cigar
would be from thermographic camera
but the trees came from the optical camera.
We'd make that image blue because
the coolest things in the Predator's vision
would have been blue.
The idea was to blend the two images
together to make it look like one,
and now, on some shots, I can't tell!
Co-Supervising Sound Editors
David Stone and Richard L Anderson:
(Stone) When we started this,
we heard a simple premise:
Arnold in the jungle and an alien. Arnold
didn't have the respectability he has now.
So we thought "genre", "stupid",
"let's just make it loud and please Joel".
But Rich and I were both surprised
at how artistically it was executed.
(Anderson) Predator was originally dubbed
in the Dolby SR format with mono surround.
As I recall, I specialised in the backgrounds:
The bird and animal sounds
because the jungle was such a big part of it.
(Stone) Richard orchestrated
the life and the jungle activity
that was so much a part of the story.
Thatjust doesn't happen
from laying down a flat background.
You have different birds and howler monkeys
and they react to what the humans are doing.
That's Richard thinking through:
"What would happen after they mowed
down the jungle with that big gun?"
Would birds start tweeting right away?
I don't think so.
I should credit Andy Wiskes
for the jungle recordings.
(Anderson) A lot of which came
from a movie originally called Lazaro
and was released as
Where the River Runs Black.
(Stone) As far as we know,
Lazaro was one of the first soundtracks
made of almost entirely digital recordings.
Andy, who recorded a lot of Grateful Dead
stuff, was a great field recordist.
He went into the jungle
for that picture, not ours.
He lugged a ѕ-inch video recorder
all through the Brazilian jungle.
He rated each recording with the number
of mosquito bites it cost to get it.
(Anderson) Though I think his
was the bulk of the background,
we had otherjungles in our library
besides the Andy Wiskes's stuff.
From the basic jungles we had,
I would pick the best stuff for the scene.
I'd make one stereo pair to go
left-right across the front of the screen
and another pair to go centre-surround, front
to back of the theatre, to get a surround feel.
Then I cut individual birds
reacting to the people.
Sometimes you'd have the actors
not reacting to anything,
butjust looking around nervously.
So I'd put a monkey or bird call offscreen,
and cause them to look in that direction.
Editor Mark Helfrich:
I was hired to edit Predator,
which at that time was called Hunter.
Midway through the shooting the movie
was retitled "The" Predator.
Shortly thereafter
they settled on just Predator.
I had an all-female crew, which is
very bizarre for such a macho movie.
Months of shooting went by,
then the production was shut down.
The studio wanted to evaluate
how to proceed before starting up again.
Most everything had been shot up to
where Dutch was left to face the creature -
everything except the creature.
The incomplete film had to be
edited and mixed in record time.
So I brought on another editor.
I called John Link and said
"Do you want to come work on Predator?"
He said "Sure" and moved here
from Colorado to do it. (laughs)
(Link) I drove from Aspen, got to the studio...
(Helfrich) Yeah, in a beat-up, shitty...
He had the worst car.
He should have put that car
to rest years before he did.
Billy is played by actor Sonny Landham.
Al Di Sarro remembers
working with Landham:
(Di Sarro) Sonny Landham. (laughs)
You get real close to Sonny,
you can hear the fuse.
Joel Silver hired a bodyguard for Sonny
to make sure he was there in the morning,
to make sure he didn't do whatever
he was doing from off-time to on-time.
One night, Sonny almost threw
him off the balcony of his room.
The guy had to weigh