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Vol. 31 No. 2
Us The complete sound workflow for
Jordan Peele's terrifying new tale.
Plus:
The Umbrella Academy
DP Neville Kidd
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
VFX Supervisor Guillaume Rocheron
Future Man
Sound Editor Larry Goeb
Dark Phoenix
Editor Lee Smith
2 Sound & Picture
Contents
16
24
Features Departments
24 Us
The production & post sound powering
8 Editor’s Desk
32
Jordan Peele’s new tale of terror. 10 Timelapse
32 Dark Phoenix 12 Director's Chair
Editor Lee Smith assembles an epic Ash Mayfair's journey to direct The
conclusion to an X-Men story arc. Third Wife on location in Vietnam.
40 Future Man 16 On Location
Sound editor Larry Goeb & his team DP Neville Kidd lenses the mind-
build an inventive sci-fi soundscape. bending world of The Umbrella Academy.
48 Godzilla: King of 52 Game On
The Monsters Composer David Housden crafts an
VFX sup. Guillaume Rocheron breathes
new life into Japan’s beloved kaiju clan.
illuminating score for Lost Words. 40
58 Review
Our reviewer takes the new Sanken
CS-M1 shotgun mic for a test drive.
Gear
62 Audio
64 Video
66 Lighting
68 Post 48
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures
70 Final Grade
Colorists Diego Yhamá & Henry Santos
create a vibrant look for Mañana.
On the Cover:
Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke,
Evan Alex & Shahadi Wright Joseph
star in Us, director Jordan Peele's
haunting new doppelgänger tale.
52
4 Sound & Picture
Vol. 31 No. 2
SOUNDANDPICTURE.COM
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures
KENDRA RUCZAK
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
MARK TOMPKINS
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
TREVOR HOGG
GLEN TREW
JENNIFER WALDEN
A preview of our 'Us' cover story
DESIGN
KENDRA RUCZAK
ADVERTISING
KENDRA RUCZAK
kendra@soundandpicture.com
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6 Sound & Picture
Editor's Desk
Editor’s Desk
In this issue of Sound & Picture, director Ash Mayfair
shares the journey of filming her acclaimed histori-
cal drama The Third Wife on location in Vietnam and
watching it premiere at the Toronto International
Film Festival. “It was an extremely touching experi-
ence but also reminded me that each millisecond on
the screen is a mountain of work,” she recalls. Cin-
ematographer Neville Kidd also chats with us about
lensing the mind-bending new series The Umbrella Academy. “It's great
fun to create a world that is just one or two degrees from reality, while
making it convincingly real,” he tells us.
In our cover story, we talk to the Us production and post sound teams
about creating an inventive soundscape for Jordan Peele’s chilling new
doppelgänger tale. The team mixed recordings of rides, games, and
crowds from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk with layers of unnatural sound to
evoke a tone of emotional disharmony. “Jordan wanted to create a sense
of eeriness but without having eerie sound design or ominous tones,”
explains dialogue editor Jason Dotts.
Picture editor Lee Smith shares his workflow for assembling Dark Phoe-
nix, the epic conclusion to the current X-Men cinematic arc. Smith worked
closely with sound designer Richard King to keep the film grounded in re-
ality. “We’re real-world guys and made the sound based upon real-world
things, like when Cyclops [Tye Sheridan] uses his laser goggles, that’s
actually a recording of a real military laser incorporating other sounds,”
he tells us. We also chat with the Future Man post sound team about cre-
ating inventive sci-fi effects like a shattering hologram and a barking ro-
botic dog. “Part of what gives the show its sound is that the effects haven’t
been mulled over for months and months. It’s fresh and of the moment,”
supervising sound editor Larry Goeb explains.
The VFX teams behind Godzilla: King of the Monsters tell us about breath-
ing new life into Japan’s beloved kaiju clan. “The movie that [director]
Mike Dougherty wanted to make was a realistic, dark, and gritty take on
these creatures, so we treated them as animals with bits of personality,”
MPC animation supervisor Spencer Cook recalls. Composer David Hous-
den also talks to us about crafting an immersive score for the imaginative
new adventure Lost Words and about the challenges of writing music for
video games. “It’s important that everyone receives a tailor-fit musical
experience, regardless of the decisions they make,” he notes.
Colorists Diego Yhamá and Henry Santos tell us how they created a vi-
brant look for Carlos Vives’ new music video “Mañana,”, our reviewer
tests out Sanken’s new CS-M1 shotgun microphone, and we share a run-
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
down of the latest sound, video, lighting, and post-production gear.
As always, a special “Thank you” goes out to everyone who took the time
to share their experiences with our readers. We greatly appreciate it. If
you have any feedback or suggestions, or if you’d like to contribute to the
magazine or have an article idea, please email us at editor@soundandpic-
ture.com. For daily news and updates, visit: soundandpicture.com
Kendra Ruczak
Kendra Ruczak, A preview of our 'Us' cover story
Managing Editor
8 Sound & Picture
ARRI ACADEMY
STRENGTHEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Enhance Your Skills. Master New Trends.
Offering a wide range of multi-day training courses, individual sessions and educational
events worldwide. ARRI Academy is the best route for users of all abilities to gain hands-on
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www.arri.com/academy
Timelapse
Images courtesy of DPA Microphones
Spotlight
Los Angeles–based production studio Elastic de-
signed the iconic CGI title sequence that has ap-
peared before every episode of Game of Thrones.
They rebuilt the entire sequence from scratch ahead
of Season 8, adding interior fly-throughs and up-
dates to reflect new narrative developments.
