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Timothy Muirhead 5:43
So I understand that there were massive storms during the shooting of this film so can you explain where the film was shot. It takes place in Montana, but it wasn’t shot there. And maybe Leah talk about how the production tracks arrive to you for your dialogue edit.
Leah Katz 5:56
Yes, so it was shot in New Zealand on a mix of locations and sets. Richard Flynn the sound recordist did an amazing job of mic’ing it he had really good booms. He had radio mics on everyone’s so. So he managed the locations really well, I believe that the sets were even harder than than the locations because they weren’t soundproof. So there was traffic and birds on those scenes. But really, it came to me very clean and had a lot of material to work with. He also did a lot of amazing wild tracks, with the crowds scenes. So we had a lot of coverage. Of course, the radio mics sometimes were not perfect just because of costumes. In particular with one character, there wasn’t a lot of frequency on it. So that didn’t mean it wasn’t useful. I use auto align. So I find that even if there’s just a little bit of bass in the radio mic, it can give a lot of body to the boom. And it’s all really helpful.
Timothy Muirhead 7:02
What kind of noise reduction techniques and tools were you using.
Leah Katz 7:06
So I use RX mainly, RX 9 wasn’t available at the time. So RX 8, always cautious to not over process things. Keep the original underneath on the track at the mix. It might sound okay in the studio. But sometimes once you get to the mix, it just, it sounds over processed. So I’m careful with it. I don’t use it too much. With De-clicking I might do very fine work. But I still like to do it the old way of you know, just repairing the waveform manually, as opposed to using anything too destructive.
Timothy Muirhead 7:44
So Tara, this film has not a ton of dialogue. There’s a lot of scenes that sit just kind of dialogue-less, if you will. But there’s lots of sound still happening even though it’s quiet, subtle sounds. How did you go about filling in all the soundtrack around the words without having to be able to put in kind of massive sounds of any kind. It’s mostly winds and creeks in the house.
Tara Webb 8:08
I guess at the very beginning of the process, we spoke with Jane about how each of the locations would have their own character. Their house, for instance, would be wanted it to be quite cold and oppressive. So Dave Whitehead, he’d laid up these beautiful kind of creaks and moans that we used throughout the house. And then we would just pick moments between the dialogue to emphasize those creeks and, you know, so we wouldn’t have a bit of creeks running throughout the entire scene, we will just find those moments in between the dialogue to add to that tension. And sometimes Jane, would there might be a moment where we didn’t have one and Jane would say, are during the mix, can we can we put one in there or vice versa? Take one out. So it was all very specifically designed to add to the drama?
Timothy Muirhead 8:55
How did you divide up the work between Dave Whitehead and yourself?
Tara Webb 8:59
So initially, just as a simple kind of start, we split it up the reels, Dave took a few reels, and I took a few reels. And then there were specific sound design elements and moments that then Dave took on himself. So particularly things like Phil’s boots, the vehicles, Dave actually got access to the location cars that were used on set, which is awesome, to be able to have access to them. And he went out and did it. I think, you know, it was nearly a week or a few days, perhaps of recording those cars, which really made a difference to the soundtrack.
Timothy Muirhead 9:35
Yeah, we’ve interviewed Dave a few times for this podcast, and he’s always been an absolute delight. You mentioned the footsteps of the main character. They are sometimes super loud, almost to the point that they are part of his actual character in his being his Foley. When you were mixing that, how did you experiment of how far to push that foley upfront?
Tara Webb 9:55
Yeah, I mean, there were definitely times where we did take it too far and then had to Bring it back. We knew right from the beginning that Foley would play a really important part in the film, so much so that then Dave, our sound designer, took on some of those elements as well to give a sound design element to it. So a lot of the time I spent in the premix, was actually working on the Foley and the effects, as well as the location. Because Phil’s boots again, I know, we’ve spoken about them a lot, but they do play a very important role. The location of Phil’s boots actually sounded fantastic. They had this really nice weight to them. And then there were also Foley elements that was sometimes used, as well as Dave’s spur sounds, which is my favorite sound in the film, which really added to that character. So it was about, I spent a lot of time not just with Phil’s boots, but other things as well, seeing what worked, where we had all three playing together. And sometimes that was a bit too much. So then we would strip it back and maybe just go with location sound, or maybe just go with the sound design or just the Foley. And then yeah, we just had to be careful because we still really wanted it to feel real and natural. So it was about pushing it to the point, just where it was still in that kind of area of believable.
