Romance & Cigarettes, a Musical Storytelling

Not every film balances a combination of drama, humor, and song, yet Romance and Cigarettes gamely manages it all with a vision entirely its own. Written and directed by John Turturro, the film stars James Gandolfini as Nick, a hardworking ironworker, who is married to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), a dressmaker. Together, the couple lives a quiet working-class life with their three daughters - that is, until the fiery Tula (Kate Winslet) comes along and begins a torrid affair with Nick. Their affair sets a series of events into motion that sear all of the relationships in Nick's life.

The emotions of the characters are sometimes so passionate and powerful, that dialogue alone is not adequate to portray them. Instead, the characters break into song, voicing thoughts in their heads or singing along to popular music standards - such as Tom Jones's "Delilah" or Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love" - that are interwoven into a scene. It is this uncommon storytelling approach that lies at the heart of the film.

"This is a personal film, an unusual film," says editor Ray Hubley ( View from the Top , Dead Man Walking ), who used a Media Composer Adrenaline system at New York-based PostWorks for cutting. "The director was interested in doing things in unusual ways. What that meant for us is that we had to slow things down. We were patient, not grabbing at the first thing that seemed to work. It was a very rewarding and exciting film in that way. We had the opportunity to live with things for a while. The technology could move so fast, but it offered us a more important benefit: it gave us more time to explore different creative ideas."

"We could easily go back to the HD masters at any time, pull bin info and sequence info from the offline edit, and do a full HD online with original D5 masters."

- Matthew Reedy, Executive Producer, PostWorks

Streamlined Dailies

Hubley and first assistant editor Agnes Grandits ( The Pelican Brief , Dead Man Walking, Sex and The City ) each used an Avid Media Composer Adrenaline system connected to an Avid Unity MediaNetwork for simultaneous access to shared media. In addition to picture cutting tasks, Hubley relied on a variety of the Media Composer Adrenaline system's creative editing features for roughing out titles, visual effects, and audio, while Grandits used her system for duties such as syncing dailies and generating DVDs.

However, the film's post process offered more than the usual efficiencies associated with digital editing and shared storage. PostWorks, New York also provided a custom telecine process for simultaneous preparation of SD dailies (stored on DVCAM as a backup), HD dailies (stored on D5 tape), and direct-to-disk dailies (stored on the Avid Unity server). As a result of this streamlined media preparation, the post team could start using SD dailies for creative cutting almost immediately, while HD material was available for conforming cuts on demand for screening in PostWorks' digital intermediate (DI) theater.

This simultaneous workflow resulted in a 50 percent time savings in inputting media and also helped ensure the quality of the final film print. "By doing all of this work in one pass, we avoided putting stress on the original negative," says PostWorks executive producer Matthew Reedy.

"The technology could move so fast, but it offered us a more important benefit: it gave us more time to explore different creative ideas."

- Ray Hubley, Editor, Romance and Cigarettes

Fast, Multiple Screenings

Offline edit decisions from the Media Composer Adrenaline systems were seamlessly imported into PostWorks' Avid DS Nitris system, where an HD conform could be quickly assembled from HD dailies, eliminating the costly and time-consuming creation of a workprint. "We could easily go back to the HD masters at any time, pull bin info and sequence info from the offline edit, and do a full HD online with original D5 masters," says Reedy. "Then we could export an HD tape to play in our DI theater or play directly from the Nitris. The process provided speed, quality, and the ability to make last-minute changes, even in the online."

Using this screening process, the filmmakers did six or seven screenings in the DI theater at PostWorks. "Those screenings really instructed our creative choices," says Hubley. "That response was really helpful to us - particularly on this film. It is not a formulaic film; it's unusual, funny, and sad. It was important to have that kind of fresh response. Plus, it all could happen so fast. Working with D5, we were able to stop cutting on Monday, spend one day in an online suite to conform the film with D5 masters, and then - a day later - screen the D5 tape of the film in the screening room where the visual quality is comparable to a screen print, the resolution is so good."