After seven seasons, the story had brought ev-
eryone to Westeros, creating a new challenge for
artists used to making sense of the sprawl. With
In Brief
less distance to cover, the show would be even more Working with sound underwater explains. “We had four or five ac-
centered on relationships, giving the studio a chance is never easy but, thanks to the tors in the water tank, and they all
to reshape their iconic credits around the worlds improvements in audio quality de- needed to communicate with each
within. To the design team, this meant journeying livered by DPA’s new CORE ampli- other as well as with the director
inside some of Westeros’ most famous landmarks fier technology, film and TV sound and dive coordinator above water.
while keeping the visual language and clockwork mixer Ivor Talbot was able to over- I spent a couple of days testing
shots intact. come a multitude of communica- different microphones and found
Elastic used V-Ray for Maya to render the ani- tion issues that might otherwise that most systems were not clear
mations, which continued to adapt over the course have caused problems on his most enough and couldn’t cope with the
of the season to reflect changes in the narrative. recent film project. air pressure inside the mask. In
The new structures also gave Elastic license to do Talbot, who has worked on fact, they were so hard to listen to
something they’d wanted to do for a long time: add many prestigious films including that it became physically painful.”
more details. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find In contrast, the sound deliv-
“Creative is king at Elastic, so we always want Them and The Woman in Black, dis- ered by the CORE 4071 mics was
to keep pushing and tweaking until we get the best covered the advantages of CORE very clear and made it possible for
result possible,” explains Kirk Shintani, art director technology while working on 47 everyone to hear each other per-
and head of 3D at Elastic. “Interactive rendering Meters Down: Uncaged, an upcom- fectly. “The CORE by DPA technol-
with V-Ray IPR is really fast, so we were able to dial ing action movie that was mainly ogy made a massive difference
things in quickly and just keep tweaking. We prob- shot in a water tank at Pinewood to the sound quality,” continues
ably did about three to four times more work in Sea- Studios. Talbot. “From a communications
son Eight than we did in Season One, but we were Talbot chose to use DPA’s point of view, they delivered clean,
able to do it in the same amount of time, with a ton d:screet CORE 4071 mini omnidi- consistent sound. What really sur-
more detail.” By the end of production, the sequence rectional microphones for the proj- prised me was that we also man-
reached 2 million frames, with some scenes coming ect. These mics deliver a clearer aged to record some useable dia-
in at almost 100 million polygons. and more open sound across the logue. I certainly wasn’t expecting
entire frequency spectrum and that. Their low sensitivity and abil-
are enhanced by nano-coating and ity to deal with air pressure made
hermetic sealing, a useful feature them very suitable to underwater
when you’re planning to mount work and they even made the oxy-
them inside a full-faced diving gen tank regulator and bubbles
Images courtesy of Elastic
mask. sound better.”
“Getting the right micro- 47 Meters Down: Uncaged,
phones was crucial on this film which tells the story of four teen-
because they were providing a aged divers who encounter the
means of communication, which deadliest shark species in the
was just as important as trying to ocean, arrives in theaters on Au-
record the actor’s dialogue,” Talbot gust 16, 2019.
10 Sound & PictureShowcase
FuseFX delivered 475+ shots
for the 10-episode first season
of Netflix’s new horror series
Chambers, with all work com-
pleted by the studio's New York
office. The series follows heart
transplant survivor Sasha (Si-
Producer Ben Staley with the VariCam LT. Photo Credit: Kelly Robertson. van Alyra Rose) as she goes
Matte Box through a strange transforma-
tion and begins taking on char-
The 15th season of the Emmy–winning docuseries Deadliest Catch was shot on the forbidding
acteristics of her heart donor
Bering Sea with seven VariCam LT 4K and 17 AU-EVA1 5.7 K cinema cameras. Produced
Becky (Lilliya Reid).
for Discovery by Original Productions, the series — a perennial hit — portrays the real-life
An especially dramatic and
events aboard fishing vessels during the Alaskan king crab and snow crab fishing seasons.
memorable scene in Episode 6
Filming of the new season began last October and continued through early March. A
is the first moment Sasha and
two-person TV crew lived on each of the seven boats profiled and captured footage for up
Becky meet face to face. Fuse-
to 20 hours each day. Generally, one cameraman, operating a VariCam LT, was assigned
FX composited a practical pros-
to document the captain stationed in the wheelhouse, while the second camera operator,
thetic chest cavity insert onto
working run-and-gun with an EVA1, followed the crew on the deck. “I believe we’ve captured
Becky's chest; then hundreds of
the action in a way no one has ever seen before,” says series veteran DP David Reichert.
CG mice were added crawling
out of it and falling to the floor.
A pivotal aspect of the
show is the sense that some-
Images: The Film Detective
thing dark is following Sasha.
The "Shadow Monster" is a
creature that ultimately tells
the story of Becky’s death.
FuseFX knew that it needed to
feel scary, imposing, and impor-
tant, and also feel like a sublim-
inal representation of a char-
In History acter to be revealed later. To
achieve just the right look and
The Film Detective, a classic media One featured Drive-In Classic is The Terror
feel, separate CG smoke simu-
streaming network and film restoration (1963), which tells the tale of Lt. Andre
lations were used for the base
archive, is welcoming the summer season Duvalier (Jack Nicholson), an 18th-century
character, surrounding forces,
with the return of its Drive-In Classics French lieutenant who travels to the
wisps and 'tentacles,' plus envi-
category. castle of Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff)
ronmental dust interaction.
First opened by Richard Hollingshead to investigate the ghostly apparition of a
in Camden, New Jersey, on June 6, 1933, young woman. Though officially credited
Images courtesty of FuseFX
the drive-in embodied more than film and to Roger Corman, The Terror had a total
established itself as a classic American of five collaborative directors, including
experience. In its heyday, more than 4,000 Francis Ford Coppola and Nicholson himself.
drive-in theaters spread across the United The film features cinematography by John
States. Today, around 350 drive-ins remain Nickolaus Jr. and Floyd Crosby, editing by
open. Stuart O’Brien, sound by John Bury, and
music by Ronald Stein.
soundandpicture.com 11Director's Chair
The Third Wife
Director Ash Mayfair shares the journey of filming her
acclaimed drama on location in Vietnam.
by Trevor Hogg
A fter a five-year odyssey, The Third Wife, a pe-
riod drama written, directed, and produced
by Ash Mayfair, had its world premiere at the
final stage.”
