Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521715
24 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Summer 2024 The Film You See: by Tarn Willers AMPS My first encounter with Jonathan Glazer was a Zoom interview and he was accompanied by his Producer, Jim Wilson, and Sound Designer Johnnie Burn. After initial greetings, Jon cut straight to the chase and explained the concept of the film and that he was going to shoot it with ten cameras, all rolling simultaneously, meaning the whole of every location would be live and potentially in vision. Actors would not be hitting marks and given the freedom to improvise their movements as well, as their dialog and takes would roll for anything up to an hour at a time. Generally speaking, as a Production Sound Mixer, my role is primarily to capture the dialog and reduce or remove any extraneous sound on set. However, on The Zone of Interest, it felt like my job was almost the opposite, with Jon keen for us to capture every detail no matter how seemingly mundane and the dialog quite often incidental rather than central to the story. What we were asked to do was preserve the sanctity and serenity of a suburban family home. In almost three months working right by the camp at Auschwitz, we never heard any of the horror, not a scream, nor a gunshot. We were making a film about a well-to-do family and their idyllic existence, their garden parties, and social gatherings, their children laughing and playing, picnics with friends, a father paddling his children down the river in their canoe. Whenever I put my headphones on and hit record, I was hearing bedside chit-chat, tea being served, the lights being turned off one by one at bedtime, the sounds of a daily routine in a family home. I certainly wasn't hearing any of the terror that I knew would underpin the eventual soundtrack to the movie. But this was what I had been asked for and to provide the director with his wish would certainly challenge us in our workflow. Naturally, the actors would be wearing radio mics wherever possible but the dialog was not always necessarily the most crucial element of a scene. Given his shooting style with Capturing Location Sound on The Zone of Interest