Listening to the Bones: About the Sound
Sound was as key to Peter Jackson's vision of The Lovely Bones as the visuals, and he collaborated closely with a sound design team that includes re-recording mixer Michael Hedges, sound designer Dave Whitehead and supervising sound editors Brent Burge and Chris Ward.  "With this film we've tried to use sound that evokes emotions and psychological reactions," says the director.  "We've played with both unnatural sounds and organic sounds, the levels, the mixtures - everything you can conceivably do with sound, we discussed it."
Comments Hedges, "All of Peter's films have been challenging, but this was the toughest, as we tried to mix heavenly sounds and atmospherics with powerful emotional moments."
From the rustling of a cornfield to the turning of a page in a moment of stark suspense, every noise emitted in the film became an opportunity to build a growing web of suspense and emotion.  Says Whitehead: "The sound design helps to bridge the gap between heaven and earth, connecting sounds on both sides of the divide in a fluid way.  For Susie's in-between world, we tried to come up with a fusion of all the sounds people associate with an afterlife - birds, chimes, bells, whistles.  Sounds like wind and water also become a kind of connecting bridge, sounding one way on earth and another for Susie." 
The lively aural atmosphere of the movie is completed by a soundtrack from Brian Eno, the former leader of the seminal pop band Roxy Music and a pioneer of ambient music.  Fran Walsh had suggested early on to Jackson that Eno's entrancing, dreamy music might be the perfect counterpoint to the story of The Lovely Bones, but his participation was much greater than anyone expected. 
"We knew we wanted the music to feel centered in the '70s but we didn't want it to be full of hit pop songs," explains Jackson.  "We started by listening to some music Eno had recorded in the '70s and then we asked him if we could license it - but as we started talking to him, he said, 'I think I've got something much better for that.'  So 90 percent of the score ended up being completely original Eno recordings done for this film.  Fran did a lot of the hands-on work with Brian after she and I talked a lot about what we wanted the music to be."
Michael Hedges was thrilled to work with Eno's music, blending it into the sound fabric of the film.  "The score became a fantastic vehicle to bring out all the emotions this movie touches upon," he summarizes. 
For Jackson, no singular element of The Lovely Bones stands out, but rather it is the interplay between sound, vision and performance that he hopes brings Susie Salmon's quest to set things right on earth vividly to life. 
"I always like to think we handcraft our movies," Jackson concludes.  "We move through this pipeline from inspiration to script to editing and try to keep things very organic, very flowing and always open to exploration.  We work away at our stories, chip away at each element, and most of all, we put a lot of care and love into them."

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