Principal photography took place entirely
in Vietnam. “Right now the Vietnamese film in-
43rd Toronto International Film Festival. In- dustry is booming, so there’s a lot of interest in
spired by Mayfair’s own family history, the film creating movies,” notes Mayfair. “I was fortunate
revolves around Mây, a 14-year-old girl who because people are still supportive of art house
becomes the third wife of a wealthy landowner movies and would donate a lot of time and effort
in 19th-century rural Vietnam. “I went to NYU for low rates because they loved the story.” May-
Tisch for filmmaking and we made a lot of shorts fair’s personal research inspired her to revise
there. This would not be possible without a film the script: “I didn’t intentionally set out to write
school education and support of mentors and minimal dialogue but when I went and lived in
teachers,” Mayfair explains. The script won the villages and places this kind of family would be
Spike Lee Film Production Award in 2014, which living, it turned out to be quieter and had a much
led to securing production money from Hong slower pace.” She continued rewriting during
Kong, America, and Vietnam. “Previous to NYU I pre-production: “When we started rehearsals, so
didn’t know if the story was going to be an opera, much of the script evolved into something else
play, or a novel. At school I was encouraged to through improvisation and character studies
turn this into a screenplay, which I did. The first with the cast.”
draft was completed a year after I finished grad One of Mayfair’s classmates from NYU
school and it took me three years to get to the Tisch served as the cinematographer. “Chananun
12 Sound & PictureThe film follows Mây, the young third wife of a wealthy landowner in 19th-century rural Vietnam
Chotrungroj is my best friend and
was instrumental in developing the
film right from the beginning. We
watched a lot of movies to see how
landscapes were shot and for light-
ing references, and looked at several
watercolor and folk paintings from
Vietnamese history. Chananun and I
agreed that each frame should feel
like a watercolor and have as much
natural light as possible.” Chotrun-
groj captured the footage on the
ARRI ALEXA XT. “There was only
one camera because that’s what we
could afford!” laughs Mayfair. “The
aspect ratio of this movie is unique.
I had wanted 1.85:1 in the begin-
ning, but my cinematographer de-
cided we would shoot full frame on
the ALEXA so it’s 1.66:1. My colorist Director Ash Mayfair on location in Vietnam
opened up the frame and without
knowing, we had created the aspect
ratio that was absolutely perfect for
the painterly approach that we were
looking for!” The DI enriched the
in-camera color palette. Says May-
fair, “We wanted something smoky,
dreamy, foggy, and were able to en-
hance that.”
The film’s camera movement
reflects the natural tempo of life.
“During my research, when I saw
Images courtesy of Mayfair Pictures
how people on these estates were
moving, the flow of water, and the
way the sun hit a particular slope of
the mountain at sunrise and sunset,
it all had a particular tempo,” re-
calls Mayfair. “I was adamant about
bringing this rhythm to the camera.
I wanted the movie to feel like a
woman.” The film's cinematography is inspired by historical Vietnamese watercolor and folk paintings
soundandpicture.com 13Director's Chair
Of casting her lead, Mayfair
says, “Mây was so difficult to find.
I saw over 900 girls from the ages
of 11 to 14. When I found Nguyen
Phương Trà My, it brought me to
tears. She was 12 at the time and
we had long conversations with her
entire family. I was reluctant to of-
fer her the part because she was so
young, but Nguyen fought for it. She
assured her family. Because of that
passion, I trusted her, and we were
rewarded for it.”
Mother Nature was not en-
tirely agreeable. “We had secured
a very good location eight months
before principal photography,” state
Mayfair. “Then four months later, a
storm rolled in and flattened it com-
pletely. We panicked, went all over
the north of Vietnam to find some-
where to shoot, and stumbled across
these ruined estates that had some
of the old architecture structures
preserved, which we fixed up and
shot.” Rehearsals were held in the
manor house featured in the movie.
“I was fortunate to have had access
to the location for a month and a half
before principal photography, so we
did a lot of characterization and
improv there with the actors wear-
ing temporary costumes.” Mayfair
and her team used storyboards as
a starting point. “Due to the impro-
visation that we did, a lot of scenes
are not in the script and also not on
the screen. We functioned like an ac-
Nguyen Phương Trà My stars as Mây tual family would from morning to
night for several weeks. Some of it
we would record or make notes on
or make improvements on. Some
scenes we changed and the camera
angle would alter accordingly.”
Heading into the shoot, Mayfair
knew that child brides are widely
considered to be a taboo subject
matter. “When I wrote the script,
I was completely aware that this
would be a situation and was so sen-
sitive by the nature of casting some-
one so young,” explains Mayfair. “I
decided right from the beginning
that honesty and candor is the only
approach. During casting, rehears-
als, and shooting, I would have to
be completely open with everybody.
The view of the camera is tied into
Capturing a dolly shot on location in Vietnam her perspective, so we managed to
14 Sound & Picturebalance that well. It doesn’t lapse
into voyeurism, but instead it was
able to express emotionally how this
young girl would feel in this situa-
tion.”
Editor Julie Béziau joined the
project after principal photography
was completed. “Julie is amazing
and had read the script several times
and understood the pacing from the
get-go. What was challenging was
the selection, because we had an
enormous amount of improvised
work resulting from a large cast and
having numerous scenes that even-
tually had to be pared down.”
The film’s sound design proved
extremely difficult. “My sound de-
signer Edouard Morin is French. It Shooting a scene with the ARRI ALEXA XT
was challenging for him to get the
right atmospheric feeling of the
landscape, which is a character in the
film.” But a breakthrough happened
when Morin and composer Ton That
An spent time on set in Vietnam. “A
lot of the sound was designed but
recorded on set. Some of the ideas
were already in the script because
they had symbolic meanings, like
the cry of a crow during a wedding
night and during the loss of the baby
later. We would go, find the animal,
and record that. We would go to a
specific region in Vietnam to get the
right cicadas or right movement of
the bamboo to record.”
“Making a movie is like moun-
taineering,” notes Mayfair. “You put
your head down, put one foot after Mây (Nguyen Phương Trà My) begins a new chapter in her life
another, and five years later you
have something. The biggest chal-
lenge was training myself to have
the patience to wait for however
long it took to get this movie done.”
