Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1470109
78 I m ps e . o rg Nightmare Alley behind the scenes with director Guillermo del Toro Molly (Rooney Mara) in Grindle's Garden in Nightmare Alley. © Searchlight Pictures JP: There was a lot of coverage in the second half that ended up being played down in the mix. That shift to Buffalo was easy to have that separation and kind of go from that gritty Carnival crowd to a more city-based Buffalo crowd where the accents were a lot different. The Copa scenes were very detailed. We had a lot of back and forth on those as well, just to get the right moments of crowd reaction and the subtleties and even just the notion of breathing throughout that scene. but I think that there were identical lifted lines in both those scenes. JP: It was a straight copy and paste, including Clem's lines, which are in there as well. MA: Once we make it out of the carnival and into the city, the crowds start to feel more subdued even in scenes where we see small crowds. What was the intention behind this? Guillermo was very specific about certain breaths and reactions and layers. While the office buildings didn't have much crowd, the bus station was a big moment as well. That whole thing was amazing from loop group. We covered everything from the announcers, the shoe shiners, the newspaper sellers, the men in the washroom. MA: In the city there is this suction-like effect for all the private rooms we enter where the outside gets dramatically separated. I felt this even in rooms where realistically that effect would not be the case. What was the idea behind this? NR: Guillermo wanted it to feel like everything was isolated. We had considered playing it as though there was no outside world when we were inside of a room. But you start opening it up for the wind at the crack of the window in Lilith's office, and you might hear a couple of keys from the typewriter from her receptionist or people outside the hall. So, things do come back, but very sparingly. That was that sort of freedom in poverty, (vs) isolation and claustrophobia in wealth. Once we got to the city to kind of shrink the room down around the audience to make us feel like we were in Stanton's shoes. And then further to that, things in the city had to sound