Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1335892
76 I M PS E . O R G we moved back to Mexico to work with various directors here and then life brought us a new opportunity to work outside of the country again. This time with Sean Penn on Into the Wild. We moved up to Skywalker Ranch for a couple of months to do everything with the full sound team up there. For me, the most important step was to meet Guillermo del Toro and work with him on Pan's Labyrinth, where we did everything in Mexico City. From there, we had another opportunity to work outside of the country with Hell Boy 2. We did that film over six months in the UK. Nomadland is Chloé Zhao's third feature film, starring Francis McDormand. How did you get involved on the film? By a twist of fate. Honestly. Over the last year, I was working with Anthony Lucero. He has a beautiful film called Halo of Stars, which is in post-production right now. I met Ilene Feldman and we had a great connection on that production. Today, she is my manager, representing me in the US. At some point in 2020, Ilene and Chloé were talking about the sound design for Nomadland. Ilene explained my career and Chloé was happy to have a conversation with me. As soon as I met Chloé, it was so beautiful. She is a very kind and gentle person. She showed me the film and from that point, our conversation was very fluid and natural. At what stage of the production did you get involved in the project? My first approach was with a preliminary cut in the beginning of June 2020. From that point, I knew that we were running against festival deadlines. So our schedule was from June to August. We did everything very quickly and very effectively, which was challenging in these pandemic times. As the sound designer and supervising sound editor, what were you primarily responsible for cutting? Since the beginning, I knew I needed to find a colleague in the US, so I met Zach Seivers who is my co-supervisor and re-recording mixer. We decided he would handle all the dialogue and the final mix on the stage with Chloé and I would handle all the backgrounds, sound design, Foley and pre-dubs in my studio with my team. Our plan was to finish 30 minutes of film every two weeks, with a stereo pre-dub to send to Chloé so she could have them in the Avid as they went forward. It's inspiring that we didn't allow distance to get in the way of us telling a great story, and much of this was possible thanks to Chloé's trust in us and her clear idea and guidance, as well as the availability of innovative tools. I find that having pre-dubs going into the Avid really helps to contextualize the soundtrack early on and keeps things on track. Exactly. It's very good to have that opportunity for the director to have that opportunity to hear your sound before the final mix. My main objective was to create a realistic and minimalistic yet at the same time, immersive soundscape. The opening scene in the film really sells the emptiness of the abandoned town by accentuating the BGs and Foley. There are various scenes like this throughout the film. Can you touch on the main themes and how the soundtrack accentuates those? After my first encounter with the movie, I created a concept in my mind and called it "fragility." All the treatment of the sound design had to reflect the meaning of that word. I knew there was a fine line between fiction and nonfiction. That is why I built the sound design on the edge of that line. This helps with the connection with the audience and helps show the fragility of the main character, Fern and try to embrace her in her whole journey. In the beginning it's very subtle, just playing with winds and some metal cracking around us, along with the sounds of her footsteps and the things she touches. The aim was to be very realistic with her. That opening scene is a great example of how silence can be shown by pushing subtle sounds that are usually not heard as clearly. Exactly. That was my approach. Silence is funny. You need to play many layers to have a good sequence of silence. I used a lot of winds in terms of tones, because we started in winter. Then we go on to spring, summer, and autumn. We needed to show all the different sensations in each environment. We follow Fern, an American widow who goes through an interesting journey living her life as a nomad. She puts on a brave face and seems to have a ton of confidence in her decisions but there are also times you feel her vulnerability. Score plays a big part in selling this but so does the sound of the world around her. What was your process for selling this? My approach was to show the fragility. I'm sorry if I keep repeating this but it's very important for me because this is the treatment of the sound design. For example, inside the van Fern is always exposed to the real world with this extreme weather. In these moments, we put the audience into the real perspective so that they feel the same as Fern. My approach was always on this level. When we are outside the van, for example, when she is walking outside in a warm community. You hear the sound and the score working together harmoniously. We start by hearing people talking on