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MillimeterPhoto-Synthesis Finding High Art in Low-Budget Software
Apr 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Matt Cheplic
The most enlightened miners of pop culture may recognize the name Reinhold Heil, albeit not for the most befitting reason. In the early '80s, Heil produced three albums for German pop singer Nena, including her only U.S. hit, "99 Red Balloons." But last year's Run Lola Run, directed by Tom Tykwer, showcased Heil's film-scoring acumen and demonstrated why he is destined for more than pop music's dusty one-hit-wonder bin.
"I had grown increasingly bored with pop music," recalls Heil, who moved from Berlin to Santa Barbara three years ago. "In Germany, we had this huge, never-ending wave of boring techno music sweeping the charts. I don't hate electronic music; I was kind of a pioneer in the field with a band called Spliff. But it was getting tiresome, and I wanted to score films."
At this time, Heil had a fruitful professional friendship with Johnny Klimec, an Australian musician living in Berlin. Klimec was contributing music to the Tykwer film Winter Sleepers (released in Germany in 1997). When Klimec suggested that Tykwer enlist further help from Heil, the director was more than willing, and the triumvirate got to work. "It was very much a modern studio project," explains Heil. "It wasn't a band, per se. It was more a case of everyone bringing in his studio technology and complementing one another's ideas. The next thing I did was put my studio in a 40-foot container and ship it to California."
After settling in Santa Barbara, Heil endured some false starts with pop-music projects and then got the call from Tykwer to reunite for Run Lola Run.
Heil's current project, The Empress and the Warrior (also directed by Tykwer), represents a synergy between audio and visuals in the most literal sense. As he did with Lola, Heil tapped into his favorite tool, the Mac-based software package known as MetaSynth. Heil explains: "It turns visual into audio. You can use a scanned-in photograph, for example. It determines the resolution, recognizes various parameters, and renders the graphic image into sound. You can also manipulate or draw an image with Photoshop and import that into Metasynth." Heil points out that MetaSynth operates in the reverse sense, as well. "It will take audio samples, analyze them, and turn them into graphics. Even if you don't manipulate those any further, you can convert them back into a sound file and it will sound grainy and dirty, which is a cool effect."
Unlike other audio-editing and manipulation software, MetaSynth only costs about $250, which is another reason Heil was so quick to experiment in the first place. "Sometimes, I just collaged several things together. The great thing is, the software doesn't only work for ambient, background things. The textures can also be assembled rhythmically. The X axis of the graphic interface represents timing, and the Y represents level; you can separate and combine the elements however you want."
An electronic-music veteran, Heil does not live by MetaSynth alone. He often combines it with Logic Audio, manufactured by Hamburg, Germany-based Emagic. And while the composer does rely on Pro Tools Hardware, he rarely uses the popular software. However, he does return to MetaSynth quite often-maybe too often. "I must admit," he laughs, "I have used it quite extensively on both these features, and the producers did a lot of re-editing; they didn't use all the music. But the cool thing about that is I did something they hadn't encountered before."
MetaSynth sprang from the brain of Belgian software developer Eric Wenger, who also created Bryce for MetaCreations. "I bought the first version when he developed it three years ago," remembers Heil. "You need to spend time on it, and different people will get different results. But it's definitely worth it."
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.