By
Daniel Thomas
Kung
Fu Cult Cinema is proud to present an interview with
Hong Kong sound recordist, technician and musician;
Cheuk Biu Yi, that's Martin Chappell to us.
In the last decade Martin has worked on over 40 Hong
Kong films, collaborating with the likes of Ringo
Lam, Johnnie To and Tsui Hark, including such seminal
works as THE LONGEST NITE, THE MISSION, VICTIM, RUNNING
ON KARMA, TIME AND TIDE and THE LEGEND OF ZU.
Recently, Martin has contributed to DOG BITE DOG,
the 'PTU' TV series and, Yau Nai-Hoi's directorial
debut, EYE IN THE SKY.
[Daniel
Thomas]: Hello Martin, thanks a lot for
agreeing to this interview. First things first; how
did you make the transition from being a roadie, in
the UK, to working on some of the biggest films that
have come out of Hong Kong in the last ten years?
[Martin
Chappell]: It wasn't a plan! There was
a lot of serendipity; I guess I wasn't really cut
out for the speaker lugging brigade and, after a near
miss with a truck at 4am (when I fell asleep driving
back to Nottingham from Liverpool). I thought I’d
take a year out and that got me as far as Australia,
Hong Kong was supposed to be on the way home, but
it's been 12 years now and feels more like home to
me, than any where.
[Daniel
Thomas]:
So, Martin, did coming from England to work in Hong
Kong cause any problems? How's your Cantonese?
[Martin
Chappell]: I wouldn't say so,
after all it almost seems that all of Hong Kong speaks
a little English. I'd I always had an interest in
language, once I started travelling. I remember taking
mini buses and ending up with a chicken in my lap,
flicking through a phrase book; this was whilst I
was going from East Timor to Bali, a journey of about
a week hopping from island to island and winging it.
The local people were friendly to us and delighted
to while away the monotony helping us with our Baha-sa.
After three weeks we could hold a basic conversation
and it really helped us not to get ripped off so much!
Hong Kong and Cantonese was a little harder to crack,
primarily as most Hong Kongers can speak English,
so speaking thru a phrase book just doesn't cut it...
It becomes difficult once you venture to work in the
depths of Kowloon, I was on the edge of the known
solar system as far as I was concerned, when I went
to Milkyway. Most of the office is buzzing in Cantonese,
so the basics begin to pop out: ‘Sek fan may-ah?’
– ‘Have you eaten yet’ - you hear
this one a lot!!! Or, ‘Wahhh!!! Ley fay jaw!!!!
- ‘Wahhh!!! You're fatter!!!’
I guess as a sound editor I have an advantage, in
that I'm paid to listen to the movie a couple of hundred
thousand times. I do memorise some of it and eventually
the subtitles appear and I'm able to yell things like;
‘Don't move!’, ‘Drop your gun!’,
or ‘This is a stick up!’...
I'm not 100% fluent and the tonal quality on Cantonese
doesn't help. In EYE IN THE SKY I spent the whole
time thinking to myself, that Simon Yam's character
was called ‘Old Head’, which is sort of
respectable. I was surprised, when watching the A
copy, to find out that he was called ‘Dog Head’.
So, I still need to query things; I remember (Yau)
Nai-Hoi laughing when I told him, it didn't make too
much difference, I still knew what was going on. Mostly!!!
It's an easy mistake for a Westerner to make: ‘gau’
can mean ‘dog’, ‘nine’, ‘do’
(verb), ‘dick’ and ‘old’,
there's probably a couple more...
But my Cantonese, whilst flawed, is good enough for
me to have one foot on each side of the Language gap.
I did the mix with (Yau) Nai-Hoi in Cantonese and
the whole of DOG BITE DOG was discussed in Cantonese;
I guess me and Soi did a bit of onomatopoeic arm waving
mouth swooshing. He was nice enough when ATV did a
documentary, to come on and relate to them how bad
my Cantonese used to be! That was pretty well received
and TVB8 rang up a few months later and asked me to
do another one that's creativity for you!
I'm happy to report that my life seems a hell of lot
better for learning Cantonese though, at least once
a day a stranger will comment on how good my Cantonese
is and tell me I should have learned Mandarin! I have
a cheerful reply to this “I LIVE IN HONG KONG!!!!!!”
 |
[Daniel]:
Where you a fan of Hong Kong cinema before you began
working with some of it's leading lights? If so, what
were your favourite films and who were your favourite
Hong Kong directors? Were you already aware of the
films of Johnnie To, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam?