Leah Katz 11:15
Yeah, cuz it’s, it’s tricky. It’s not like our 80s or 90s Hollywood film where you want everything to be like crystal clear and really easy for the audience. It still had to be believable, and had have that organic feel to it without feeling cluttered. So everything was really considered and selected, because Jane had a really clear vision of what she wanted. And she was really good at making those decisions with us. Everything had to have a purpose on the soundtrack. There wasn’t anything just thrown in.
Timothy Muirhead 11:53
So you mentioned Jane, the director Jane Campion, How involved is she in the audio process? Does she leave you be or is she sitting in on every day of the mix,
Tara Webb 12:02
she was very involved, especially with the the dialogue and the drama, which Leah can then talk more about. We obviously had early discussions about how the different locations and environments would sound. Also, before we started mixing Jane came in, and we sat down and went through the sound effects and the Foley and the backgrounds. So she, and we went through it every reel so she had heard everything by the time we got to the mix. So there were no surprises. And it was during that time sitting with her that the location of the ranch in Montana and how she really wanted that kind of expanse feel. And it was more about stripping back and just having a few select but right sounds and keeping them up the front rather than having there a lot of sound in the surrounds for those particular exteriors.
Leah Katz 12:48
Yeah, and in the dialogue department, she was also really involved, we spent a lot of time going over the dialogue track. After I had done my first pass on it, and deciding what needed ADR. Her also being the writer of the script meant that she could write additional lines, there were a lot of additional lines for the cow hands. And anything we needed to change in the dialogue. She could write the line that was true for the character and true for the period. Easily. It was amazing to have her so involved.
Timothy Muirhead 13:25
It’s funny that you say that because before I saw the film, I didn’t know a lot about it. And I knew it was made by Jane Campion shot New Zealand and starred Benedict Cumberbatch. So when everyone started speaking with American accents that kind of threw me for a loop. How do you feel about working on something from a country that you’re not necessarily familiar with in a time period you’re not familiar with as a dialogue editor? Do you feel like there you are tempted to take out mannerisms to leave in mannerisms? Maybe that you’re not used to?
Leah Katz 13:52
Yeah, it’s tricky, because I don’t know a true Montana accent. But we had dialect coaches to help us through, they supervised on the ADR sessions, and checked the whole film through to make sure that we were true to the accents and the time. And then we did some research and you know, things like, okay, there was a lot of okays in the film, which had to be removed, because there’s not a term that you use in 1925. So, I mean, my writing skills are poor. So any of my suggestions were probably thrown out pretty early. But we had a lot of additional dialogue in that we had all the cow hands. They were largely silent on location, they had a few lines to create that world at the ranch, because there’s so little there. You really just have those cow hands and the character of the house to create that world and the world of the toxic masculinity was a fragile one because the cow hands aren’t necessarily vile, horrible people either, they’re Just following you in Phil’s footsteps and Phil’s footsteps are from a generation before of the same. So it’s just like this thing that keeps on passing on. And so it was also a really fine line as to how we handle the cow hands and how they reacted to things. And if they were too mean it wasn’t right. But if they were too nice, it wasn’t right, there had to be just the right amount of laughter or the right amount of mockery. To show that Phil was leading this, they weren’t leading it.
Timothy Muirhead 15:31
Well, there’s a scene in the movie where the younger male character walks kind of through all of the farmhands while they’re eating, I guess, and he walks kind of in between them all. And they’re all heckling him as he goes by was that on set, or was that loop group
Leah Katz 15:45
That was a combination of wild tracks and loop group. That’s my favorite. And it was my favorite sequence in the first screening that we saw, I remember talking to Tara after we saw her for the first time, and we were just, I was so excited about it, I was excited about the sound of his jeans. And Tara was to, were excited about because then putting a little bit of a temp sound. And that was improved, obviously, by the effects people. But this sequence, which was so cool, like him walking through those men, and you know, just that the sound of his jeans was just that confidence, like, regardless of how he should have served his jeans or not, he didn’t care. He just walked through them. And it was like, that was a really powerful moment. For me. It was a major turning point for me. I was like, Cool. It’s it’s a sound moment. And that was exciting.
