Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1436283
m ot ion p ictu re s o u n d e d i to r s I 39 The initial call came to me from Jay Rubin, the head of film and sound sales at Technicolor PostWorks NY, looking for a sound designer/ supervisor/mixer for this project. From there, I spoke with Margot Hand, a producer on the project. That led to a visit to the picture cutting room, where I met the director Rebecca Hall, as well as Sabine Hoffman, picture editor, and Oren Moverman, an executive producer. As a sound designer, I had enjoyed working with Sabine on two previous projects, and with Oren on a movie he had directed, starring Rebecca Hall, The Dinner. We screened the movie, then all went out for lunch and talked it over. In that conversation, Rebecca mentioned that she herself is of mixed racial background. That's not something I knew and we didn't dwell on it but later on as we worked on the film, I came to know much more. At the outset, we discussed what might be important sounds, urban/industrial vs. natural—traffic, elevated subways, car horns, etc. And because it is set in the late '20s in New York City, there was a lot of building and construction. In terms of environmental ambience—we go through all the seasons in the film—starting in the heat of summer, ending with a storm in winter. We hear summer cicadas, autumn blue jays, and of course, year-round dogs. Of great importance to Rebecca as well, and the primary source of puzzle solving, was in capturing the main character Irene's inner struggle, one of emotion and identity. How could we sonically represent the foggy undulating fluidity of someone in a total state of flux; a woman who is a rock in her world of family and social relationships suddenly finding that nothing is as it seems. Rebecca had great ideas for sound design. With no sweeping establishing shots of New York City in the 1920s, a part of the job of the soundscape was to inject the viewer into NYC at that time. For instance, in the opening, we start with sound that's amorphous, abstract … we don't know what it is as you see the titles and the credits—that was Rebecca's idea and very much underscores the tone and subtext of the movie. Unbeknownst to us as viewers, this could very well be Irene's own shifting emotional core—we haven't even met her yet. Our process of puzzle solving and discovery was underway. We knew what we wanted but we didn't always know how to get there, what would work and what wouldn't. Only through trial and error, and multiple rounds of mixing, could we finally arrive where we did. Much consideration and deliberation went into every sound heard in the movie. That process was challenging but worth it. The central point of view in the movie is Tessa Thompson's character Irene, beginning with the first sequence when she encounters her childhood friend Clare (Ruth Negga) by chance at a hotel cafe. The Discovery crew Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson. Photo by Edu Grau/Netflix