Alumnus Paul Rabwin (B.A. English literature, Cowell '70) creates dark magic behind the scenes of The X-Files and Millennium.
Paul Rabwin in the postproduction studio working on a forthcoming
episode of The X-Files
(Photo: Ben Balagot)
Spellbinding plots, engaging characters, and the public's ever-increasing fascination with the supernatural have combined to make The X-Files one of the most popular dramas on television.
Each week, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate bizarre occurrences in which voodoo, alien abductions, or government conspiracies often play a part.
But there's more to X-Files than meets the eye--or ear. From almost subliminal music to ear-catching special effects, the sound created for the show sets the mood for each episode, pulling the story lines forward and carrying viewers into increasingly bleaker landscapes.
One of six X-Files producers, Paul Rabwin helps create this mood-setting sound. In the course of a day, Rabwin might help make the shrill whine of a high-tech dentist drill, the tension-building thunder for an Antarctic ice scene, or the sharp sound of a "gimlet" being unsheathed.
One of The X-Files signature props, a gimlet is a weapon that looks like an ice pick and opens like a switchblade knife. The gimlet took its distinctive noise straight from Rabwin.
Trying to create an appropriately chilling auditory effect for the weapon, Rabwin's Burbank-based crew compiled 17 sounds and played them in combinations over a monitor for executive producer Chris Carter and others in Century City. Hours passed while the crew experimented, but no combination produced the desired effect.
The solution, in the end, was remarkably low tech.
In exasperation, Rabwin finally approached the microphone. "I leaned into it and went 'pffft,' just like that," he says during a telephone interview. "They didn't see how I made the sound, but they liked it, so we used it in the show. That's the legend of what we call the 'gimlet'--me in front of the microphone going 'pffft.'"
Rabwin also supervises the postproduction work done on each episode after filming ends in Vancouver.
"Anything to do with the show, from when it leaves the camera until it goes on the air, comes under my department," he explains. That includes supervising editors, visual-effects artists, composers, and sound mixers.
The X-Files has won nine Emmy Awards since 1994, with three of the awards presented in the areas of sound editing and mixing. In January, it received three Golden Globe Awards including one for Best Television Series (drama).
For the 199798 season, Rabwin added a new dark delicacy to his already full plate: He took on similar duties as coproducer of Carter's latest series, Millennium. In its second season, the show features an expolice officer who uses paranormal powers to see inside the minds of murderers and serial killers.
Rabwin started working in the entertainment business while still a student at UC Santa Cruz. As a junior at Cowell in 1969, he took a summer internship with a television studio, Quinn Martin Productions. When he graduated the following year, he signed on at Quinn Martin as an assistant to the editorial coordinator in the postproduction department.
In addition to organizing scripts, typing invoices, and delivering film from one part of the studio to another, Rabwin filmed "inserts"--close-ups of matchbooks, photographs, and other props--and edited trailers for upcoming episodes.
By the time he left Quinn Martin in 1977 to join Paramount Television, Rabwin had worked on numerous hit television shows, including Cannon, The FBI, and Streets of San Francisco, and was supervising the postproduction of four television series at a time.
More than a dozen television jobs later, Rabwin's industry connections led him to The X-Files. For the show's first two seasons, Rabwin had to explain to people what The X-Files was about. "It's a cross between The Twilight Zone, The FBI, and The Night Stalker," he'd tell people.
Now that X-Files is a Top 10 hit, boasting 20 million viewers in 60 countries worldwide, Rabwin finds that the show speaks for itself.
--Francine Tyler