Electric Shock: How “A Complete Unknown’s” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team Re-Created Bob Dylan Going Electric
In the first part of our conversation with the Oscar-nominated sound team of James Mangold’s music biography A Complete Unknown, they talked about delivering an intensely music-centric film without using playback and differentiating between the soundscapes of 1961 New York, when Bob Dylan (an immaculate portrayal by Timothée Chalamet) first arrives in the city, and ...
“A Complete Unknown”: Orchestrating 60+ Live Performances for Oscar-Worthy Sound
In one of this year’s tour de force performances, Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters took almost six years to perfect (partly thanks to COVD-19 delays in production). For director James Mangold’s music biopic, A Complete Unknown, Chalamet not only learned to play the guitar and harmonica for the film, but ...
“Deadpool & Wolverine” Sound Designers on the Splatter-and-Slash Acoustics of a Honda Odyssey Brawl
In our last conversation about Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine, sound designers Craig Henighan and Ryan Cole discussed the hilarious opening sequence where Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool uses Wolverine’s adamantium claws and bones to take down some Time Variance Authority goons, all set to NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye,” and some sound tricks to make the adamantium ...
“Deadpool & Wolverine” Sound Designers on Turning Frozen Tea Towels Into Broken Bones
Three months after debuting in theaters this summer, Deadpool & Wolverine’s winning streak still wasn’t over. It eventually surpassed Barbie’s domestic gross in its 13th weekend, with director Shawn Levy’s R-rated box office juggernaut ranking as the 12th highest-grossing movie of all time, with a domestic haul of over $636M. It has been a hectic ...
How The “Blitz” Sound Team Shook Steve McQueen’s Harrowing World War II Film
While researching Small Axe, a riveting series about the political awakening of London’s West Indian community, director Steven McQueen found a photograph of a young Black boy standing on a train platform holding a large suitcase. The stark image had the director questioning who the child was and what his story was during the London ...
“Joker: Folie À Deux” Production Sound Mixer Steven Morrow Dissects 3 Essential Scenesew
“We tried to do everything we could to make the best sounding movie,” says production sound mixer Steven Morrow about director Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie À Deux. “Larry’s cinematography is beautiful, and with the amount of effort and time he puts into it, we wanted to put that kind of energy and emotion into our ...
Eye on the Emmys: “The Bear” Emmy-Winning Sound Team on Capturing the Chaos of the Kitchen
*After the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners, announced on September 8, and ahead of the 2024 Prime Time Emmy Awards on September 15, we’re looking back at our interviews with some of this year’s nominees. Costume The Bear’s Re-recording mixer Steve “Major” Giammaria, ADR mixer Patrick Christensen, foley mixer Ryan Collinson, and production mixer Scott ...
“The Bear” Emmy-Nominated Sound Team on Capturing the Chaos of the Kitchen
The first thing you might notice in Season 2 of Christopher Storer’s hit drama The Bear is how well you can hear chef-owner Carmen (Jeremy Allen White) and his team of kitchen underdogs as they set to work reopening their Chicago restaurant. Restaurant kitchens, especially those still under construction, as the Bear’s is for most ...
“Twisters” Sound Editors on Creating the Ferocious Voice of Six Distinct Tornadoes
Catastrophic weather struck a chord with moviegoers over the weekend when Twisters blew apart box office expectations and raked in a whopping $81 million for its debut. The action spectacle, directed by Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) and filmed in Oklahoma, stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos as storm chasers determined to study tornadoes ...
The “Shōgun” Sound Team on Recreating 17th-Century Japan One Katana Clash at a Time
Praised for its authenticity, beauty, and sensitive storytelling, FX’s Shōgun has just been renewed for two more seasons. Created by Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, the show follows the plot of James Clavell’s 1975 novel, set in Japan in 1600. English pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) and his ship’s crew run aground in a Japanese ...
