Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1448505
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 57 of it, became a character in that film. You had to pay attention to every detail. Even a twig breaking… that could mean everything in that movie. I would love to hear about your personal experience on those films.• EA: Yeah, totally, well it started with reading the script. We had never worked with John Krasinski before, but we've worked with the producers, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, and they're like, we have this project that we're really interested in having you check out and see if you're available. They said "I know you hear this all the time. But this one is all about sound." We're like, Yeah, right. Everybody says that every project. And they're like, "No, no, but really, we're serious this time." We said, "Okay, well send us the script." My partner, Ethan and I read it. I think that next morning we were both, "Oh, my gosh, they weren't kidding. This actually is a movie that's all about sound." There's almost no dialogue, it's all about these situations where sound is the danger. Sound is the threat. Sound is also the hero. As you know, the daughter learns how to use sound as a weapon. And, we were like, if we can get this right, if we can figure out the logic and stick to that, then this would be really incredible. Like, terrifying, but super exciting. We met with John Krasinski and started talking about the script. He was just on board as we were with trying to try to push it all the way which was thrilling. When you've got the license from a filmmaker to just go for it, there's no greater gift. One of the first things we kind of realized was the picture cut had been coming together and there was a lot of music temped in and the first thing Ethan and I started to do was take out a ton of music. It was diluting it. What you want is for the audience to hold their breath, hang on every tiny little detail. And what winds up happening is the really small sounds become big sounds. We wanted to create these point of views for different characters, but especially the daughter Regan, played by Millicent Simmonds. And in the movie, the daughter is deaf. Millie, the actress who plays her is deaf in real life, too. She taught the whole crew sign language. Millie was kind of a guiding light for being accurate with the whole deaf part of her character. We wanted to create sonic POV and for her especially. So, we cut in close, you see her earpiece, and boom, we hard cut into her point of view, and just take the sound out, there's just a low little rumble and pulse. Those became some of our favorite moments. There were a couple parts of the film where she actually turns off her Cochlear implant and we just go digital silence like "zero" sound. And the first time we tried it, it was just like, shocking. Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, and John Krasinski. Hamilton Awards 2019.