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 91 MA: The scene where David goes out into the field and shoots his pistol sounded fantastic. We really feel the sense of this open space and emptiness here. The gunshots have a fantastic crack that rolls down the hills with each shot. Did you have a chance to record the gun for this? PA: I don't remember exactly where those gunshots come from. Usually, whenever I hear a gunshot in a film and I'm in doubt about something, then I write Charles Maynes and then I say, "Charles, I have a problem. I don't know anything about guns. You know everything about guns." So yeah, I think we used some production, but, I mean, there were also gunshots cut in. I think it's some elements from Charles. But what I then did was building on that with delays and reverb, so also having different delays and reverb in the different surround speakers so that it's not just one delay around you but this feeling that it echoes from the different corners in different ways. Because nowadays there's Dolby Atmos and you can do amazing things with that, and you tend to forget that you can still do pretty amazing things just in 5.1. I mean, if you work with that creatively, you can still create this very special space around the audience. And this is really one of the places where I explored that in the effects mixing. MA: We don't hear the inner turmoil theme while David is with his family. Even when he is with his wife on a failed date night. This pushes forward the idea of how much he cares for them. At the end of the film, we hear a more subdued theme of the inner turmoil when David is back with his family. This leads me to believe things are happy but there's still something not right. What is the idea behind this final moment of that theme? RM: Yeah, I mean, you're pretty spot on there. I think a lot of it. Peter and I discussed that the end should allow an aspect of ambiguity. In some relationships, the ending, a separation is actually really important, and in others it's not. So, it's a complicated kind of arena. In this case, some of the film was influenced by a couple that I had met in Iowa, in this town that was even smaller. It was about 80 people. And the couple had planned to separate. But as they tried to figure it out, they realized they couldn't financially afford it. They couldn't pay for two houses. They couldn't pay for two separate lives. And they were kind of forced to work it out. And as a result of that, had found this really beautiful ground to which they could still love each other. And I was so drawn to that kind of idea that in the writing process, I really wanted to honor that situation. But I didn't want us to wrap it up in a bow. So, Peter and I really explored how we could achieve that. I really didn't want it to come across that Nikki was forced to make a decision she didn't want to make but that things aren't better, as you can kind of see through the family in that way. So, yeah, I personally prefer ambiguity often because then, it's the part where the viewer gets to kind of play an active role in how things kind of end in many ways. PA: The ambiguity also comes from this thing about not using music because its sound design and sound is somehow more open for interpretation than music. I mean, music has many You start mixing and you think for a moment, even on a Robert Machoian film, that this is just like a classic way of doing sound. So, you up the dialogue and then you realize, "Okay, no, you're not doing that kind of movie." And that's when things get interesting and creative. But, yeah, that was one of the scenes that we kept on refining in the mix as well. –PETER ALBRECHTSEN MPSE