Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1487730
34 I M PS E . O R G ERIC MARKS MPSE: 2022 is the 20th anniversary of Road to Perdition, a film you were the supervising sound editor for. The movie is a poetic masterpiece directed by Sam Mendes, and your work on it was nominated for an Academy Award. How did you initially come aboard this film? SCOTT HECKER: Supervising Sound Editor: I actually was just really lucky. Sam asked Scott Millan, who mixed American Beauty, who he thought would be a good fit for a film like this. After he read the script, Scott told Sam he felt that I am a very detailed sound supervisor with strong artistic sensibilities and he thought I'd be a great fit. That was right before they started shooting the film. I was just really lucky that Scott recommended me. EM: In many ways, Road to Perdition is the anti-mob film. The violence is subdued. The characters are overcome with sorrow and regret. What were your early conversations with Sam Mendes like before you began working on the film? SH: It was funny. They did a bit of shooting outside of Chicago and he flew me there to interview with him. I was thinking, "I'll interview and go home, and then I'll find out the decision." By the end of the meeting, he said, "Well, this is going to be great working with you Scott, and can't wait to dig in with you." We didn't really start talking about details of the film at that point. But then, they were editing for a while in London where he lived, and he flew me there to spot the film. He was going to be back in the United States three weeks later, so I was thinking, "Why am I going to London to spot? We can wait." He didn't want to wait, he wanted me to get there and get started. Sam had me watch the film, and we began talking about the poetry, the rhythm, the emotion and the tone of the film. He's very intelligent and was primarily a theater director and producer, so he's very keen on the subtleties and nuances of performances, the tone of the film, and the cinematography. By the time that we get on films in post-production, there are so many leads to follow. You've got the images, the pacing, the characters, and the tone of the film to consider. We started talking about that and how it was going to be dark with a lot of blacks and browns and golds. You're probably thinking, "What does that have to do with sound?" It does. It's in subtle ways. The sounds that you choose often are influenced by the tone of the visuals. One theme running through the whole film that we talked about is water. From the lakeside where the boy is remembering his six weeks on the road with his father, to all the different kinds of rain in the film. There's water dripping off of their fedoras, a casket, a bathtub, and more. We talked about the theme of water as an element of cleansing. That's where we came up with the idea of the waves that bookend the film. It's hard to talk about sound in the ether. It's not until you start providing sounds for the Avid or get to your first temp dub and the director is hearing your sounds for the first time that they can start discerning between the sounds that they like and those that still need to be worked on. After the first temp dub, that's really where conversations started developing and we decided on the sonic direction for the film. EM: It seems like in this film, the story was very much experienced through the son character's eyes and ears. How did this hyper-subjective approach influence your decisions? SH: It's interesting because the whole film appears to be Michael Jr.'s memory of his time with his father on the road, but truthfully, short of the beginning and the end of the film, it is presented as what actually happened. It wasn't really shot through the son's eyes that much. There are a few sounds here and there, especially on the car-bys when father and son are driving into Chicago to meet Nitti as young Michael gazes out the window. You'll hear these breathy… I call them "ghost- bys." In addition to the period car engines, we recorded a variety of breathy inhales and exhales, which we processed into whooshes. Then we laced those car bys with the breathy whooshes to make it feel spiritual, emotional—a memory of what those cars sounded like since this is his memory of that time. Most of the sounds are very realistic other than the opening of the film and the end of the film with the rhythmic waves. Michael Sullivan Jr. flashing a rare smile in Road to Perdition. Photo courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures. Michael Sullivan and Michael Sullivan Jr. in Road to Perdition. Photo courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures.