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Wonder Park’s whimsical sound
By Jennifer Walden
The imagination of a young girl comes to life in the animated feature Wonder Park. The story follows June and her mother as they build a pretend amusement park in June’s bedroom. There are rides that defy the laws of physics — like a merry-go-round with flying fish that can leave the carousel and travel all over the park, a Zero-G-Land where there’s no gravity, a waterfall made of firework sparks, a super tube slide made from bendy straws, and other wild creations.
But when her mom gets sick and leaves for treatment, June’s creative spark fizzles out. She disassembles the park and packs it away. Then one day as June heads home through the woods, she stumbles onto a real-life Wonderland that mirrors her make-believe one. Only this Wonderland is falling apart and being consumed by the mysterious Darkness. June and the park’s mascots work together to restore Wonderland by stopping the Darkness.
Even in its more tense moments — like June and her friend Banky riding a homemade rollercoaster cart down their suburban street and nearly missing an on-coming truck — the sound isn’t intense. The cart doesn’t feel rickety or squeaky, like it’s about to fly apart. There’s a sense of danger that could result in non-serious injury, but never death. And that’s perfect for the target audience of this film — young children. Wonder Park is meant to be sweet and fun, and supervising sound editor John Marquis captures that masterfully.
Marquis and his core team — sound effects editor Diego Perez, sound assistant Emma Present, dialogue/ADR editor Michele Perrone and Foley supervisor Jonathan Klein — handled sound design, sound editorial and pre-mixing at E² Sound on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank.
Marquis was first introduced to Wonder Park back in 2013, but the team’s real work began in January 2017. The animated sequences steadily poured in for 17 months. “We had a really long time to work the track, to get some of the conceptual sounds nailed down before going into the first preview. We had two previews with temp score and then two more with mockups of composer Steven Price’s score. It was a real luxury to spend that much time massaging and nitpicking the track before getting to the dub stage.”
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