M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 43
tossing sound effects out, left, and
right in the mix—and he was right,
that guy!
SL: That's great to hear, to his credit,
because he has the reputation as being
this huge bombastic filmmaker. And to
have the sense to narrow it down to what
you need for the story … that's nice to
hear.
GR: He's a smart filmmaker. And
he's especially good at something
that not a lot of filmmakers—to
my mind—are good at. Which are
action scenes. He knows how to
do an action scene. Both in how he
shoots them and how he addresses
the sound. It's about focus and
following the action of what's going
on. A lot of action scenes these days
are a lot more visceral, things are
happening—you're not really sure
what. And at the end, you feel like
you had a great experience, but you
couldn't explain it. Cameron is really
good at—as is Spielberg—at making
an action scene that guides you
through and you know exactly what
you're supposed to pay attention
to, what the story is, what the
characters' going through.
The scene I talk about—it's a great
teaching scene… Randy Thom's
lectures are all about designing films
for sound. The secret to all sound
people is that—sound people don't
really have the final say if the sound
of the movie is good. It's the director
who has made a good movie that
allows us to make good sound.
SL: Yes!
GR: So the scene that I talk about
is in Titanic when it hits the iceberg.
And the way it's shot is to make
use of HIS favorite thing in sound—
which is contrast. So, when it hits
the iceberg, if you look at the scene,
you're cutting from different parts
of the ship. You cut to the iceberg,
which is obviously very loud, and you
cut up to the deck, where the ship
wheel is, and the person at the ship
wheel—and you don't hear any of
that because you're too far away. You
just hear a tiny miniscule wooden
rattle of the wheel. Then you go down
to third class, or steerage, and you
hear all this water
and banging and cacophony … then
you go to first class, and you hear
the tiny little tinkle of the chandelier.
And so he's shifting locations on
the ship, and the order of the shots
is designed specifically for that
contrast. And on top of the contrast,
which is great for sound, is he's
telling you a story point—which is
that this is a really big ship. It's such
a big ship that you can ram into a
massive iceberg over here, and have
no idea that happened over there.
That's designed for sound.
SL: That's excellent. Absolutely.
Let me go back to T2. I believe that was
your first Oscar win. I remember you
saying somewhere in an interview that
you had in the back of your mind you had
planned that you would work toward
maybe winning an Oscar, and if you did,
that would be the point that you would
look at other opportunities, and that you
might be done with sound at that point.
But it happened so early in your career
that you said, "I'll stick with this for a
little while!" What do you think about
that now, when you think back?
GR: Oh yeah. Well, it felt … winning an
Oscar, which, you know, growing up
as a kid loving movies and watching
the Oscars… I mean, the Oscars
serve a really good function. I must
admit the Academy does a great job
of making the Oscars meaningful and
important enough that fans want to
watch. And for me it was a great way
to get interested in different parts of
filmmaking. Because the Academy
Awards—bless them—actually have
sound people accepting awards on
TV! You know? Amazing! It's not just
for our parents! The whole world!
"Oh, I didn't think they did sound in
that! That's pretty cool!"
So it was great. I got spoiled,
though. Because that same year, I
got nominated for Backdraft. And
there were two sound categories
that existed back then … so I got
four nominations! The first time
I ever got nominated! Which has
never happened again—and it really,
literally, has been downhill since!
SL: I remember Randy
Gary Rydstrom
(left) with his
friends from the
documentary
Making Waves,
Walter Murch,
Midge Costin,
and Ben Burtt.
