise. He shared a playlist of darker and electronic-leaning film scores to help spark off some ideas.

Keeping these themes in mind, I started work on some sketches. We decided to focus on the first half which includes a lengthy battle scene.

I had recently upgraded my composer kit, purchasing Omnisphere (a software synth I had long wanted) as well as some Spitfire and 8dio libraries. With the help of these tools I set about creating a sonic palette.

Hurdles

Upon submitting my first draft, Micheál seemed happy and felt I had followed the brief pretty much to the letter.

However, he pointed out that the brief may not have been quite right in the first place.

He felt there was too much variety in the reference playlist, which unduly influenced the score. It was like a hodgepodge of different themes without an anchor.

After some discussion and sending ideas back and forth, we decided on a narrower set of parameters.

I set to work on the next version and on the second draft, bingo! We found a theme which became a focal point for the rest of the score. It was an ominous war drum motif used in the battle scene.

As Micheál said, ‘no doubt a battle is brewing.’

Process

After a couple more drafts the first half was in a decent place but not quite there. The intro would be key to the success of the whole, but it was proving tough to crack.

We decided to park it and take a break while the VFX and grade were being completed, and return with fresh ears.

Because of the solid foundation we had, the second half fell into place much more quickly. The initial draft was pretty much a keeper apart from a few tweaks.

This fed back into the first half and any rough edges started to iron themselves out. Funnily enough, the opening theme was the final piece to fall into place.

Sound Effects

For the sound FX and foley Micheál had enlisted the talents of Alan Keogh, another Stormtroopers 2 alumni. When he sent the stems over they were sounding great and fully in support of the action and narrative.

The atmospheres included low rumbles of spacecraft, gusts on desolate mountain tops and creaks of failing machinery. The weapons and explosions packed a real punch.

With it being a non-profit film, Alan was free to use some of the original Star Wars sound effects such as the TIE fighter, combined with his own to create a unique mix.

(Incidentally, the iconic TIE fighter screech was created by sound designer Ben Burtt layering the sound of an elephant’s roar with a car driving on wet pavement!)

Audio Post

My next job was my job to mix and balance these effects with the dialogue and music.

For a film of 21 minutes there is relatively little dialogue (compared to a drama at least). This meant the dialogue edit was a straightforward process, involving some clean up and noise reduction with the trusty iZotope RX.

I added a few extra ambience layers in places to help the dialogue sit better in the mix. The vehicle and weapon sounds were already sounding sweet, but I treated some to make them even more punchy and cut through the score.

From there I used panning, EQ, compression and reverb - all the usual tools - to engineer the various elements into a whole.

There is quite a dynamic range across the film, with loud battle scenes alongside hushed dialogue-driven sections. This is testament to Micheál’s maturing as a filmmaker and introducing different colours into his work.

Collaborative

It was a pleasure collaborating with Micheál, Alan Keogh and Dog Day Media. Channels of communication were always open with feedback easily going back and forth.

For me, of the best things about the process was that we didn’t settle on the score too quickly. Some scenes took several versions to get right.

Essentially, I was given space to fail.

That’s quite a luxury in an industry of very tight turnarounds, and I was priviliged to be able to do this.

Deadline

There’s nothing like a deadline to spur you on. In late January Micheál let me know that he had booked two screenings of the film for March. Any second guessing the project became a luxury that couldn’t be afforded. After two drafts, the mix was ready.

Stormtroopers 3 premieres in the atmospheric surroundings of Mitchelstown cave on March 4th, and screens as part of Dublin Comic Con on the 11th. I’m delighted to be attending Comic Con and to participate in a Q&A there.