How The “A Quiet Place Part II” Sound Team Turns the Viewer Into Prey
Don’t make a sound. The utterly frightening creatures of A Quiet Place are back in a terrifying sequel thirsty to tear your body apart. In this new chapter, the story picks up right where it left off with the Abbott family having destroyed their home in order to stay alive. Well, almost everyone. The tragic ...
Sound Designer Scott Hecker on Going Big in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”
At four hours long, HBO Max’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a reworked version of the 2017 film started by director Snyder but finished by Joss Whedon, differs most obviously from its predecessor in length. Those two extra hours, however, do much more than simply pile up the story, even if the overall plot remains mostly ...
Supervising Sound Editor on Capturing the Sound of “Ted Lasso” Remotely
Ted Lasso began life nearly a decade ago, in what must now seem like a more innocent time, as a character in a series of promos for NBC as they embarked on coverage of Britain’s Premier League. That character, created and portrayed by SNL alum Jason Sudeikis, is an American football coach, hot off a ...
How Editor Lee Smith & Sound Editor Oliver Tarney Crafted the Immersive Story of 1917
If you caught last night’s Golden Globes, you saw Sam Mendes‘ World War I epic 1917 take home both Best Film (Drama) and Best Director for Mendes himself. 1917 bested some very steep competition, including Martin Scorsese’s mob epic The Irishman, Todd Phillips Joker, and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story. Mendes’ film is practically flawless. Now imagine ...
How Cinematographer Roger Deakins & Team Pulled off the One-Shot Masterpiece 1917
For Sam Mendes, the multi-hyphenate who produced, directed and co-wrote the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, 1917 was a personal story. It follows two British soldiers – Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) – tasked with delivering a message across enemy lines in order to stop a battle that could save hundreds of soldiers’ lives. ...
Creating the Landscape & Soundscape of Harriet‘s World
Although her appearance on the $20 bill has been predictably delayed by the current administration, Harriet Tubman is still a recurring presence in American culture. An escaped slave herself, she became, as the New Yorker noted a couple of years back, “the most famous conductor” on the Underground Railroad, which itself became the stuff of ...
How Ad Astra’s Sound Team “Weirded Things Up”
When the aural landscape of a film or television series aims to heighten the story the effort is usually dialed in subliminally. The audience doesn’t even realize what’s happening they’re just captivated by what’s in front of them. In Ad Astra, a 20th Century Fox film directed by James Gray (The Lost City of Z), ...
Meet the Sound Team That Helped The Lion King Roar
After a massive worldwide opening weekend, it’s safe to say the iconic songs from 1994 Disney animated classic The Lion King are still infectious. In the retelling of the story, not only did director Jon Favreau bring back the original Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer and songs from Elton John and Tim Rice, but he added ...
How Rocketman Soundtrack Mixer Evoked Elton John’s State of Mind
What does a nervous breakdown sound like? To be more specific, how can audio be manipulated to approximate Elton John’s headspace when he overdoses midway through the fantastical bio-pic Rocketman? That’s the kind of question re-recording mixer Mike Prestwood Smith faced on a daily basis while shaping the sonic highs and lows embodied by Taron ...
Roma’s Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Making a Music-Free Film
Water sloshes in a rooftop laundry tub, a faucet runs, and the strains of a tinny radio shift to the quiet chatter of a family at home. Alfonso Caurón’s Roma depicts the daily life of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), an indigenous maid in a white, middle-class Mexico City household, an employee who gradually emerges as a ...
A Star is Born’s Oscar-Nominated Sound Mixer on Capturing Brilliance Up-Close
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees. Warner Bros.’ A Star is Born, the fourth version of the film and Bradley Cooper’s first time directing, has earned a hero’s welcome as the best iteration yet of the tale of love, talent, and the price of ...
A Quiet Place‘s Oscar-Nominated Sound Designers on Triggering our Brain’s Reptilian Fear Response
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees. Supervising sound editors Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van Der Ryn had the unusual challenge of applying their expertise to a film that would be so quiet, it had the word in its title. John Krasinski’s thrilling, chilling A Quiet ...
Oscar Watch: A Quiet Place‘s Sound Designers on Triggering our Brain’s Reptilian Fear Response
Supervising sound editors Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van Der Ryn had the unusual challenge of applying their expertise to a film that would be so quiet, it had the word in its title. John Krasinski’s thrilling, chilling A Quiet Place was predicated on a brilliant idea; alien monsters have turned the planet into one giant Amtrak quiet ...
Singing Camels & Talking Ceramics: Inside Mary Poppins Returns‘ Sound Design
There is a special type of person who could tell you what it sounds like to dance inside of a ceramic bowl. They could also describe what a singing camel sounds like under a big top circus tent. These people would just as readily know the kind of musical rhythm attributed to a bicyclist dashing ...
The Vietnam War Sound Designer on Enhancing Emotional Memories of the War
The Vietnam War was a harrowing conflict with ramifications that spread far from the fighting. It was the most divisive war of the 20th century that haunted veterans and civilians alike for decades. Cameras captured the brutal battles with unprecedented access. Piecing together hundreds of hours of archival footage and interviews with survivors, celebrated documentarians ...
A Star is Born’s Sound Mixer on Capturing Brilliance Up-Close
Warner Bros.’ A Star is Born, the fourth version of the film and Bradley Cooper’s first time directing, has earned a hero’s welcome as the best iteration yet of the tale of love, talent, and the price of fame. Lady Gaga stars as Ally, a struggling musician with powerhouse pipes, and Cooper as Jackson Maine, ...
Game of Thrones‘ Emmy-Nominated Sound Designer on Bringing the Heat
Emmy-nominated supervising sound editor Tim Kimmel oversaw one of Game of Thrones’ most explosive episodes, ever. Kimmel received his Emmy-nom for his work on last season’s epic fourth episode, “The Spoils of War,” written by co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by Matt Shakman. Kimmel, who is the Formosa Group‘s supervising sound ...
How Atlanta‘s Emmy-Nominated Sound Designer Crafted Horror Ep “Teddy Perkins”
Atlanta has been one of TV’s most reliably original shows for the past two years. Donald Glover’s trippy, brilliant exploration of the story of Earnest Marks (Glover) and his cousin Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry)’s attempts to make a name for themselves in Atlanta’s thriving hip-hop scene has created some of the most indelible sequences and ...
Sound Designer Gives Voice to the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Dinosaurs
The roaring reptiles of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom sound simply terrifying but in fact, each CGI dinosaur required a complex blend of custom audio elements to achieve maximum impact. To create vocalizations that would distinguish one creature from the next, Skywalker Sound artisans pulled from an arsenal of elements ranging from Styrofoam and dental drills ...
Sound Editors Harness Horses, Wind & Gunshots for Netflix’s Western Godless
When it comes to designing sound for westerns, seven-time Oscar nominee Wylie Stateman keeps his ears attuned to wind, horses, gunshots and what he calls “the ride up and the ride out.” Speaking from his Twenty Four Seven Sound studio in Topanga Canyon near L.A., Stateman says, “You need to capture the sense of the ...