[Martin]:
Not really, I think I'd seen HARD BOILED and knew
who Chow Yun Fat was, but I can hardly be called an
aficionado!!!
[Daniel]:
So, what exactly does a Sound Editor / Sound Recordist
do? How much of your time is spent hanging round recording
sound on location or locked away in the depths of
a studio?
[Martin]:
Lots of time in front of the computer for me…
I hadn't been out on location for years but, this
year, I went out as camera man on an impendent film
I'm working on, called 3 CITIES. Both involve lots
of hanging around; out on a set, at least you have
people to talk to, but the elements can be harsh.
The first movie I remember doing, I was freezing my
nads off in Macau for WHERE A GOOD MAN GOES!!!
I'm
more of an undercover microphone user now; I'm often
sneaking around recording in the streets. Not snooping,
but trying to catch life which I can inject into film.
[Daniel]:
So, when you watch films, do you find yourself analysing
the sound design more than the narrative intricacies?
What was the last film you watched that had really
great sound?
[Martin]:
Hopefully if they've done a good job I won't really
notice it! Not on the first watch anyway! But, I suppose
subconsciously, I do…
I enjoy real sound, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was actually
the last movie I watched, but I just re-watched MOMENTUM
and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. They have pretty good snappy
sound.
[Daniel]:
You've worked on a pretty wide spectrum of films,
from drama and action, through to fantasy, comedy
and animation; is there any particular genre that
you prefer to work on? Are some genre's easier, more
challenging or more fun?
[Martin]:
I was a goth, so any dark moody stuff comes easily
for me. I enjoy playing with the ambience the most;
I'm working on THE IRON TRIANGLE right now, and it
has all my favourite elements in it. And it has three
of Hong Kong's most well known directing, the poster
I saw said “Three Masters”; more like
‘Three Monsters!!!’
Quiet movies are the toughest, as there's nothing
to hide behind; you need to know the tricks, to get
a sound recorded indoors to sound like it's in the
middle of a field. I spend untold hours trying to
find the best wind sound; combining the right rustle
and distant dog, just to get it to seem natural. I
guess nature is constantly shifting and that’s
what I aim to do when doing the sound.
Doing PTU, I had just read Walter Murch's "The
Conversation" and it was a great inspiration:
at certain points in PTU, I was asking myself ‘how
does Lam Suet feel? I mean he's just had a nasty bump
on the head, I guess things might have sounded pretty
trippy to him. It was all about perspective and hyper
realism.
Also, in the arcade, we took liberties with the sounds:
there was no music and yet a really powerful scene
was unravelling, then I realised that we could twist
the cacophony of arcade machines to accentuate the
violence. The swoosh of bombs as Simon Yam’s
arm swiped back again and again as he explosively
slapped the face...
I did have fun slipping all that in; it was sort of
a watershed moment for me. The opening titles were
done in around 20 minutes, when I realised there was
no opening music! The whole thing was inspired by,
but nowhere near as ground breaking, as APOCALYPSE
NOW. Overall, the movie is okay, just some missing
foley (KFCC – That’s location sound effects
to you and I), I think, in the restaurant before Chi
Sin gets stabbed…
 |
[Daniel]:
Sound is obviously a huge part of cinema, especially
in Hong Kong, so much so that, when I tell people
that I'm a big fan of films from this region, they
often begin to mimic the howls of Bruce Lee, the exaggerated
sounds of fists cutting through the air or the sound
of a sword being pulled from its sheath. Do you wish
you'd had the chance to get your teeth into designing
the sound for an old school kung-fu flick?
[Martin]:
Yeah that would be great! Some of those Bruce Lee
flicks had some pretty trippy sound on them. It’d
be a blast! I think I got the goods!!!
[Daniel]:
You've worked on a host of Milkyway Image productions,
with Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai, as well as with Tsui
Hark and Ringo Lam; do all of these directors have
different ways of collaborating with you? Who has
been your favourite director to work with and are
there any directors, in Hong Kong, who you'd love
to work with?
[Martin]:
This is a tough question! I learnt so much from Ringo
Lam about sound; it's weird I sometimes still hear
him talking to me when I'm working. He knows what
he wants and has great tenacity in waiting to get
it right...