The Third Wife won the NETPAC
Images courtesy of Mayfair Pictures & Getty Images
Award at the Toronto International
Film Festival. “During the first pub-
lic premiere of the film when the
lights came on, I started bawling be-
cause the journey has been so long
and thousands of man-hours not just
of my own, but of so many people. It
has also been such a long time that
I’ve seen a Vietnamese movie on the
big screen in a major international
film festival. It was an extremely
touching experience but also re-
minded me that each millisecond on
the screen is a mountain of work.” S&P Members of Ash Mayfair’s team accept the NETPAC Award at the 2018 TIFF Awards Ceremony
soundandpicture.com 15On Location
The Umbrella Academy
Cinematographer Neville Kidd brings an extraordinary,
mind-bending world to life.
by Kendra Ruczak
I n Netflix’s captivating new series The Umbrel-
la Academy, 43 infants are born on the same
day across the world to women who had inex-
the siblings realize they must overcome their
differences to stop the looming threat of a global
apocalypse.
plicably shown no signs of pregnancy. Billion- Based on Gerard Way’s popular series of Eis-
aire industrialist Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm ner Award–winning comics and graphic novels,
Feore) adopts seven of these mysterious children, Season One of The Umbrella Academy features a
each of whom possesses unusual abilities and stellar ensemble cast and crew, including Emmy
strengths. He creates an academy to transform and BAFTA–award winning cinematographer
the children into a super-powered team that he Neville Kidd. Here, Kidd tells us how he brought
hopes will ultimately save the world. His grand the mind-bending and time-bending world of The
plans dissolve as the extraordinary children be- Umbrella Academy to life.
come teenagers and a series of events fractures
the family seemingly beyond repair. S&P: What interested you most about this
Upon the news of Sir Hargreeve’s passing, series, especially from a cinematography
the six surviving estranged siblings, now in their standpoint?
thirties, reunite with Dr. Phinneus Pogo, a highly
intelligent talking chimpanzee, in their child- Neville Kidd: I think it was the challenge of
hood home. As they uncover the mysterious cir- making a world that doesn't exist. I loved the
cumstances surrounding their father’s passing, challenge of making The Umbrella Academy world
16 Sound & Picturevisually come to life, because you're
basing your visual tone on a comic
book reference and then applying it
to a real world that actually doesn't
exist. In the world we're creating,
JFK is alive, mobile phones don't ex-
ist, and the Internet doesn't exist. It's
great fun to kind of create a world
that is just one or two degrees from
reality, while making it convinc-
ingly real. I wanted to make viewers
feel immersed in the Umbrella world
and actually believe that people
lived in the house where those char-
acters lived.
S&P: How did you collaborate
with show’s creative team dur-
ing pre-production to develop a Cinematographer Neville Kidd (left) on location in Toronto
look and feel for the world of The
Umbrella Academy?
Neville Kidd: There was a lot
of collaboration between myself,
the showrunner Steve Blackman,
the production designer Mark
Worthington, who did episode one,
and Mark Steel, who then took over
for the series. It’s also a big col-
laboration with the VFX supervisor
Everett Burrell and of course the
director, Peter Hoar. You're creating
believability and storytelling across
all of these departments.
You don't want your VFX to be
show-off-y, standalone shots. You
want it to be fully immersed in the
storyline. I think that was especially
important with Pogo because we Six of the Umbrella Academy children before the family fell apart
had to sell him as a real character
that you felt for, and that was fasci-
nating. We had a great collaboration
with Weta, the people who did Planet
the Apes, because they have so much
experience with creating characters
like Pogo. It was fascinating to work
with them on the lighting and with
the actor Ken Hall, who played Pogo
in a motion-capture suit so he could
interact with the other actors and
they had a real person to hug.
We spent a lot of time creating
Pogo. We worked with Ken, we had
Images courtesy of Netflix
all of the extra witness cameras to
create different angles, and all of
the lighting references. Then when
we were showing the crew the pilot
after a few months of filming, we
managed to get Weta to create one Dr. Phinneus Pogo, a highly intelligent talking chimpanzee
soundandpicture.com 17On Location
The Umbrella Academy children are tattooed with the family insignia
perfect Pogo shot. There's a scene
where Ellen [Page] is at a book-
case looking at her book. She turns
around and you see Pogo walk into
the front room. We made that shot
real and the whole crew all started
welling up and nearly crying be-
cause they had all created Pogo and
it was the first time they'd seen him.
It was 200 people who had all creat-
ed Pogo, so we felt like this was part
of us, and there he was on screen.
It was a fantastic, lovely moment,
and I think that genuine affection
for the story, the characters, and the
world comes across on camera. We
were determined to make Pogo be-
lievable, so you wouldn't even doubt
he was real for a second. Everett the
VFX supervisor did a phenomenal
Luther (Tom Hopper) dances with Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) job with Weta to make that dream
come true.
S&P: Tell us about your camera
compositions. Did you make ex-
tensive storyboards and shot
lists?
Neville Kidd: We tend to make
shot lists for everything, so we
have a plan for what we're going
to achieve that day. You do deviate
from that because things pop up or
the blocking of the actors changes
slightly, but you definitely have a
plan in place. Then we storyboard
for the big action sequences because
there are so many people involved.
You need to make sure everybody
knows exactly what they're doing
Director Stephen Surjik discusses a scene with actor Aiden Gallagher on set at what time for the stunts, for the
18 Sound & PictureMasked assassins Cha-Cha (Mary J. Blige) and Hazel (Cameron Britton) open fire
VFX, for the camera guys, for light-
ing, for everybody. We're all pre-
pared and we're not wasting time, so
storyboards are incredibly helpful in
that regard.
S&P: Tell us about the cameras
and lenses that you chose to use
for this series.
Neville Kidd: We used the ALEXA
65, a large-format, high-end ARRI
that I like to call “the king of camer-
as.” It's basically three ALEXA chips
joined together to create a 65mm
VistaVision picture, and the qual-
ity is stunning. The way it moves
through the set and sees everything,
I think it works with the way human
eyes see the world. It's very cinemat-
ic and it's very pleasing because it Behind the scenes with actors Zachary Bennett, Robert Sheehan, and Aidan Gallagher
just sees so much.
We decided to make the sets 360
so the cameras could move around
like it was a real house in a real
world. Some of the characters are so
huge, like Luther [Tom Hopper], and
some of them are smaller like Pogo,
so we could put the cameras incred-
ibly low, looking up, and we would
see real ceilings because we didn't
have any lighting rigs. So we delib-
erately made my life harder in order
to create a believable world!
