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The Sound of A Star is Born.
I didn’t like “A Star is Born” as much as my wife and sister (best movie ever!!!!!). I certainly found some parts of the story interesting, but the nerd in me was very curious about the movie’s sound design.
After watching some scenes more carefully I realized that the sound followed the characters and specially the instruments, especially during the live performances scenes.
My findings where finally confirmed when I came across these two episodes on the Soundworks Collection podcast.
It is a well know fact that sound is a HUGE part of any video project. But the more projects I shoot and produce, the more I realize that sound design might be THE key element in making a video project successful or not.
Of course, if there’s no story, or the story sucks, sound might not be able to save the day. But an ok story with ok images and ok editing with engaging sound might be enough to grab the viewers attention.
Here’s the complete interview. Enjoy!
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The Sound of Roma.
I started thinking about a “Roma” blog post a few minutes into the movie.
Why Black and White? What do those almost endless pans mean? How similar or different is the composition compared to “Gravity“? What’s the meaning of “water” for Cuaron?
But as I started reading more about the movie, which by the way was written, directed, produced, shot, and co-edited by Alfonso Cuarón, my attention quickly drifted to the film’s sound design.
First things first.
I am assuming you know about Roma. If you don’t, here’s the executive version. Roma is a semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón’s childhood in Mexico City in the early 70’s.
So far Roma has won the Golden Lion in Venice, received 10 nominations at the 91st Academy Awards—including Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. It is tied with The Favourite as the most-nominated film, and with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) for the most Oscar nominations ever received by a film not in the English language.
It also won Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, Best Director and Best Picture at the 24th Critics’ Choice Awards, and at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards won Best Film, Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Direction and Best Cinematography.
UPDATE 20190225: Roma delivered Netflix its highest Oscars prestige yet, contending in 10 Academy Award categories, and wining three: Best Director, Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. Alfonso Cuaron gave Mexico its first foreign language film Oscar.
Sound Design.
Now, back to sound design. So it happens, the sound supervisor and re-recording mixer was the Academy Award-winning Skip Lievsay, who also worked on “Gravity“, “Children of Men“, “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and all 18 movies by the Cohen Brothers.
The most informative resource was this interview with Skip Lievsay on YouTube. Here are 3 of my favorite sections:
The full interview.
I highly recommend listening to the complete interview to learn:
- How not having a musical score keeps the audience guessing what will happen next
- Why it was important to Cuarón to have the dialog emanate not just from the screen channels but from all around the audience
- The stunning five-day loop group recording session with 350 actors
- How the final mix of the film took 10 weeks, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.… wow…..
The technical stuff.
Filmmaker Magazine has another great article on Roma’s sound design. It’s a bit technical but enjoyable.
“In Atmos, we were able to use the x-axis and the y-axis as well as the z-axis. That’s the trick — using the z-axis in terms of extra reverbs or spatial ability.”
Filmmaker Magazine
A (much) deeper interpretation.
If you are interested in a more esoteric approach to Roma, pay close attention to these comments by another maestro, Guillermo del Toro.
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The Sound of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
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The Sound of The Hunger Games.
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The Sound of Prometheus.
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The Sound of Argo.
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The Sound of Skyfall.
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The Sound of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
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The Sound of Transcendence.
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The Sound of Tomorrowland.
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The Sound of Oblivion.
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The Sound of The Revenant.
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The Sound of Gravity.
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The Sound of The Dark Knight Rises.
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The Sound of Inception.
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The Sound of Interstellar.
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Academy Awards for Sound.
After attending the talk “Sound: the Other Half of Your Video” last week at the Vimeo Fest in New York City, I have been thinking a lot about sound. And more specifically about how important is music, in movies and our lives. It is shocking how little we know about the processes, people and effort to create the sounds that drive our emotions. The guy who created the music for Inception’s trailer was there, and he confirmed that our ignorance regarding sound design is pretty much the same as with directors of photography, the people who actually make the movies look they way they do.
The Academy Award of Merit for Best Sound Editing is granted yearly to a film exhibiting the finest or most aesthetic sound editing or sound design. The award is usually received by the Supervising Sound Editors of the film, perhaps accompanied by the Sound Designers.
This is the list of films that have won or been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Effects (1963–1967, 1975), Sound Effects Editing (1977, 1981–1999), or Sound Editing (1979, 2000–present). Happy Friday.
- 2000: U-571 – Jon Johnson
- 2001: Pearl Harbor – George Watters, Christopher Boyes
- Monsters, Inc. – Gary Rydstrom, Michael Silvers
- 2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Michael Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn
- Minority Report – Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom
- Road to Perdition – Scott Hecker
- 2003: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – Richard King
- Finding Nemo – Gary Rydstrom and Michael Silvers
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl – Christopher Boyes and George Watters
- 2004: The Incredibles – Michael Silvers and Randy Thom
- The Polar Express – Dennis Leonard and Randy Thom
- Spider-Man 2 – Paul Ottosson
- 2005: King Kong – Mike Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn
- 2006:[1] Letters from Iwo Jima – Bub Asman and Alan Robert Murray
- Apocalypto – Kami Asgar and Sean Mccormack
- Blood Diamond – Lon Bender
- Flags of Our Fathers – Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Christopher Boyes and George Watters
- 2007: The Bourne Ultimatum – Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
- No Country for Old Men – Skip Lievsay
- Ratatouille – Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
- There Will Be Blood – Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood
- Transformers – Mike Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn
- 2008: The Dark Knight – Richard King
- Iron Man – Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
- Slumdog Millionaire – Tom Sayers
- WALL-E – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
- Wanted – Wylie Stateman
- 2009: The Hurt Locker – Paul N.J. Ottosson
- Avatar – Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
- Inglourious Basterds – Wylie Stateman
- Star Trek – Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
- Up – Michael Silvers and Tom Myers
- 2010: Inception – Richard King
- Toy Story 3 – Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
- Tron: Legacy – Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
- True Grit – Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
- Unstoppable – Mark P. Stoeckinger
- 2011: Hugo – Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
- Drive – Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Ren Klyce
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
- War Horse – Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom
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The Sounds of Aronofsky.
The sounds of Darren Aronofsky, including fantastic movies like Black Swan (2010), Requiem for a Dream (2000), Pi (1998), and The Fountain (2006). Simply brilliant.