Timothy Muirhead 16:41
Yeah. For listeners who haven’t seen the film, the sound of his jeans as a plot point, that’s just kind of a weird thing to comment if you haven’t seen the film yet.
Leah Katz 16:48
sound of his jeans and and his comb. Yeah, there’s all these lovely little details that and he has a list. And in ADR, we had to exaggerate that too, because that’s important. So that the lisp was added. I think those details were really enhanced.
Tara Webb 17:06
Absolutely.
Leah Katz 17:07
By us, cut that out.
Timothy Muirhead 17:10
No way! That is staying in. Another scene I’d like to explore while we have you is, there’s a scene early in the film, The Benedict Cumberbatch character has cleared out the restaurant by being rude to all the other patrons and then embarrasses the Peter character so that he’s run away, and his brother is left in the restaurant alone. And there’s various things happening off screen from another character crying in another room. But there’s also just every once in a while you are hearing dogs barking in the surrounds. And it’s really effective and it makes you feel the space but it also kind of adds an emotion to the scene.
Tara Webb 17:45
Dave laid up those dogs for that scene. And then we may have just like in the during the mix, Jane may have been picked moments where she would be like, actually, I want to hear a dog there and, and that kind of thing to just, you know, emphasize the points that she wanted. But yeah, the dogs are great!
Timothy Muirhead 18:02
When we talk to people on this podcast about mixing and surround or Atmos. It’s normally in the context of an Avengers film or a war film much like Hacksaw Ridge that Tara you worked on. In this film? It’s there’s lots going on in the surrounds. But it’s a much more subtle mix. How do you build those surround mixes?
Tara Webb 18:20
I think I approached it similar to how Dave and I then approached laying up the sounds once we you know, kind of got the feedback from Jane, which was stripping back a lot. So I think it was then just more about picking specific moments. So you know, whether it was a specific kind of wind gusts that then you know, went up on the ceiling or the surrounds and and also, you know, we use the for Atmos we use Phil’s boots through the house sometimes to kind of create that tension in the space of the house. I am not great in terms of the technical terms, but I just kind of do it how I like it. Yeah, just how it feels right. Like, you know, and I’ll just put it somewhere and then I’ll be like, Okay, no, that’s feeling a bit too heavy back here now. And then just you know, again, a lot of the time I just do stuff until I feel like it feels right. And then I’m okay, if it feels right, I move on. And then you know, I might come back and change something. But that’s generally how I approach it.
Leah Katz 19:21
Yeah, I mean, it’s obvious when you’re working on a film that’s already made. You look at it, and you go, it’s pretty clear. This is a wide expanse, right. So you knew that the the atmospheres and the experience had to be wide, but it’s also very focused. So it was like, I remember during the mix, it was like, the panning was cool. And then sometimes the panning needed to be pulled back in because we need to keep the focus in the center and on the details. So it was like that, that compromise but to still create that width because it’s so cinematic visually, like Tara and Dave did this incredible job creating These beautiful landscapes and spaces where there’s not a lot there’s no you know to work with. So it’s like a beautiful bed of winds and gusts and delicate sounds was really spectacular.
Timothy Muirhead 20:14
Yeah, I think the vast majority of people are going to end up seeing this on Netflix. I was lucky enough to see it in the theater and you really did feel like you were within this wild lands of Montana. I thought that the surround, the use of the mix in the surrounds is really effective. It was really well done.
Leah Katz 20:29
Yeah, it’s tricky. Cuz like you mix it for like Tara and Rob mixing it for a cinema when you know, it’s largely going to be watched on Netflix. It’s like, do you focus on the Netflix experience or the cinema experience, we also knew it was going to be doing a lot of festival runs. We already knew, I think that it was in Venice before we had started mixing. So we knew it had to work beautifully in a theater. You know, it will work beautifully on television. But they’re quite different things, you know, like a dialogue track for a cinema experience is so different for a TV experience, because what can sound good on TV doesn’t necessarily work very well coming out of the center speaker in a cinema.
