Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521715
Summer 2024 – LOCAL695.COM 27 These were some of the circumstances we encountered in our quest to provide Jonathan Glazer with the most layered and detailed sound recording with which he would create the film we see, and provide Sound Designer Johnnie Burn with just a few colours to add into his palette as he made the film we hear. Postscript: A year after picture wrap, I received phone call. "Hi Tarn, do you remember the sound of those frogs, birds, and insects at the reeds location? The place that was brimming with natural life? Well, we'd like you to go back and record some of that again for us please." And so, I took myself back to said location, a secluded series of lakes in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) southern Poland, just a stone's throw from the camp and all its dark history, whereupon I had the absolute pleasure of recording the sound of nature without another human presence. A sound so warm and captivating, I felt I could have stayed there for much longer than I did. I'm really pleased and proud that this recording is what the audience hears in the film's opening sequence, in tandem with Mica Levi's score, while the audience looks at an entirely black screen.This was the day, without actors and crew, without all the trappings and paraphernalia of filmmaking, that I found myself in The Zone of Interest. an invaluable addition to our armory as these provided us with the ability to hide plant mics to give us specific details and even in the case of the scene where Rudolf and Hedwig lie in their beds talking to one another, capturing the whole dialog. I really can't speak highly enough of the quality of these mics. Away from the main house and garden location, we were faced with multiple cameras hidden away on mid and wide lenses observing the action from a distance. The scene with Rudolf taking his kids down the river in their new canoe was shot with cameras in two canoes and several cameras positioned along the riverbank. The actors were again told to work within their environment and improvize dialog and I was told that meant they could get out of the canoe and into the river at any point should they choose to do so. And of course, they did. Obviously this, plus the costumes they wore anyway, meant none of them were on radio mics throughout the scene. We positioned a mic with each camera on the riverbanks to capture perspective and then I rigged DPA 4061's with Lectrosonics SMB transmitters in the canoe, hiding the transmitters wrapped in cling film and plastic bags (Aquapacs were too bulky to hide) beneath the lip that ran around the canoe and the microphones out on the inside edges of the lip, one either side of the children to cover all the head turns and one on the girl's seat for the Rudolf dialog. As the weather closed in and we continued filming in the pouring rain, we got the sound, however the water ingress in the canoe eventually cost the lives of three of our brave DPA's. One of our first shoot days on the film was the picnic scene which actually features in some of The Zone of Interest publicity shots. Again, the multiple cameras rolled simultaneously and costumes were impractical for radio mics on actors. Again, we hid mics with each camera for perspective and this time, we planted a number of our trusty DPA's within the picnic paraphernalia to best capture the action and dialog there. As the men in the group then peeled off and went down to and into the water, we relied on our three MKH8060's hidden just below the bank pointing out at the water.