Greg Sharp’s comically cynical vision of the future where the water is gone and all that’s left is dust and desperation seems less and less like fantasy. But we’re guessing you didn’t come here for our take on global politics. Hopefully, you came here for a recording of a man shouting “drink of water” over and over again, ‘cause that’s what you’re getting.
Unusually, our relationship with Greg Sharp started after we, sort of, invited ourselves onto this project. When he posted this little GIF on Tumblr with the caption “vrup vrup vrup vrup”, we half-jokingly responded “We want to make them vrups”.
For us it was a no-brainer; the film seemed to have the bonkers sort of humour Skillbard specialises in and, most importantly, Greg’s caption demonstrated that he was thinking about sound as an essential ingredient to that humour.
The Sax
Greg trusted us enough to leave the brief entirely open but for one suggestion: to try something like this sax exclamation to punctuate the moment the protagonist’s face lights up. Genius.
An expertly charmed saxophone can feel like butter in the ears, melting the heart of even the meanest goblin. But in the hands of a novice like our Vincent, it can produce shreaks that would dry the ears of the moistest blobfish, making goblins of us all. Vincent's shronks and squeals, produced with lung-collapsing effort, became the film's hoarse and desperate beetle battle cries
The Planet of the Apes
Although initially inspired by our friends, the New York noise ensemble Zs, our first, quick sketch accidentally evoked a hint of The Planet of the Apes. A perfect reference for the film's tone and a great cultural allusion to help tell the story. Continuing this path by drawing half-remembered inspiration from Gerry Goldsmith's legendary score, we aimed for a future primitive feel, incorporating Tibetan horns, bamboo jegog, and prepared piano to build up into a desperate, thirsty beetle battle march.
Our Initial Experiments
The Voice
All characters in The Future are identical so the animatic was a little difficult to follow. To help us understand who was who, we whipped up some temporary voice acting, alongside the music sketch. Unfortunately for us Greg loved it. We recorded fifty throat-punishing takes of hoarse and manic screaming for our crazed pink coleopteran weirdos.
DRINK OF WATER?!?!!!
