Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1353865
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 45 Was there any manipulation of sound with the flashbacks? JJ: Well, originally, I thought what we'd do is the backgrounds completely different, much sparser in the under-the-bridge scenes from 1970-1990. We did that as a lot of things happen, it's a great idea, then the music shows up… (laughs) SSS: (laughing) It's always the music! JJ: Tommy did a great job with the music. SSS: Oh yes. The score was brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! JJ: A few of the things that we did in the flashback, very subtle breaths, very… I think that was about the most overt thing we did was a female breath here and there. It tied right into what Tommy had scored. It was serendipity. A few areas where we got caught with our hands in the cookie jar, we'd have some low end in it. Tommy said, "Is that…? (tips head) SSS: (laughs) JJ: Once you tip your hand, it comes out as, "Well, the composer's here. We're taking that out." I think he made good choices. That was an instance where we took out a lot of stuff in the pre-dubs. It meshed perfectly with the music, the stuff we did get past. (laughs) SSS: You said as the film went on and things started to get more menacing and more confusing, the sound would actually get more subtle, the sound would actually diminish… JJ: Oh sure. That's another trick I learned. I learned this a long time ago actually on a film called Joyride. A version from the producers was mixed, then we mixed John Dahl's version, the director's version. They actually temped in the same theater like a week apart. In the producer's version, we have this dialogue going on in a sheriff's station in Wyoming. The producers, as the dialogue was going on, would want to have a phone ring, or an off- stage radio call or voices while they're having this dialogue. We mixed that version, then we had to mix the director's version. We had all these things (backgrounds) from the producer's version, and John said, "What's that?" SSS: That's death on the dub stage… JJ: (Dahl said), "I don't want to distract, I want these people to feel uncomfortable." The thing I took away from that is if you want people to feel uncomfortable, pay attention to that. Make them feel uncomfortable but you don't have to tell them how you are doing it. You get into a situation where you have a full soundscape going on, and it gets narrower and narrower and narrower. You're just watching these two people. So it worked really good for when it gets down to Denzel and Jared, then all of a sudden, explodes! Everybody gets a good startle. That's like horror film 101. (laughs) Lead them to a very quiet time, a sense of quiet right before, you know … unleash the hounds! SSS: You made a statement that when we have events like 9/11 or COVID that "when larger-than-life events occur, the objective of what we do remains the same." JJ: It comes from something John Lee said because he had just come back from working with Tommy on the score. He said, "Tommy said this is not going to be a COVID-19 score." It stuck with me. I said, "Yeah, goddamn right." It's not going to be a movie with a disclaimer. There's a lot of times I tell, especially young directors, what I might think is a specious choice. "Okay, you know you are messing with forever. (laughs) Because once you're done, that's it. You're not going to get another shot. If you're happy with it, okay. Because it's that the car was a character in The Little Things. It was one of the lead characters, and you gave it personality. JJ: Yeah. It felt controlling. It felt it had power to it. It matched what this character's bravado was. That Sparma was so much smarter than everybody else. And this was the right car to be driving. (laughs) SSS: The mix of the slow chase on the freeway where they keep crossing each other? Brilliant! How on earth did you do that? JJ: This library had a Chevy Nova with a big block and a small block. So the small block would be a little more aggressive on some of the tear-outs and stuff and wind out farther. Denzel's car was a Crown Victoria that we had pretty good recordings of. So it went between that and the other. SSS: The manipulation of how the cars would cross and one car would pass the other car and end up on the other side of the freeway. How did you do that? JJ: Right, right. (pause) Magic. (laughs) SSS: You're not going to let us in to any of your secrets, are you? JJ: You have to be definitive in what you're doing. One thing that is very subtle is that we had probably four different steadies going when they were right up next to each other. You had the steady inside of Deke's car, then you have the shot in front where it's actually the steady of the exterior of both cars, then there's a steady that goes on with Sparma's car. The interesting thing about that is it's a subtle thing of separation so it isn't like you're getting two guys in the same room together. So it's a very subtle thing and that's one of the things we played with. SSS: There you go.Very cool. Let's talk about the flashbacks. Did you do something special, di›erent, or subtle for the flashbacks that took us there?