Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1487667
Winter 2023 – LOCAL695.COM 31 double receivers that would give me twelve wireless) with the Aaton Hydra card, and I had what I needed, all with the onboard mixer or the Cantarem 2. I made a cart built around the bag where I could unplug the cart from the bag and go over the shoulder. This tiny cart is quite vertical, and folds up to fit inside a rifle case that I can check on an airplane." The main villa location being on six levels meant a lot of moving of the gear. The crew spent a great deal of time lugging equipment like Sherpas up and down the massive hillside staircase to the various pavilions and gardens on different levels. There was a lot of dark humor based on speculation about which level the next setup would be on. Drew found that the villa had an underground and hidden funicular car system that stops at each level. It allowed all the various pavilions and rooms to be serviced with laundry and food and such like, without seeing the mechanics of how things were transported. Unfortunately, it was a bit small, dimensionally, for much of the film equipment. "It happens that my main cart is an unusual size and shape, and it actually managed to fit into the funicular, which allowed me to zoom up and down to all the different levels. I work standing up. I don't sit and I've always done that, so I've built my cart very upright, in a vertical orientation, and it has a quite small footprint, although it's really tall. Then I have fold-out shelves, two wings that are for a second mixer or computers and peripheral stuff, but the shelves tuck away to allow me to get through tight spots … like the funicular. "On Glass Onion, it's summer, it's in Greece. The actors were wearing light gossamer clothes and other skimpy costumes and it was tricky to get mics on them. There was a lot of work with the Costume Department that was very helpful and amenable. We did things like sewing mics on a strap of a bikini, or pre-rigging mics sewed into the seams of relatively see-through clothes, for example." For lavaliers, Drew generally uses the DPA 4061, although he will also use the 6061 when he needs something smaller. Occasionally, he'll also use a Countryman when he needs a super tiny mic, and also Sanken COS-11 in certain particular situations." Steve Yedlin was the DP, working with the Sony Venice camera. Steve has actually worked together with Rian Johnson on all of his films. Drew says, "Steve is a very unique Director of Photography, in that he is the DP, and he is the DIT and he is also the Dimmer Board Operator, controlling all the lights on the set. He is extremely tech-savvy, but he does it with artistry, which is quite impressive. He has a workstation setup of his own design with all these keyboards and screens, usually very close to the cameras, and he's like, the man behind the curtain." Rian likes to use multiple cameras in scenes, and he's diagrammed them out. He knows what's on his shot list, and sometimes they will end up doing wide and tight shots simultaneously; so occasionally you have to advocate for the sound. Sometimes, I would ask, "Hey, can we do just one camera? Can we have we have one take, once you're happy with that wide camera and you feel you got it?" Rian would answer, "Sure, sure. Sure. Absolutely." You got to remind him, and he will do it. I don't want to be in an adversarial position with anybody, because we're all making the same movie. I think that asking to have at least a take or two with the closer cameras and not the wide, once they feel like they got what they wanted out of the wide camera, is possible with a director who understands what it can mean for the performance. If you make the case, then you can have it sound really fat and sweet. "Ultimately, as a Production Sound Mixer, what I'm hoping to do is capture the magic of a great performance, as it happens in real time, with presence and clarity such that an audience can experience that same magic, wherever and whenever they see the film. With Glass Onion, hopefully the viewers will be pulled in by the very clever story and entertained by all the snappy dialog and enthralled with the fun performances, without ever giving a thought to all the crazy work it took to make it." Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was released in cinemas on November 23 and will then stream on Netflix on December 23, 2022. Dave Bautista & Madelyn Cline. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022