The frequent screenings, which were held approximately every 10 days, also allowed Hubley to sustain a rhythm of making changes, getting feedback, and refining the cut. He cites one particularly challenging sequence that benefited from this approach in which the script had called for a character to sing an entire song on screen. "We did many different versions of that scene," explains Hubley. "It was a little problematic, written and conceived as a character walking on the road. With each pass of the film, we tried different things. In the final version, the character never sings. He walks along to a song with a montage of images playing out. I would never have imagined the long journey we took to get there. In this case, if we hadn't had as much time, we never would have gotten to that point. All the screenings were indispensable. Creatively, we seized those opportunities."

"The usefulness of Pro Tools systems for me, aside from the plug-ins, is the ability to hear what the soundscape is going to be before you are mixing it."

- Eliza Paley, Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer, Romance and Cigarettes

The Sound of the Fury

Supervising sound editor and sound designer Eliza Paley agrees that this film presented uncommon creative challenges, and thoughtful sound editing was required to balance over-the-top musical scenes with quiet, more subtle dramatic ones. "The film has an emotional arc that is very unusual," she explains. "It starts off blustery, big, wacky, and very funny and then becomes solemn, more solitary, pared down, and simple by the end. We had to follow that arc."

For example, at the beginning of the film there is a fantasy sequence about Tula , where she is on fire in a building. A lot of sirens and organic sounds of fire and water were used to enhance the drama. By contrast, there is a pivotal scene later in the film where Nick and Kitty are sitting in their dining room in winter. The scene includes very quiet radiator noises: the sound of steam and the knocking of pipes. The wind whistles periodically through a window and small wind chimes sound. Nick and Kitty sing an emotional a cappella piece and, when the singing ends, there remains only the tiny tapping of a radiator.

A variety of Digidesign Pro Tools systems were used for sound effects and sound editing, dialogue and music editing, ADR, and mixing at Sound One in New York. "The usefulness of these systems for me, aside from the plug-ins, is the ability to hear what the soundscape is going to be before you are mixing it," says Paley. "You can not only play back all the tracks at once, but you can play back in 5.1 if you are set up for that. You can really hear what you are mixing and tweak everything ahead of time."

Keeping All the Music in Sync

Music editor Shari Johanson found the Pro Tools system essential for handling the complex film, which included music under almost every piece of dialogue. To infuse scenes with the energy and tone he was after, Turturro played music out of speakers on set for actors to play against or sing along. As a result, Johanson spent a considerable amount of time editing final music selections to the music playing back on set. "Basically, I had to be a dialogue editor with music," she says.

The Pro Tools system's Time Compression/Expansion plug-in was particularly useful for matching back master recordings to the production music. She explains, "John [Turturro] had made a compilation of CD songs that he used to shoot the movie to. I had to make sure that I found the right masters that matched the songs he had used. But sometimes the speed was different [on the original recordings] because of the analog transfer. We had to make those masters match exactly to the songs that played on location. With the Time Compression/Expansion plug-in, we could create a version that was identical and didn't drift at all."

In addition to using a Pro Tools TDM workstation in studio and for playback on set, Johanson took advantage of using a portable Mbox system at home or on the road. Johanson, who was pregnant while making the film, especially enjoyed the freedom and convenience of working from home. "I don't think I would have survived without it," she says. She also liked the flexibility of having her assistant use the Mbox system for file management and loading tasks while she continued using the Pro Tools TDM system, which helped to eliminate downtime.

One-Stop Entertainment

The filmmakers also made use of Pro Tools systems at PostWorks, which were connected to the Avid Unity shared-storage network, for last-minute recording or ADR tasks. PostWorks' ability to meet such a wide range of editorial needs in one facility created an easier workflow that helped the team meet its target deadlines for film festival submissions.

As Reedy explains, "The ability to do everything in one house - audio, telecine, conform, editorial - was important on this project. Executives could see everything they wanted to see. John [Turturro] had an office here; the editors had an office here. With everything under one roof, they could stay in one spot and work much more efficiently. As a result, they had more time to dedicate to the artistry of creating the film."

That artistry, which Johanson describes as "the Coen Brothers meets Gene Kelly," is likely to satisfy a legion of fans, who have come to expect the unexpected from a John Turturro film. One thing is certain: the musical genre may never be viewed in quite the same way again.

*Credit: Images courtesy of MGM. © 2005 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. All rights reserved.