Images courtesy of Netflix
S&P: Tell us about your camera
crew and how you set up your
workflow on set.
Neville Kidd: We chose our camera
crew and we had a fantastic team. Director Peter Hoar on set with Ellen Page, Emmy Raver-Lampman, and David Castañeda
soundandpicture.com 19On Location
Number Five (Aidan Gallagher), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Diego (David Castaneda), Luther (Tom Hopper), and Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman)
Gautam Pinto was our DIT and he
set up a great workflow. The prob-
lem with the [ALEXA] 65 is the
amount of data is increased enor-
mously because of the large file siz-
es. Everything would be taken from
the camera mags and downloaded to
what we liked to call a “vault.” Then
these two-terabyte sleds would be
taken to Deluxe, who would offload
them at the end of the day. Once ev-
erything was offloaded and we got
the all clear, then the cards would be
used again and we would repeat that
process.
S&P: What types of support sys-
tems and rigs did your camera
operators use?
Ellen Page stars as Vanya Hargreeves Neville Kidd: We didn't tend to go
handheld because that wasn't really
the feel of the show. Wes Ander-
son meets Battle Royale was kind of
where I was coming from, so we did
a lot of it on dollies, Steadicam, and
Technocranes, and kept the camera
moving.
S&P: What was your approach to
lighting?
Neville Kidd: We used a mix of
lighting with a lot of hard light
coming through the windows to
make the house feel real. I wanted
the house to be like a character. Be-
fore the characters were reunited,
it hadn't been lived in for 10 or 15
Behind the scenes with actors Robert Sheehan and Aidan Gallagher years. Slowly, as time went by and
20 Sound & PictureAfter the Academy disbanded, Luther (Tom Hopper) spent years living on the moon
the characters spent more time to-
gether in the house, it got slightly
brighter and more lived-in, and start-
ed feeling like home again. I enjoyed
mixing up the juxtaposition of LED
light, tungsten light, and HMI light.
We were creating our own world so
we could apply our own rules.
S&P: Were any sequences or epi-
sodes particularly challenging to
capture?
Neville Kidd: Because we were al-
ways filming in a 360 environment,
it made our lives difficult in terms
of lighting. Terry Banting, our gaf-
fer, did a fantastic job of hiding a lot
of the lights and being able to move
them at short notice to make sure
we always had a very real, natural- Director Ellen Kuras discusses a scene with actor Aidan Gallagher
istic light coming through all the
windows. When we got to the motel
set, we had fewer points to sneak the
light in because motel rooms really
only have one wall of windows. That
was a real challenge to build, and
we ended up using a lot of practical
lights there. I had a very close re-
lationship with Jim Lambie, our set
decorator, to carefully choose the
right kinds of practicals and shades
that would behave as very compli-
mentary lights. Jim did a great job
Images courtesy of Netflix
with his light selections, and it made
my life easier to have the shades
that would produce good skin tones,
which were a lot of warm creamy
colors. I think that the end result
is a believable world from a comic Behind the scenes of the motel room set
soundandpicture.com 21On Location
book. You can actually get those low
and high angles where traditionally
you'd have a lighting rig.
When we went out on loca-
tion in Toronto and were out on the
streets, we had all kinds of restric-
tions. We had to be careful about
what world we could show and
had to avoid showing modern cars,
people with mobile phones, satel-
lite dishes, all that kind of stuff. If
anything was around the edges, we
would have to clean it up in VFX.
S&P: How did you collaborate
with the production sound team
on set?
Vanya (Ellen Page) has always felt distant from her siblings Neville Kidd: They were always
fighting me, but certainly in a good
sense! They would ask, “Can you
back off a little bit?” And when we
could, we would. If we were doing
a wide and tight shot, we could do
the wider shot on a lockoff and VFX
could just rub out the mic if one
of the booms was coming into the
shot. We would then run a straight-
forward plate with no mic, and they
would just slot that in. So it's a really
easy fix to be able to get a wide and
tight without compromising sound
and without costing money for an
additional VFX shot. You do try and
make their life as easy as possible
because it's definitely hard to get all
the sound they need, especially with
these seven characters all having ar-
Cha-Cha (Cameron Britton) visits Griddy’s Doughnuts guments at the same time. They did
a fantastic job.
S&P: What did you enjoy most
about working on this series?
Neville Kidd: I loved the world.
Griddy's Doughnuts was my favor-
ite. We built that in an empty shell
of a building in Toronto, so it was
the real outside world you were see-
ing. It was very funny because we'd
be filming late at night and there
would be drunk people coming by
Images courtesy of Netflix
and trying to buy donuts, not realiz-
ing it was a film set. I was so pleased
with the look we had for that, and
I loved the ceiling with the circular
lights that fused and start flashing
during the shootout. That’s one of
Behind the scenes of the Griddy’s Doughnuts set my favorite scenes. S&P
22 Sound & PictureWHERE IS TAKING
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soundandpicture.com 23Us
The production & post sound powering Jordan Peele’s
creepy new doppelgänger tale.
by Jennifer Walden
T he night air is filled with flashing lights and
laughter. Clattering bells and catchy melo-
dies emanate from game booths that dot the
and MPSE Award–winning supervising sound
editor/sound designer Trevor Gates at Formosa
Group.
Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Vendors beckon passers- Gates teamed up with Emmy–winning su-
by to come and test their skill. There’s scream- pervising dialogue editor Jason Dotts, who adds,
ing in the distance, accompanied by the rumble “Jordan wanted to create a sense of eeriness but
and whoosh of carnival rides. The atmosphere without having eerie sound design or ominous
should be festive, yet there’s something not quite tones.”
right in the opening sequence of director Jordan Finding that sweet spot required a bit of
Peele’s film Us. exploration. Gates mixed recordings of actual
Creating unease in horror films is an art — rides, games, and crowds from the Santa Cruz
too subtle and the audience may miss the cues, Boardwalk — including the real whack-a-mole
too overt and it’s cheesy. “As filmmakers, we — with other carnival rides until the combina-
know it’s always best when you can make an au- tion of tonal characteristics created an emotional
dience feel a certain way without telling them to disharmony. There are also unnatural sounds
feel a certain way. It was important for us to give layered underneath, to further agitate the audi-
the audience a feeling that they could discover ences’ emotional response. Again, the goal was
for themselves through the process, to have them to be subtle. “There was a delicate balance of all
feel dread without tipping the hat,” says Emmy of those sounds to give the audience ultimately
24 Sound & Picturewhat we gave them in the end,” says
Gates. “The boardwalk scene was the
most conceptual by far. You could do
it a million different ways.”