“The Fall Guy” Sound Designer Mark Stoeckinger on Capturing Ryan Gosling’s Wild Ride
A three-time Oscar nominee, Mark Stoeckinger has worked on five of the six features by stuntman-turned-director David Leitch, starting with 2017’s action thriller Atomic Blonde. No stranger to actioners, the veteran sound editor also led the sound team on all four John Wick films (which Leitch also produced). The Fall Guy is a cinematic love letter ...
Can You Hear the Fear? How Sound Shapes the Daring Missions of “Masters of the Air”
Masters of the Air, Apple TV+’s new World War II epic showcasing the heroics and travails of a fleet of young U.S. pilots in Europe, has been lauded for its classical filmmaking and realistic approach to mid-century flight. Focusing on sober, earnest Buck (Austin Butler) and Bucky (Callum Turner), a battle-ready scamp, the show toggles ...
Double Oscar Nominee Richard King Unveils the Aural Secrets of “Oppenheimer” and “Maestro”
Richard King, one of Hollywood’s most successful sound designers, is known for creating increasingly complex aural environments that help achieve a director’s vision, giving the movie its own rhythm and texture. Over the past two decades, he’s won four Academy Awards. And at this year’s Oscars, he’s nominated for two more for his contributions to ...
“The Creator” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Blending Retro-Futurism, Robot Monks, & the Didgeridoo
The Creator‘s Oscar-nominated supervising sound editors, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, had a dream experience creating the soundscape for director Gareth Edwards‘ vision of a nightmarish future. The timing of the film couldn’t have been better—The Creator is set at a point in human history where there’s an outright war between humanity and ...
“Maestro” Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Mixers on Building Emotion With & Without Music
In Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, the music is flipped. Tracking the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career in tandem with his loving but complicated marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Monteleagre (Carey Mulligan), the film’s music is Bernstein’s music, playing as it did over the course of the composer’s life, whether that’s performed on stage or worked out ...
“Rebel Moon” Sound Editors on Creating Different Sonic Worlds for Zack Snyder
Part one of director Zach Snyder’s Netflix space epic, Rebel Moon — A Child of Fire, opens on a quaint farming community on a peaceful moon called Veldt. Hard at work in the fields, Kora (Sofia Boutella) is clearly not of this community of self-styled Luddites, and the evil Imperium she’s escaping soon catches up ...
“The Zone of Interest” Sound Designer Johnnie Burn on Creating the Soundscape From Hell
Writer/director Jonathan Glazer does not shy away from a challenge. He has created indelible sequences that are essentially mindworms, burrowing deep into your consciousness. One of his most beloved films, his 2013 masterpiece Under the Skin, was chock full of them. If you had to choose just one, perhaps it would be the wordless scene that ...
“Maestro” Sound Mixer Steven Morrow on Recreating Mahler’s “Resurrection” at the Ely Cathedral
Bradley Cooper knew Maestro was going to be the next film he directed before the proverbial ink dried on A Star Is Born (2018), his feature debut, which he starred in alongside Lady Gaga about a troubled musician’s relationship with alcohol. The adaptation, deservingly so, went on to be nominated for eight Academy Awards and ...
Searching for That Ferocious “Ferrari” Sound With Supervising Sound Editor Tony Lamberti
How eager was Tony Lamberti to work on Michael Mann’s latest feature? Let’s just say the director had Lamberti, a Formula 1 enthusiast, at Ferrari. The Oscar-nominated (Inglourious Basterds), Emmy-winning (John Adams) audio engineer got his first peek at the feature about Enzo Ferrari and his iconic racing legacy back in 2015. Overseeing a mix ...
“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” Sound Mixer Ronan Hill’s Formula for Fantastic Sounding Fantasy
Ronan Hill has a way with dragons. The Belfast-based production sound mixer is best known for his tenure on HBO’s Game of Thrones, where he and the sound teams tuned the rich, resonating sonic palettes across its eight epic seasons, winning five Emmys along the way. Hill returns to familiar territory with Dungeons & Dragons: ...