Tara Webb 21:18
I mean, the new field mix did actually translate quite well. Yeah, when doing the new film mix, there wasn’t a lot we had to then change.
Leah Katz 21:25
Right.
Tara Webb 21:26
It did actually work pretty well, which is great.
Leah Katz 21:29
Yeah.
Timothy Muirhead 21:30
So a final question for you before we let you go. The main character as I mentioned in the intro, Phil, is a horrible despicable person throughout the film. Did you use any sound to try and emphasize that? one thing that maybe came to my mind while watching it was the sound of his spurs. But was there anything else that maybe you emphasized for him?
Tara Webb 21:49
I mean, yeah, the boots, the Spears was definitely the the main, the main thing. I mean, any kind of scene that we had with Phil, we would, especially when he was by himself, we would definitely kind of go a bit more into detail like this plot scene and with the saddle and that kind of thing, where we really emphasized on the the following in the detail, but particularly for his menacing character and to kind of torment the other characters in the film. It was definitely the use of these boots as the main kind of drive.
Timothy Muirhead 22:23
Well, he was terrifying, and I hate it.
Leah Katz 22:26
I know I actually because, um, Jane actually pulled back on how unpleasant he was. She didn’t want to put people off him too early. So actually, the opening scene we did ADR to reduce how unpleasant he was.
Tara Webb 22:41
That’s right. Yeah,
Leah Katz 22:42
because she didn’t want you to hate him from the get go and wanted it to be more complex. So while he had a lot of weight, I think that’s what’s so interesting about his character is that he’s sort of human by the end of it or not to give anything away.
Timothy Muirhead 23:01
Definitely, that’s the journey of the film. What makes it so good?
Leah Katz 23:03
Yeah.
Timothy Muirhead 23:17
Was Phil’s whistling ADR or location?
Leah Katz 23:20
the whistling was location. The banjo could have been location because he did excellent banjo. But it was re recorded with an incredible banjo player.
Tara Webb 23:34
Yeah, that was fantastic. Yeah, we just did it. That was all like one take. Yeah. Just when he would saw Phil doodling he would just doodle straight straight with it. And it would just fit right in.
Leah Katz 23:44
Yeah. Incredible. And Kirsten dance. That’s all her piano work as well. She didn’t know how to play piano. But learnt for this project. Incredible.
Timothy Muirhead 23:57
So thank you very much for joining us.
Leah Katz 23:59
Absolutely.
Tara Webb 23:59
No, I thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks. It’s a pleasure. Yeah.
Narrator 24:05
Tonebenders is produced by Timothy Muirhead, Rene Coronado and Teresa morrow. Theme music is by Mark Strait. Send your emails to info at tonebendors podcast.com. Follow us on Twitter via at the tonebenders and join tonebendors podcast on Facebook. Support this podcast. You can use our links when you shop with Amazon or b&h or leave us a tip. Just go to tonebendorspodcast.com and click the support button. Thanks for listening.
Timothy Muirhead 24:38
Are you looking for more audio related podcasts to listen to Tonebenders is part of the Audio Podcast Alliance featuring a handpicked selection of the very best podcasts about sound? Be sure to hear the latest episodes from our friends in the community at audiopodcast.org.
Timothy Muirhead 24:58
Can you tell me a bit about this scene and Sydney for audio post? Is there a lot of work going on there. I’m obviously on the other side of the planet and I’m not overly familiar with what it’s like working there.
Tara Webb 25:08
Um, it’s been pretty good. Like, at least for us, in terms of with COVID and everything. We’ve been pretty lucky that we’ve had consistent work throughout we didn’t have to, you know, because obviously there were productions that shut down and, and that kind of thing. But the good thing have being in post, is that a lot of stuff had already been shot, so we were able to keep working. And then fortunately, when I thought things might get pretty quiet because of the earlier shutdowns, other things came in
Leah Katz 25:40
the industry is going really well. Um, yeah, Australia. The Australian industry is really great. We’ve got lots and lots of content. Yeah, it’s booming. So there’s right now I think there’s more work than Yeah, then we can manage. Which is a great position to be in. Yeah, it’s really good.
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