The boardwalk wasn’t only chal-
lenging from a sound editing stand-
point; it was a challenge in terms of
mixing, too. “It required a lot of very
sharp, articulate work,” adds Gates,
who worked with re-recording mix-
ers Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemp-
hill. The sequence needed to feel
cacophonous and chaotic — like a
barrage to the senses — but the dia-
logue from the principal characters
had to cut through. The mixers had
to very precisely weave together the
dialogue and effects, so that neither
stepped on the other but both felt
powerful. Sup. dialogue editor Jason Dotts, sup. sound editor/designer Trevor Gates, re-recording mixer Ron
When Young Adelaide (Madi- Bartlett, sound effects editor Paul Knox, & re-recording mixer Doug Hemphill
son Curry) walks away from her
father and down toward the beach,
the boardwalk sounds diminish
slightly. They’re overtaken by the
sound of partying teenagers near a
bonfire closer to the water. There’s
the sound of waves and Young Ade-
laide’s feet in the sand. This is inter-
rupted by a thunderclap that sends
her into the Shaman’s Vision Quest
hall of mirrors. “We went through
that sequence with a fine-tooth
comb to make each specific moment
read. We went in with a sharp tool to
carve out all the little pieces that we
wanted to articulate to help Jordan
tell this story,” explains Gates.
The thunderclap is an impor-
tant sound, story-wise. Near the end
of the film, Red (Lupita Nyong’o) Young Adelaide Wilson (Madison Curry) in the hall of mirrors
says that thunderclap was how God
brought her and Adelaide together,
because it sent her into the Vision
Quest where the two girls met. It
was the catalyst for all that subse-
quently unfolds. Young Adelaide’s
push into Vision Quest is also sup-
ported by a strong gust of wind that
comes right before the storm hits.
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
“Doug [Hemphill] suggested that ad-
ditional wind sound. It helped to cre-
ate the believability of that moment
from a sound design perspective. It’s
a storytelling sound,” says Gates. “I
really appreciate Doug’s contribu-
tion to this process. His first film
credit was Apocalypse Now, so he’s
been doing this for a while. To work The Wilson family had hoped to enjoy a relaxing beach getaway
soundandpicture.com 25Music editor Brett Pierce, supervising dialogue editor Jason Dotts, re-recording mixer Ron Bartlett, director Jordan Peele, supervising sound editor/designer
Trevor Gates, re-recording mixer Doug Hemphill, sound effects editor Paul Knox & mix technician Tim Limer
beside a guy like that is incredible.
It was fun to give Jordan some of
my creativity but also leverage the
mentorship of Ron [Bartlett] and
Doug through this process. It was
magical.”
Another sonic tie-in is the
whack-a-mole sound. It’s part of the
escalator design near the end of the
film. “As Red is telling Adelaide the
story of how they came together,
there are intercut scenes of the top
and bottom of the escalator. As it’s
cutting back and forth, we’re weav-
ing the whack-a-mole sound with an
escalator sound that field recordist
Charlie Campagna recorded at the
Red Line 7th Street Metro station
[in downtown L.A.]. It’s very subtle,”
Jason Wilson's doppelgänger "Pluto" (Evan Alex) makes a fiery appearance says Gates.
“That whack-a-mole had an in-
teresting cadence to it. When we
were working with the ‘boat break-
ing down’ sound, Doug leans over to
me and suggested putting that in. It
really sold the thing!” he adds.
Dialogue
Shooting near water always pres-
ents challenges for sound, and not
just in terms of noise. The beach
scene where the Wilsons meet up
with their friends the Tylers was
shot close to the water, but the
beach Peele chose was fairly wide.
Production sound mixer Pud Cusack
Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) protects Jason (Evan Alex) and Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) notes that getting down to the wa-
26 Sound & PictureJason Wilson (Evan Alex) comes face to face with his doppelgänger
ter with her sound cart would have
been impossible had it not been for
the small pickup truck that she used
to hold all their gear. The truck’s cab
housed everything from her utility
cart, and the truck bed was where
she and her sound cart stayed. Cu-
sack says, “Every day that we were
out on the beach, we just stayed on
the truck. We’d move the truck so we
weren’t in the shot. It worked so well
that we’re using a similar setup for
the film I’m on now, Little Women,
which also has some beach scenes.”
Cusack’s sound cart includes a
Cooper CS-107 mixer, Zaxcom Deva
as the main recorder, and a Zaxcom
Nomad running as a backup. “The
Nomad can be switched to bag-
mode in a pinch, taken off the cart Video assistant Justin Geoffroy and production sound mixer Pud Cusack working on the truck
in case Jordan wanted to grab some-
thing,” she says. Cusack also had a
separate run-and-gun kit that used a
Nomad, which utility sound techni-
cian Nick Ronzio often used to cap-
ture as many production effects as
he could, like the impacts and hits
during the home invasions, the Fris-
bee on the beach, and the water, boat
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
motor, and even the echoes on the
lake, to name a few.
Other considerations for the
beach scenes were weather and
wardrobe. “Adelaide’s T-shirt was
white and very thin, so I chose the
Countryman B6 lav mic, which is re-
ally small. You can put it along the
lining of a T-shirt a little better than Pud Cusack's production sound mixing truck on the beach
soundandpicture.com 27Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong'o) meets her doppelgänger, "Red"
the Sanken COS 11, which has a
larger head and weighs down the T-
shirts. Also, they’re a little less wind
sensitive,” she says.
The beach was one of the few
locations where Cusack decided to
wire all eight principal actors, be-
cause “they were ad-libbing so much
and completely all over the board.”
