Save Luna: Sound Designing a Choose Your Own Adventure Film
After Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' in 2018, a group of Estonian tech experts pitched an App to investors for a permanent platform for people who want to consume 'choose your own adventure' format productions, where they can watch films by professional filmmakers, but also make their own stories with their smartphones. This style of narrative became popular in 1976 after Edward Packard created Sugarcane Island, and readers really enjoyed being in control of their own entertainment.
Myself and Izzy were brought on to Sound Design one of Whatifi's recent films called Save Luna, a story about a young girl called Luna living with a strange condition that gives her powers, in a dystopian world taken over and controlled by a corrupt government. The film was directed by John Bradburn and features Robert Gilbert, Christine Randall, and Isla Rae as its leads. I felt a very heavy inspiration from Orwell's 1984 in this story, with government propaganda taking over the streets and watching the characters' every move, which was a really exciting launchpad for creative sound design.
This was a bit of a hectic project, as the team had decided to go for a rolling post, so we had to start from the moment we received the first 5 minute clip and pretty much had to stick with the atmos, SFX, and levels we had gone for from then onwards. Because of this process, the two of us sat down with the script beforehand and analysed absolutely every sentence, preparing plenty of effects. We also used BTS pictures of the set and stills that had been uploaded before the edit was done, so we could get an idea of what was in frame and what we felt from the scene in terms of design. We were a bit worried about not having time for full creative freedom on this project, but as we got into the workflow and established a great communication with all the right crew, we were able to prioritise the scenes that would most benefit from extra design time and which were the more simple edits.
One thing we had a lot of fun with was the most important recurring sound motif: Luna using her powers. The powers ranged from making things move by themselves, causing people pain, and made things explode... imagine Matilda but darker. Not only did we get to play with some really creative Sound Design, but the film included mobile haptic effects here, where the phone vibrates alongside the film to enhance the sound design. This was something we had never done before, and choosing different intensities and lengths for these sections, adjusting all the settings in a software called Lofelt Composer, and using the codes for the haptics was amazing and definitely something we'd like to do again in future productions.
My personal favourite thing about this project was working with an amazing composer and editor, who were both incredibly talented, and a director who was very open to letting us experiment with the Sound Design ourselves. It's still some of our proudest work as a company and the most unique project format we have been involved with so far!
Save Luna is out on the Whatifi App now, available on the App Store or Google Play.
