CAS Quarterly

C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 27 The film was directed and co-written by Darius Marder, whose grandmother experienced sudden deafness after taking an antibiotic for pancreatitis. How was it working with Darius on such a personal story? PB: He's a good collaborator. He's definitely not a director who would say, "I see it my way and do what I want." Honestly, he was almost downright giddy sometimes that we were finally making his movie and that he was shooting the thing. CCN: Amazing, yeah. He would allow you to be creative, and as long as you portrayed whatever he was thinking about, he would listen to your idea and then evaluate [consider] it or discard it. The film is generally very well regarded by the deaf community as portraying an authentic experience. Was research done on the deaf experience, the sound of deafness, or the sound of a cochlear implant, or was the approach to the sound intentionally subjective? PB: We had a cochlear implant guy [on set]. But I heard him talking about when you first get the implant, everything is, like, very high- pitched … like everyone sucked in a giant thing of helium. Darius is also endlessly fascinated with the things that he's interested in. We had deaf actors and people with cochlear implants, and all he did was pull them aside all day. "What was your experience? How was it for you? What did it sound like to you?" Was there a deaf or cochlear consultant on the dub stage or in Foley? MC: Nicolas [Becker, sound supervisor] did a lot of research. Carlos, Jaime, and [Nicolas] spoke with many people [about their experience], as did Darius. KV: We talked [in Foley] about those hearing implants with Nicolas. Otherwise, we blocked our ears and tried to get that feeling. The skillful marriage of sound elements is the hallmark of this film's soundtrack, and upon learning how this mix team worked together, this makes perfect sense. Open collaboration and a steadfast commitment to experimentation in service of the narrative is how this film became incredibly impactful and award-worthy. The Cinema Audio Society could not be more proud to congratulate the incredible cohesive and creative mix team of Sound of Metal on their success. PB: I think we can just be very proud of the fact that we were rising to the challenge of what this movie was giving us, and we were all, all of us, as the sound team, firing on all cylinders to make this movie. And its Character No. 1 on the call sheet—Sound. Foley mixer Kari Vähäkuopus Foley artist Heikki Kossi using a stethoscope mic

• Cover