She paired the lavs with Lectroson-
ics wireless packs — the SMVs and
SMQVs. “These worked great be-
cause they’re small. Sometimes it
was really nice to have the smaller
pack.” In addition to the lavs, boom
operator Alex Miles Burstein was
capturing lines with a Sennheiser
Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Gabe Wilson (Winston Duke) fight for their lives MKH 60 and MHK 50.
Another challenging scene for
production sound was the car ride
sing-along of Luniz’s “I Got 5 on It.”
Cusack set up Sanken CUB-01s and
Sennheiser MKH 8050s around the
interior and had the actors wired
with DPA 4071s. Then Ronzio put
earwigs on the actors so they could
all sing along to the song without
having to play it over the car’s ste-
reo system, which would have ru-
ined the dialogue recording. “They
were supposed to turn off the air
conditioner while we were rolling
but, for one shot, it ended up not
being turned off. Luckily Lupita
[Nyong’o] caught it, but it was hard
to communicate between the two
cars. Also, we were losing the light
Action shot of boom operator Alex Miles booming from a moving boat and that added to the challenge,”
28 Sound & PictureThe Wilson family's ominous doubles emerge from the shadows
says Cusack.
A great scene where production
and post dialogue came together
was the Tylers’ home invasion. The
red-jumpsuited doppelgängers stab
the real Tylers with scissors, and
Kitty (Elisabeth Moss) survives long
enough to tell the digital assistant
to call the police. But because she
was stabbed in the neck, her blood
gurgles in her throat as she tries to
talk. All her sounds there were from
Moss’s on-set performances. “She
had the fake blood in her mouth and
throat, and we had a Sanken COS
11 up close to her throat. Then, on
the close-ups, the boom mic was
right there as well. That track with Josh (Tim Heidecker) and Kitty Tyler (Elisabeth Moss) join the Wilson family on vacation
the gurgling was literally what you
heard from her throat. It was in-
tense,” says Cusack.
Dotts attests, “The most grue-
some parts are actually bits of her
performance layered in on top of
her sync performance. We were us-
ing her other takes and off-screen
performances to hit every time she
moves or emotes as she’s dragging
herself across the carpet.”
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
When Kitty yells, “Call the po-
lice!” the digital assistant mistakes
her command; it responds by play-
ing the N.W.A. song “Fuck tha Po-
lice.” The music for that scene was
a worldized recording of the song
that Bartlett captured at his house
through his sound system. Gates
says, “It sounded incredible and Director Jordan Peele sets up a shot on location
soundandpicture.com 29it had natural reverb on it. It just
shows a love for the craft.”
Dotts adds, “The great thing
about working for Jordan is that he
inspires people. He makes us feel
like we’re playing in a sandbox es-
sentially, so much so that the dia-
logue and music re-recording mixer
decided to worldized the music at
his house, just all on his own for
fun.”
According to Gates, Dotts, and
Cusack, Peele is a director who val-
ues the input of the team he assem-
bles. “Jordan is really into genuine
moments, and letting the cast and
crew have a creative impact on the
film,” Dotts shares. For instance,
during the Wilsons’ home invasion,
Video assistant Justin Geoffroy, production sound mixer Pud Cusack & sound utility Nick Ronzio
while Red gives her talk, Gabe (Win-
ston Duke) says, “Excuse me. Excuse
me.” And Abraham (his doppelgän-
ger) yells really loud in response.
“The funny thing is that no one on
set knew that was going to happen
because Jordan gives his performers
the freedom to try a lot of things. So,
because of that, it must be hard to
keep control of the volume; we had
to deal with the occasional distorted
line or the occasional off-mic line,”
says Dotts.
Cusack notes the range in per-
formances for other scenes too, like
Gabe and Abraham battling it out in-
side the boat’s cabin, and the intense
moments inside the car. “When you
have someone screaming and then
go back down to a normal dialogue
level, that’s where the multiple mics
The 'Us' post sound team mixing in the film's iconic red jumpsuits
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) encounters her son's double, "Pluto" (Evan Alex)
30 Sound & Picturecame in handy. One mic might get more commanding. “Even the crick-
blown but we’d have another one ets get quiet. Everyone is holding
padded-out by 20 dB, and those their breath a little bit. The scene is
would catch the screams better,” she built around this lingering tension
adds. and this lingering silence, that’s a
Performance dynamics went difficult technical thing to achieve,
the opposite way too, into the quiet, especially when you are shooting on "It was
whispery realm — particularly for location,” says Dotts.
Red. Her whispery, throaty perfor- Dotts handed that scene off to important for
mance had a lot of character and nu- re-recording mixer Bartlett, who
ance that Cusack wanted to capture. removed more ambient noises. He us to give the
Her top priority is to “capture the in turn passed it back to Dotts, who
characters’ performances of the dia- refined it even further. Dotts then audience a
logue the best way possible.” passed it back to Bartlett. “The great
In fact, Nyong’o’s performance thing about doing three or four feeling that
and Cusack’s capture of it were so temps is that you get to put your
successful that Dotts did very little spin on it, then it hits the room and they could
processing to enhance it in post. The you see that a scene you thought
result was a natural delivery that was a problem no longer is because discover for
was right in line with Peele’s aes- now there’s music hiding the ambi-
thetic direction of realism, believ- ent sound on the dialogue. It’s great themselves..."
ability, and maintaining the human- to go back and forth with Ron; he
ity of the doppelgängers. mixes it and elevates it. And Doug
Red’s monologue at the lake [Hemphill] elevates it. They up the
house took the most time to perfect, grade and offer suggestions. Then
in terms of post dialogue editing and we get it back and we elevate it. So
mixing. When Red enters the room, in that way the soundtrack was an
Dotts stripped out as much produc- evolution,” concludes Dotts. S&P
tion as possible, so her presence felt
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Gwilym Lee stars as Queen guitarist Brian May
soundandpicture.com 31Dark Phoenix
Picture editor Lee Smith assembles an epic conclusion
to the current X-Men cinematic arc.
by Trevor Hogg
D ark Phoenix marks the return of Oscar–win-
ning editor Lee Smith (Dunkirk), who previ-
ously worked on X-Men: First Class (2011), which
ing so many films, Simon decided he would like
to direct. Simon told me how he wanted to handle
the story and I said, ‘That sounds cool. Let’s do it.’
introduced younger versions of Charles Xavier It was a good experience.”
