The Unhanged (2023): Sound Design

"The Unhanged" (2023) , written and directed by Andrei Alen, is a remake of a 1971 film of the same name, directed by Spede Pasanen and Vesa-Matti Loiri. This western-comedy film follows the adventures of three outlaws as they make their way across a post-apocalyptic (in Alen’s version) desert.

Many credits

The budget, and therefore the crew, of the film was pretty small. All the sound post-production (excluding the final mix) was made at Vild by yours truly. My credits for this film could include at least the following titles: dialogue editing and mixing, sound effects editing, foley recording and editing, music editing, ADR-recording and editing, sound design, and pre-mixing. The final mix was completed over two intensive days at Meguru Film Sound by Olli Pärnänen. Handling the sound for a feature film all by myself was a fairly crazy undertaking, but also a great learning experience. I think me and Andrei formed a great partnership, which allowed dumb and even dumber ideas to be thrown around freely.

Turning a gravel pit into a desert

Like the original film, the remake was also shot entirely on a gravel pit in Southern Finland. This meant that the first, and perhaps the most important challenge for me as the sound designer, was to extend the world of the film beyond the picture. In reality, just outside of the frame there would be construction machinery, roads and trees — but in the film’s universe there needed to be endless desert. Even though this is first and foremost a comedy, the film also carries a strong environmental undercurrent. At some level, we wanted the audience to really believe that Finland of the future has turned into a desolate wasteland. That’s why we felt it was important not to turn the environment of the film into a complete joke, but to have the humour stem from the absurdity of the characters and situations.

A Wonderful project for a sound designer

For someone who grew up with and was greatly inspired by Sergio Leone’s Dollars-trilogy, the opportunity to work on a western and play with all the genre-typical elements. The howling desert winds, chirping crickets, desolate calls of birds of prey, and the twang of bullets ricocheting from stone are instantly recognisable sounds. And when you throw UFOs, commercial breaks, auto-tuned singing and a director who really encourages experimentation into the mix, you are sure have a good time as a sound designer. And even though the reception of the film was quite poor, I’m still proud of it in many ways. It also marked the beginning of our collaboration with Backmann & Hoderoff (Founded by Alen and Aku Louhimies), which was later continued with the “Conflict”-series, and hopefully many other projects to come.