I learnt a great deal about mixing from Johnnie To;
he sat with me for a few nights whist mixing RUNNING
OUT OF TIME and that really helped my understanding
of film mixing
I guess I would love to work with Fruit Chan or maybe
Andrew Lau; I think I could have added something to
that.
I really wish I had worked on some Kung Fu, I would’ve
had a blast!!! I started off doing cartoons and to
work on the action would’ve really appealed
to me. I liked SHAOLIN SOCCER and I did a demo for
Wilson Yip's DRAGON TIGER GATE: they said they liked
my work but, as is often the case, the sound deal
is packaged with the editing and it never came through...
[Daniel]:
Having done a little bit of sound design for projects,
that friends of mine have produced, I'm all too familiar
with just how soul destroying the repeated viewings
of some material can be. Can you ever just sit down
and watch a film that you've worked on, without being
distracted by memories of your contribution?
[Martin]:
Memories fade, but the scars still linger!
I guess that's the rub: it's very hard to divorce
those feelings, especially when there are some weak
points you wished there was more time or the computer
hadn't crashed...
Actually I can't watch PTU without thinking of the
temp mix we did for the Berlin Film Festival submission:
- Mr To had found a Doors track (Riders on the Storm);
it was for the scene where they walk up the staircase,
and he asked me for some other suggestions. The movie
actually opened with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Dazed
and Confused’ (coming in, right where they got
off the truck) and also had a lot of Electric Ladyland
(Jimi Hendrix) in it...
It was a good vibe for the film and pretty much contained
all my all time favourite rock tracks chosen by Mr
To!!!!
[Daniel]:
Which films that you have worked on, do you still
enjoy watching? And, on the flip-side, have any driven
you to a point where you feel as if you can never
watch them again? I'm too polite to ask what the worst
work you've done is, but I will ask what film are
you most proud of?
[Martin]:
Some of the best and worst are the same movie!!! PTU
has some really great moments, but I'm still kicking
myself for some of it, same for RUNNING ON KARMA.
EYE IN THE SKY, which I just completed, isn't bad.
I think it would have to be TURN LEFT, TERN RIGHT;
it had some sublime sounds in it.
Probably, my biggest regret is THE LONGEST NITE. It
was the first movie I worked on the sound for, but
I was just an assistant. We had a quiet period a few
years later and I actually redid the whole thing as
an exercise; I wished people could see that version,
but it's probably never going to happen.
[Daniel]:
So, you've just finished working on the 'PTU' TV series
and, Yau Nai-Hoi's directorial debut, 'Eye in the
Sky'; what else have you got coming up?
[Martin]:
Well aside from THE IRON TRIANGLE, I'm also simultaneously
finishing off BLOOD BROTHERS (John Woo production)
with Daniel Wu and Shu Qi.
Mr To has a couple of projects; not really sure how
much I can say at this point..
I hope to be working with Cheung Bo Soi (DOG BITE
DOG) later in the year. August, I think…
I'm also trying to get my editorial debut off the
ground: 3 CITIES, a roughly, fictionalised story of
the inception of the annual Rockit festival, held
in Victoria Park...
There's an animated version of STORM RIDERS coming
at the end of the year…
Another personal project is "Black Hole";
we are working on an album of ‘orphans’
(the unwanted snippets from my movie work), it's tentatively
titled bastard sounds...
My company has just been sucked into the Milkyway
building, again. At it's heart, we had to build a
new room; it's been christened the "Black Hole"
and we've already finished a few tracks off there
as a private project. You can check them out at -
myspace.com/bastardsounds - they are based on live
recordings and samples taken in Hong Kong. I hope
to develop this further this in the coming months;
we have some cheeky ideas in the pipeline and I should
have more time next month!!!
[Daniel]:
Well that's almost it from me, it just remains for
me to say 'Thank You' once again and ask for your
thoughts on the Kung Fu Cult Cinema website. Did you
search out the reviews of films you'd worked on and
see if anything was said about the sound design?
[Martin]:
I can't believe I've worked in the industry for so
long and not known about this site! There’s
loads of info and I like the review section; I'm gonna
buff up some more, get down the video store and check
the competition out!!!
I think my favourite review was the New York Times
of PTU; it mentioned the echoing silence and tromping
of the boots. This was a good feeling!
[Daniel]:
Thanks Martin, and don't forget to keep us informed
of what's
in the Fork Media pipeline...
[Martin]:
Thanks Dan...
Daniel
Thomas
