Ugly Lies the Bone
Sound Design
My concept for Ugly Lies the Bone was the sound of memory. Jess is struggling through a convergence of memories; the memory of her hometown before it degraded, the memory of her love with Stevie and the decision she made to walk away from that for war, the memory combat and seeing people she bled with die in an explosion, and the memory of her body and what it used to be. The sound of Jess' world is muffled and reverberative. Her sonic capacity lives in lower frequencies. When we as the audience have the chance to wonder into her head, we lose the upper register of sound and the directionality that comes with it.
Most of the cues in this show were practical cues and existing music. But there were a few places where I created atmospheric cues to help establish the environment or tell the story. These cues are included below.
FLASHBACK
This is a stereo version of the surround file that played underneath Jess' flashback in Ugly Lies the Bone. I blended war sounds (explosions, gun fire, debris falling) and slowed some down and reversed some waves. Then I placed a studio reverb and shelved the low end. I also created an eerie version of 'Good King Wenseslas' to play underneath because Jess hums the tune during the flashback. Finally, I capped it off with a reverse explosion to pull Jess out of the moment.
Ugly Lies the Bone Prologue
This sound is not scripted in the play. I as director I used it to lead the audience from the curtain speech into the opening song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" which is specified in the script. I recorded the voice overs and then EQ'd them using the tweeter setting in Auditions FFT EQ filter. Then I clipped the audio to get the distorted sound I remember from using radios in the Army.
Ugly Lies the Bone Curtain Speech
As a director I usually prefer live curtain speeches, but I wanted this show to start from a specific screen without the interruption of a live person. So I recorded the curtain speech myself.
