Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316380
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 39 sound design. The show is generally extremely naturalistic and we focus on ensuring every element of the audio track is convincingly sat into the world. Our goal is that the casual viewer can conceivably believe that all the sound is captured on the day. NICK FORSHAGER (Better Call Saul): There are so many terrific shows out there now and the scope of work has really grown beyond what any of us could have ever imagined it could ever be on television. Every year we feel like we have to really raise our game in order to keep up with the standards and the quality of the rest of the industry. We are just so happy that people really like the work that we do and that they can see the level of the craft that goes into it. MATTHEW E. TAYLOR (Star Trek: Picard): It's always an honor to be nominated but I'm especially happy for the team to be recognized because they put in such great work. Plus, there is really fantastic work done on other shows and to be nominated alongside a handful of them is very humbling. BENJAMIN L. COOK (Westworld): It's always nice to be invited to the party. Just thrilled to be in the same categories as cats like Craig Henighan, Will Files, and Nick Forshager; their tracks are impeccable and they do great work and I'm such a huge fan. CRAIG HENIGHAN (Stranger Things): We are very honored to be with our peers and all the really great shows nominated this year. Everybody puts a ton of work into these things and to get recognition, it's great! We are all very happy and our team is very happy. PAULETTE: Out of all the film/TV shows you have worked on, what project do you think you've learned the most from? LEE: I don't think you ever stop learning. From creating the sounds of a ship being crushed by pack ice in The Terror, to bringing to life a green screen gas balloon in The Aeronauts, to finding a path through a dialogue scene with a blend of troubled production sound and ADR to be weaved, each project brings with it fresh challenges. This variation is a huge part of what I love about the job. WADE: For me, I think that would be Transparent. Primarily due to where I was at in my career, and also it was the first streaming series I worked on. The workflow and schedule on a streaming series can be quite different than a series or film with solid air/release dates, so getting my feet wet in that environment was new. And we ended the show with a musical finale, which was a learning experience for me since I had never done a musical before. Adding to that, the mixers on the show were veterans in the industry and I learned a lot from watching them work and picking their brains. NICK: I would have to say Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan is such an incredible filmmaker. His attention to detail is amazing. I had to really learn how to focus on everything in a scene. Every nuance can be used to tell a part of the story. Whether it's a breath or an exhale, a floor creak or a chair slide, it can all say something. It's important to really break down a scene and find those things that can bring it to life. MATTHEW: Gosh, that's a tough one. I feel like I'm constantly learning a lot on all projects (whether I choose to or not) but I have to say I learned the most on Extraordinary Measures. BENJAMIN: The show I learned the most from probably was the Apocalypto film. The first time I've worked with Kevin O'Connell. It was interesting to see how he ran a room and how he got along with clients. I think I learned more in the first five minutes of that mix than 10 years prior to that. CRAIG: Each project has its challenges and learning from those experiences is always the place where you grow the most. If I had to pick one solely based on the art of sound effects editing, I would have to say Darren Aronofsky's Mother! It's a film with no music, therefore the dialogue, sound effects, and Foley had to in essence become the "score." Everything had to be carefully considered for pitch, timbre, emotional effect, rhythm, timing, frequency, and size. No "Walla" was used, the crowd scenes were built from scratch using multiple sessions of Group and layers of production sound, outtakes, etc. Things had to have a cumulative effect over the course of the film, we needed to build to a crescendo and also give the audience time to breath. We did weeks and weeks of pre-production work before the final mix with our director and picture editor going over scenes with different variations. This was done on top of the five months of editorial work that co- supervisor Jill Purdy MPSE and myself did with our Editorial and Foley team. It's the sort of film that doesn't come along every day and I think the whole crew rose to the challenge! PAULETTE: Was the nominated episode in the series any di‚erent than the rest of the episodes? LEE: Yes. For the first half of the episode "Aberfan," we spend very little time with the Royal family. We are dropped into the community of Aberdeen as the disaster unfolds. We took a different approach to the sound on this episode to other episodes of The Crown. From an early stage in discussing with my director, we agreed we wanted to use score as minimally as possible. We did not want music to dictate emotion onto the viewer. The episode is also full of visual effects. We had a whole world to create and bring to life. As such, an extraordinary amount of weight was put onto the sound design for the episode. We had absolutely nowhere to hide, every aspect of the track had to be as good as we could make it, full of precise detail. We really tried to use sound to drive the narrative forward. Cuts