Supernatural horror film, ‘Talk to Me’ sees a group of party loving friends contacting the dead via an embalmed hand and ensuring the possession scenes remained as real as possible was a key priority for VFX. VFX Supervisor and Head of Post Production Marty Pepper explains, “The possessions in the film were very important to the believability of the film and its players, if those moments fell flat, the film would not work. As planned, VFX played a supporting role in the first possession – just a slight hand grip or pupil dilation. In the second possession it was a different story, the script called for Daniel to passionately make out with Jade’s dog. On a different show, the dog would have been fully CGI, but ours had to be ridiculously real. A hand operated dog’s head was puppeteered to create the correct contact during the actor coverage beats, then extensive live action plates were shot on set and the dog was then rebuilt and positioned to create the photo realistic shots. The first part of the Riley possession relied on great prosthetics plus clever art department with minor enhancement and then more VFX when he shoots across the room (on wires) smashing the window, all were shot as a variety of plates and then rebuilt via match move techniques.”
This authentic approach to the possessions stemmed not only from the directors’ long-time commitment in-camera techniques, but also the importance of the experience for the characters. As Sophie Wilde who plays Mia articulates “For Mia, the hand is an escape from reality and Mia is obviously dissatisfied with the way that her life is and trying to force all of these connections, so the hand is a way to release all of that.”
Otis Dhanji, who plays Daniel, adds “The hand itself is this supernatural, almost satanic thing, the antithesis what Daniel’s been brought up to believe in. So it’s like doing the complete opposite of what he’s been told to do. He is really uncomfortable with who he is and he’s trying to prove to people that he’s not just a sheltered Christian boy. He’s trying to upset perceptions of him as this goody two shoes kind of guy and go against what his parents are pushing on him.”
Creating the reality of the hand and the possessions was a priority carried through to the sound process. Sound Designer Emma Bortignon explains “The hand itself is a thread throughout the film sonically. We tried to be as textural as possible, sonically textural. If someone touches the hand, or has an interaction with the hand, it has a very specific sound.”
“I did a lot of experiments trying to come up with the right textural sound. When the hand falls a couple of times and hits the ground, it hits the ground with an almighty bang and at one point it even slides across the floor. I used the sound of a gravestone being dragged along the concrete. I experimented with lots of leather sounds and lots of wood sounds and lots of other sounds that might help to give additional texture to that. And any kind of human hand touching the hand, whenever somebody grabs it, it needed to sound quite solid and heavy, it had to have weight, and at the same time be a very layered sound of ceramic. This had to land, so it was about getting that right and making sure that it wasn’t asking to be heard, but if you wanted to go back and listen to it, you would hear what it is. It needed to be a very visceral experience.”
“The thing that we were able to do with this particular story was really shift between what is the everyday sounds of our characters and when there is a possession. Once a possession takes hold, we changed a lot of the aspects of the sound design. We took out the belly of the everyday sounds and we added a slight layer of dread, which is sort of like an underbelly or low rumble. And because the possessions happen in stages, there are new elements added slowly, to then get to the point when we’re in full possession mode and it is more about feeling. I think it’s interesting to do that because horror is a bold genre but we were also quite subtle, we weren’t trying to make everything be heard. To see this in a cinema, you would pick up on these things. Sometimes delicate, sometimes very bold.”
Altered voices also needed to be created for the possessed characters, and new voice actors were brought into post. Emma expands “The characters become possessed by a spirit and the physicality of the characters change and so does the sound of their voice. So when they talk, they are talking with the voice of the spirit.”
“We auditioned voice actors to play the spirits because we see the spirits within the context of the film, but we never actually hear them talking other than talking through their host characters. Those spirit voices were cast for the sound, for their characterisation, for how deeply they could emote the feeling. We had the actors emulate the words of another character beat for beat, so if you sit one voice on top of another, it sounds like it’s coming from one person. We laid the actor and spirit’s voice on top of each other and sometimes we affected them slightly, just a slight pitch down or up in that very second. And then we slowly changed from the actor’s voice into the spirit voice. It was very subtle, particularly in the genre of horror where so much is so big.”
Emma was enlivened by the process, “Michael and Danny are very attuned, sonically, so they could hear every little breath, every little moment, every little inflection, and would be able to respond to that in a creative way. We meticulously sifted through the spirit voices and tried to make sure that was a very seamless transition from character to spirit and back again, mainly leading with emotion. They knew when they heard that it was right, as opposed to it being a prescribed thing. I also work intuitively a lot of the time, I don’t go into a scene a hundred percent always knowing what’s going to happen. I want to look for things that surprise me and I want to look for things that will also surprise the audience and the story.”
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