ONLINE REVIEWS OF 'MIRACLE' Special Features - "The Sound Of Miracle"

Next, one of the coolest features is a step-by-step look at the creation of the sound of Miracle as you get tons of different looks and listens to the production with and without specific sound effects all while learning how they did it. This is a great feature and should be included on more action DVDs.
Dave Brevet - DVD Special Features Review

O'Connor uses a more-than-realistic approach throughout; that is, the sound isn't what you'd hear had you been at the many games the film depicts; it's hyper-realistic, crisper, cleaner, and with particular details highlighted. Sound designer Elliott Nokes and sound technician Rob Nokes not only deserve great praise for their clean, imaginative work, they get it: one of the several documentaries on this two-disc set focuses intelligently on the sound, demonstrating by example some of the many types of tracks the film used, and how they were woven together. This kind of documentary should turn up as supplemental DVD material much more often than it does.
AV Review - Audio Visual Revolution 

The Sound of Miracle: An excellent breakdown of the sound design for the film. We are shown how each element is built and put together to form an exciting sequence. I've never seen a sound design feature that is this interesting.
Jon Bjorling - Moviefreak

One of my favorite special features is "The Sound Of Miracle". As you all know, the sounds of a hockey game are incredibly intense, and have never been successfully transformed on to the big screen. Never, that is, until now. The crew of Miracle details how they created the sound effects, all the way down to the crowd (Canadians btw) chanting USA! USA! USA! The attention to detail is outstanding.
Sports Rant Review 

Another excellent and informative featurette is "The Sound of Miracle," which makes the otherwise mundane process of sound mixing seem exciting by showing how the recordists manufactured all of the sounds of the hockey game.
7M Picture Reviews

Another "making-of" bit spotlights the sound editing, which proved to be quite amazing as every single hockey sounds-skating, shots, hits, all of it-was engineered.
DVD Verdict 

AUDIO 5.1 THX certified audio and a gaggle of custom hockey sound effects make this audio presentation a gold medal candidate. The frontal assault is very balanced, and the musical fill in from the rear channels is appropriately enveloping for the compelling story. The center is clear but not overpowering, and the subwoofer barks appropriately for many of the slap shots, board checks, pad saves, and glass effects. Background and transitional effects are solid, and the quiet intensity of the locker room is almost palatable. The due diligence taken by the audio teams on this one pays dividends for the DVD.
Thor van Lingen 

The highlight of the mix is actually the sound effects of the blades scraping across the ice, the scrapes of a sticks, or the clang of the puck off of the post. These effects really bring home the fast-paced action! Exceptional.
Digital Review

Next is "The Sound of Miracle", which is a 10-minute featurette that provides a very enjoyable look at the process of building the sound design of a film, introducing the audience to some of the tasks that must be done in order to capture sound effects and other elements. Director Gavin O'Connor and others discuss the importance of sound for "Miracle"; while the dialogue-driven moments may not seem so remarkable, the film's hockey sequences are terrific.
Aaron Beierle - DVD Talk Review

Plop in disc two and watch "The Sound of Miracle" to understand how those killer surrounds came to fruition.
Keith Uhlich and Ed Gonzalez - Slant Magazine 

Next is the Sound of Miracle, a featurette on the sound design for the film. You see the type of equipment used to capture the sound for the film, plus you also see a scene with various audio components presented in isolation, before hearing the final mix. A small portion of the segment addresses the score of the film, but overall I felt that this may have been the most impressive piece in the set.
Ryan Keefer 

Perhaps the most interesting feature is The Sound Of "Miracle" in which we get a detailed look at how the sound effects were made. Every slap shot, skate and hit was made outside filming. They rented a hockey rink, made tiny microphones and attached them to the skates to get the exact sound. This seemed like a very in-depth task and the result is a great-sounding track full of surround effects.
DVD Authority

You hear the skating, the puck, the sticks and the hits into the boards. This was no small feat on the part of the sound technicians and editors. As one of the featurettes shows, the sound editor as some points had to integrate three hundred different tracks at various levels to achieve the correct audio for the hockey games. They did so in outstanding fashion.
Paul Cooke - DVD Active

Featurette - The Sound of Miracle. This mix is excellent, and this featurette explains just what process was used to create this excellent audio track. The process is broken down step-by-step: 1. The production sound. 2. Sound editing. 3. Re-recording mixing. What's beautiful about this featurette is a layer-by-layer inclusion of each step of the process, with the ultimate reveal of the final product. Fantastic. Running time: 10:24 

Audio: The movie's authenticity also spills over into the audio presentation. Instead of using Foley artists to replicate the sounds from an ice hockey game, the sound engineers took the time to do all the live recording of all the sounds they needed and lay them over the action on the ice. Featuring a very dynamic English language Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, "Miracle" brings the exciting sounds of an ice hockey match to our living rooms. For example, you can hear skates swoosh from left to right while having the sound of the puck go around the back of the room through the surround channels.For "The Sound of Miracle" feature, it details the sound team's efforts in bringing the many aspects of a hockey game to life with realistic audio representations of crowd noises, skates slicing the ice, sticks hitting, the puck bouncing off the boards etc. All these individual sounds are layered together into the final hockey sequences, producing a remarkable piece of work.
DVD Town - Hock Guan Teh 

Lastly, we locate a featurette entitled The Sound of Miracle. In this 10-minute and 24-second show we hear from O'Connor, editor Gilroy, supervising sound editor Rob Nokes, re-recording mixers Myron Nettinger and Michael Minkler, sound designer Elliott Koretz, and composer Mark Isham. They get into what they wanted to do with the audio and how they executed those plans. We learn lots of details about the various elements. Overall, it's an informative and interesting piece. 

"The Sound of Miracle" (10:20) explores the film's sound design. Despite the nature of the topic, the featurette avoids being dry or simply a retread of other DVDs' sound design featurettes.

Theatrical Release: Feb. 6, 2004 Video Release: May 18, 2004