Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1188730
51 F A L L Q 4 I S S U E C O V E R S T O R Y I in "Ford v Ferrari," the cars are char- acters. And those characters make some very distinctive noises. The new film from Fox is an action drama that follows American car de- signer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale) as they battle corporate interference, the laws of physics and their own personal demons to build a remarkable race car for Ford to challenge Ferrari's dominance at the French "24 Hours of Le Mans" in 1966. "From a first reading of the script," s a i d s u p e r v i s i n g s o u n d e d i t o r D o n Sylvester, "I immediately knew how the 'Ford v Ferrari' should sound. Having worked with director James Mangold for the past 15 years – our first collaboration was 'Walk the Line' (2005) - I knew that sound features strongly in all of his mo- tion pictures." "The cars became characters in their own right – big and bold and real," Syl- vester added. "We styled the V-8 Ford GT40 and the V-12 Ferrari 330-P3, so that the audience could instantly tell the difference." That mission required a good deal of legwork. And it also required a big team: dialog/music re-recording mixer Paul Massey and FX re-recording mixer/sound designer David Giammarco, together with sound designer Jay Wilkinson, FX editor Eric Norris, MPSE, music editor Ted Caplan, dialogue editor Polly McKin- non, Foley supervisor Anna MacKenzie, assistant editor Matt "Smokey" Cloud and FX recordist John Fasal, MPSE. The editorial team found a privately built GT40 replica of mid-'60s vintage in Ohio. "Jay [Wilkinson] and I - together with John Fasal – went to secure what he could in the two days we had access to the car, carefully recording myriad sounds both inside and outside the vehicle," Sylvester said. It Atlanta, they also found a 1959 Ferrari 250 Testarossa with a V-12 engine and exhaust noises very close to the P3 that raced at Le Mans. "Because of noise restrictions in Georgia, we had to take the Testarossa to Florida for the high-speed race sequences," he added. The supervising sound editor was 'The cars became characters in their own right – big and bold and real.'