Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546154
www.postmagazine.com 22 POST JULY/AUG 2026 At what point are you working against picture? And, how much of the on-set recordings are used, if any? "I started on it long before, partly because of the alien vocals, but other things too. I get excited about it. Based on the script, I could use these kind of sounds, so I started creating alien things that would work for alien technology, alien en- ergy...The movie's very internal at times — how you dive in on someone and become almost one with them or control them in internal ways. So, I experimented with weird sounds. Also, I was expecting there'll be some spaceships coming in the movie. Not to disappoint anyone, but it doesn't have that kind of Close Encounters scene with spaceships. They're all on a monitor, and they're approached in a very different and emo- tional way in the movie." Are you getting ideas from the script or conversations with the filmmaker? "Based on the script, and then talking to Spielberg about the tone and what is he going for long before we see it. And then the crew starts — the sound-editing crew — when we get the cut of the movie. Spielberg is always a little bit careful about when he hands it off because he likes to give you something that's further along. We got the full cut of the movie. The crew gets together, we watch it, we make our own comments and notes, and then we start in earnest cutting to the film." Are there any temporary sound effects that have been put in? "Drew Kunin was the production mixer, and it's beautiful. The way he captured dialog, even in difficult scenes, was great. Sarah Broshar was the editor on this. She had a crew. More than on other Spielberg films, they cut a really good temp sound-effects track, which is great for them to figure out pacing and how things are working. Really, it's an inspiration for us to go and do our version of a train scene or the car chase, alien technology, that kind of stuff. Sarah and Spielberg's editorial approach generally is not to go overboard on cutting a temp track that feels like a finished movie, although this movie played pretty damn good when I first saw it. They leave room for us to do what we do." You mentioned the alien language. What other sounds or scenes would you point to as highlights? "I always love openings of movies and openings of Spielberg movies are often very interesting. They suck you into the movie in an interesting way. This movie's opening turns into a wrestling match, which I think no one saw coming, but the sounds leading up to it were kind of bizarre. It was a Spielberg idea. He wanted the audience to think these are the sounds of a science-fiction movie. But nope, they're the sounds of a wrestling match, so that was really fun to do." The perspective in that scene is interesting because it's the competitor's view. "It's jarring, but it's also beautifully thematic, because when Spielberg and I talked early on, he would always mention the word 'empathy' as a central concept for this film. Later on, you connect with people. We're connecting with aliens. We're diving on people using this alien technology. The opening of the wrestling scene is a POV. The cam- era is the guy getting pummeled in the beginning of the wresting scene, so there's an empathy to that too. We feel what's it like to be in a ring. So that felt thematic. That opening was fun. "The scene that I pulled for myself to cut — stole from the rest of the great sound editors — was [the] scene where Margaret is in a moving train car and the pianos are all resonating and banging around it. That was in the script. It was a great idea to support the psychology of Margaret's character having a nervous breakdown. I thought this was going to be a great scene to do with all the bang- ing, cacophony. Steven himself recorded stuff on the set because he was excited about the sound of that scene." Is Skywalker handling dialog, or is it only the sound-effects side? "No, we did the whole thing. Brian Chumney, the other supervisor, he handles the dialog — all the cutting of the dialog and the ADR and the loop group, and all that kind of stuff. Then he works with Andy Nelson to pre-mix the dialog. Sometimes that does get split. Some crews split dialog and effects, but on the Spielberg films, we do the whole thing. And then we involve Fox on the mixing side." When it leaves Skywalker and goes to Fox, are the sound effects panned at that point, or is there final tweaking on the stage? "It's panned because I'm premixing the sound effects at Skywalker, so part of the premix is panning. My goal, often with premix, which I never attain, is when I get to the final, to play the premixes straight across, and play them with the rest of the track, and have it work. It never really happens. There's plenty of work that we do at the final. Kyrsten Mate, who's the lead sound-ef- fects editor on the show, she was at a Pro Tools on the stage, so if we came up with an idea, or Steven very often comes up with an idea, to the point where we sometimes record something on the stage." Beyond the Atmos release, are they doing downmixes there too? "These days when you finish a mix, you do the various formats. You do an M&E music and effects master, which we prepare. But that's mixed at Fox as well. So as much as possible, all these delivera- bles and stereo in the near field, the ones that go to the streamers these days, that all happens at Fox too. It happens as soon as we finish the main mix. Those things get finished up too, so there's a whole package. It's crazy how many formats we need to create these days. It was not that way 20 years ago, 30 years ago." And all the international versions. "The M&E is so important these days. There's a lot of work that goes into that to make it. It's always striking to watch a movie with the dialog sucked out, but you're hearing all the Foley and the move- ment, and it feels like a real thing, but you just can't hear anyone speak. These days, a movie like this, I don't know how many? Maybe 35 to 40 languag- es? Something like that. The international side of the market is pretty big." There's talk about using AI for localization purposes — creating text from the dialogue and having it translated to any number of languages. That's something that wasn't happening 20 years ago too. "Like a lot of people, I'm amazed what AI can do, and there's some things that'll help us with formats and mastering. But anything that involves acting and creativity and emotion? I don't know. I don't see it coming anytime soon." The sound-editing team removed any temp sounds and added their own cinematic versions.