(James McAvoy), Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Mi- “It was fun to see James McAvoy, Michael
chael Fassbender), and Raven Darkholme/Mys- Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Nicolas Hoult
tique (Jennifer Lawrence). Initially, the plan was again, and now Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan
for longtime X-Men writer-producer Simon Kin- who have entered the X-Men universe since I’ve
berg (The Martian) to direct two films to explore been gone,” notes Smith. “It seems like only yes-
the classic comic book storyline, previously ad- terday that I was doing First Class and yet it was
dressed in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), that sees many years ago. You look at them and go, ‘Wow!
the telepathic Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) get pos- You’re all a little bit older, just like me!” Principal
sessed by the power-enhancing Phoenix Force photography and editing took place in Montreal
and succumb to her darkest impulses. with the latter shifting to Fox Studios in Los An-
“At the time, it wasn’t the last one in this geles to complete the final cut.
[reboot of the] franchise because the Disney-Fox “My job was to put it together, make it feel
merger wasn’t on the horizon,” states Smith. “Si- like a movie as quickly as possible, and ascer-
mon has kept in contact since First Class, and got tain what we needed to do to tune it from that
me to work on Elysium [2013] and a few other point. I would keep Simon up to date with cuts
films that he has been involved in. After produc- on this PIX System that we use.” Kinberg was not
32 Sound & Picturein the habit of giving notes. “We all
read the same script, I’d interpret
the footage, would give that back to
him, and he’d watch it. I’d say that
95 percent of the time I’d hit it ex-
actly how Simon wanted it or how
he would imagine it would come
together. Then the other five per-
cent would be a little bit of tuning,
something he wanted incorporated
that perhaps wasn’t super obvious,
and go from there. I could also order
shots from the second unit.”
Having worked with Christo-
pher Nolan (Interstellar) ever since
Batman Begins, Smith had grown
used to editing with minimal green-
screen and bluescreen; however, 'Dark Phoenix' picture editor Lee Smith
that was not the case with the visual
effects process supervised by Phil
Brennan (Snow White and the Hunts-
man) for Dark Phoenix. “I get frus-
trated by delays,” reveals Smith. “I
like to get everything going fast so
I can see it come together and was
worried about that. I had a postvis
team working with me that hur-
riedly composited shots to make
sure they were going to line up and
do what we wanted them to do. Phil
was great at being helpful with that
and we go way back to when he was
a compositor doing the storm se-
quence in Master and Commander:
The Far Side of the World [2003].” Sophie Turner stars as Jean Grey
An unexpected complication
came with the creative decision to
shift the third act from outer space
to a prison train, resulting in an
extensive reshoot that caused the
theatrical release date to be pushed
back three months. “It was some-
thing that came up once we put
the film together that necessitated
rejigging the end for many and var-
ied reasons, [in part] because it was
no longer part of the first half of a
double-picture story. Secondly, just
to give a bigger and more impact-
ful ending. The studio got behind
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
it, which was a full credit to them.
Also, by then we knew this was the
conclusion of the Fox X-Men series
per se, so it enabled us to round out
the story.”
Driving the narrative is the
character arc of Jean Grey. “We had
to have enough of everybody else
in the movie with her to keep it as Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Vuk (Jessica Chastain)
soundandpicture.com 33Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Ariki (Andrew Stehlin), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Selene (Kota Eberhardt), Magneto (Michael Fassbender)
an X-Men movie, rather than hav-
ing her disappear to an island and
staying with her for the entire time;
that wouldn’t have worked well,”
notes Smith. “It was tricky. We did
a lot of manipulation and rejigging.
Sometimes we were too long away
from Jean or spent too much time
with her; it was the classic editorial
process of figuring out how to make
those scenes just long enough to be
balanced correctly.”
Key emotional moments are
Jean as a child accidentally causing
the car crash that killed her parents
and later as an adult, murdering
Mystique in a fit of uncontrollable
rage. “Both of those scenes took a
Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as Mystique long time to get exactly right for the
movie,” remarks Smith. “Hidden in
there are about a million different
versions. I wanted to wring the emo-
tion out of the death of Mystique as
best as I could. It was a combination
of a lot of different takes, a lot of
performance choices and composer
Hans Zimmer’s music.”
A cool scene is when Magneto
nearly gets killed by Jean Grey, caus-
ing a military helicopter to crash.
“That was genius and came together
so quickly too because it was prac-
tically shot,” explains Smith. “One
of the postvis guys had a piece of
something in his computer and I
said, ‘Just blow it through the frame
and smash the window.’ We did it
quickly. It was a combination of
Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) on the X-Jet great camera timing and of course,
34 Sound & PictureCyclops (Tye Sheridan), Professor X (James McAvoy), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) & Storm (Alexandra Shipp) in the shadows
Michael Fassbender, who nailed it
on take one. Very good reactions on
that man. His facial reaction is price-
less. In the end it’s a giant rotating
propeller shaft [created in CG]. You
don’t 100 percent know if shots like
that work but I knew he worked.”
An evolving sequence is when
the Phoenix Force possesses Jean
Grey. “The look of the Phoenix
Force and Jean Grey went through
so many variants,” reveals Smith.
“To the visual effects department’s
credit, the detail that they put into
the final arrival was absolutely stun-
ning. The same with the prison train
sequence. Even though you’re work-
ing on the odd fantastical thing that Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) faces Jean Grey (Sophie Turner)
happens, I still want it to look like
it’s happening in the world that we
inhabit, and that puts a heavy bur-
den on the visual effects depart-
ment.”
Dialogue scenes were more
straightforward to cut. “They’re a lot
of fun to work on because straight
out of the box you have a completed
scene and it’s up to me as to how
to put it together and how to tweak
the performances,” remarks Smith.
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
“Most of those scenes with Sophie
Turner and Jessica Chastain did
have dialogue removed from them
because they were quite expansive.
Having said that, Chastain is such
an experienced actress and Sophie
is becoming one of those great ac-
tresses too, so you love spending
time with them.” The X-Men gather for a funeral
soundandpicture.com 35You can also read
