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The Movie: There are certainly many more popular DVDs that impress with their use of sound, such as "Saving Private Ryan", but for the first "favorite" that I'll chose, I'm going to go with director Rob Cohen's "Daylight", the story of Sylvester Stallone as Kit Latura, a disgraced rescue worker who tries to save a group of motorists stranded in a tunnel after a deadly explosion. It can be argued that "Daylight" isn't always successful in the script department, but the dedication that Cohen displays to use sound to transport the listener into the movie is certainly evident. "Daylight" starts off with a few chapters that simply serve to set up the characters, but once it begins, the sound is completely agressive and wonderfully enveloping. It starts with the tunnel explosion in chapter eight, a two minute scene that shows a wall of fire rapidly advancing through the tunnel, and an explosion that rips through a building above. Not only is the explosion itself one of the most powerful I've ever heard, but the sounds of falling concrete during the first moments of the blast are heavy enough to be felt. As he goes to save the characters, Kit must pass through a group of exhaust fans - rather than just having the fan sound be a secondary thought, the viewer hears the noise of the fans from all sides. Once Kit makes his way to the rest of the characters, the film begins to use an almost constant array of sounds from all around - we hear groans as the tunnel begins to collapse even further, rushing water as the river above begins to break through, and of course, another powerful explosion to keep the water from coming in any further. During one scene, a structure collapses downwards, and as the characters crawl through a tunnel to escape, the sounds of the small space collapsing around the viewer are absolutely perfect. As the two characters come back into the main tunnel, a giant explosion (there are a lot of those in this film) rips through. There are no light taps of sound in "Daylight" - the objective seems to be a complete "you-are-there" feeling, and the sound team has certainly succeeded. Every crash is loud, and every rumble is heavier and deeper than the last. The film uses the surrounds constantly, and the result is incredibly effective - their use is never distracting, but kept me even more involved in what was going on on-screen. "Daylight" keeps going right to the end, and although I don't want to give away the ending, it sounds just as remarkable as the rest of the picture. This is really what I call perfect in terms of sound design, making the act of watching the film a stunning experience for the viewer. This is my first "favorite sound DVD" article and I didn't want to give away every great audio moment, but I do want to highly recommend this DVD if you're looking for a great movie to show off your sound system. The supervising sound editor on "Daylight" was Richard L. Anderson, who has worked on films such as "Lethal Weapon 4", "Antz", "Virus", "Dante's Peak" and "Daylight" director Rob Cohen's other film, "Dragonheart." If you want to read my review of the film and the rest of this DVD, click the link below. |