All language subtitles for Making.Waves.The.Art.Of.Cinematic.Sound.2019.720p.BluRay.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

Before we were born,
you're looking at darkness.

Sound is the first sense
that gets plugged in.

Six months,
seven months into the womb,

it's hearing
the mother's heartbeat,

it's hearing her breathing,

it's hearing
dad shouting from the garage.

It's making sense of the world.

You have emerged
into a kind of consciousness

using only sound.

And then you're born.

Sound affects us in a deeper way

almost than... than image does.

It goes deeper.

And yet we're naturally
seemingly oblivious to that.

Film sound
is an illusionary art,

as if you're just hearing
the natural sounds...

Happening in the world
on screen.

It's subliminal,
and it's a purely emotional way

of thinking about a movie.

It's stealthy sound work.

It's flying under the radar.

It's understated.

But what sound adds to picture

is so exhilarating
that I just was hooked

and pretty much never
looked back.

When you're depressed,
it's not working,

and then the sound design
comes in.

A feeling of scale
that the sound was giving.

And I think the sound
in many ways

is more tied to imagination.

If you're born to be artistic,

then sound is gonna
be part of the deal.

It's part of being human.

You know, movie is silent sound.

They are only expressive
with silent sound.

People always talk
about the look of a film.

They don't talk so much
about sounds of a film,

but it's equally important,
sometimes more important.

I'm not an animal!

The point is to convey
an emotion.

Everything
is in service of that.

And the sound
is half of the experience.

I've always been of the belief

that our ears lead our eyes
to where the story lives.

When you're
designing sound on a film today,

like saving private Ryan,
you're bringing together

a rich, complex,
orchestration of sounds.

And every film I've worked on
with Steven Spielberg,

he gives a gift
of here's a scene,

here's a moment,
and I'm counting on sound

to help tell the story.

There you go.

What strikes me most
bout especially the opening

of private Ryan

is that it was designed
to use sound

to tell a part of the story
that it's not showing you.

So a scene like that

fully takes advantage
of how a soldier takes in a war,

which is a pretty narrow
point of view.

Sound got
to handle the scale of it.

And we spent a lot of time
on that first 25 minutes.

It was weeks and weeks and weeks

of just balancing
all the sound effects

that Gary and his crew provided.

I kinda came up with, like,
a certain pattern or rhythm

of cutting these machine guns

for the background battle...

So that there was
some form to this battle.

There's a rhythm.
There's always a rhythm.

Even to chaos, there's a rhythm.

The point of view
is great for sound

'cause it allows you
to go inside the head.

So I designed a sequence

where when the explosion
hits near captain Miller,

all the sound goes out.

And that came
from an actual veteran

that told me
that was how it affected him.

So it put you
deep inside his experience.

If you look at it, it never has,

until the battle is over,
a wide shot.

It gives you a grand-scale
longest day-style of d-day.

It doesn't do it,
it's all very intimate.

And very importantly,

there's no score.

John Williams would've done
a beautiful score,

would've had
a whole different feeling.

But without score,
it tells you this is real.

And the score comes
in, the score is often used...

I think of it
as like a life raft.

You have an emotional moment
in the movie,

and the score comes in,
it just gives you

something to hold onto.

[Emotional orchestral music
plays}

These different
elements of sounds

we use in movies,

music, sound effects
and voice are similar

to the instrument groupings
of an orchestra.

But film sound work
wasn't always like that.

You know, with dozens
of sound editors

editing thousands of tracks.

And it ultimately took people

like Ben burtt on star wars

and Walter murch
on apocalypse now

to get us
to the full immersive soundtrack

that the audience has come
to expect in movies today,

created by a team
of sound artists,

a circle of talent.

But when it all started,
movies were silent.

"Mary had a little lamb,

its fleece was white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,
the lamb was sure to go."

The invention of the phonograph

was a truly monumental step
for humanity.

We could now capture
sound forever.

Edison originally developed

the motion picture camera

because he wanted images
to go along with his phonograph.

So the audio came first.

But picture works at one speed,

and sound is on another.

And they had no way
to put it in sync,

which is why the whole project
was abandoned.

But they were just so eager
to put sound to movies

'cause everybody knew this
would elevate the experience.

Films were projected
with a full live orchestra.

They could be projected

with people
talking behind the screen.

And there were actually
people that traveled around

doing sound effects live
to silent films.

There's films like wings

when they were played
in New York in its big premiere

so they had performers on stage
doing the live sound effects

for airplane engines and using
percussion instruments

for the boom of artillery
and explosions.

They could do some wind,

they could do
some galloping horses.

There just wasn't
technically a way

of capturing
and recording the sounds

and attaching them
to the movies yet.

Until 1926 Warner brothers did
Don Juan with John Barrymore,

and it actually had
a synchronized music track

which was mechanically
connected to a projector.

But then in 1927,

they actually
recorded dialogue on the set,

and so the jazz singer
had spoken portions of it.

J“ toot, toot,
tootsie, goodbye j“

j“ toot, toot,
tootsie, don't cry I

Warner brothers
theater in New York City,

where the jazz singer
is now playing,

is sold out
for many weeks in advance.

What struck people most
was ai jolson's speaking voice,

not even his singing voice,
but that he spoke

was revolutionary
to audiences at the time.

And that's
what they wanted to hear.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You ain't heard nothing yet.

Wait a minute, I tell you.

You ain't heard nothing.

And of course,
it was a gigantic sensation.

So Hollywood was faced
with what to do now.

They had developed a way
of shooting movies without sound

and that involved
certain freedom on a set

to be in a noisy place,
'cause it didn't matter.

Suddenly there was
this revolution

when they had to start entombing
the productions in sound stages

so all sound was blocked out
from the outside world.

All right, here we go. Quiet!

- Quiet!
- Quiet!

Roll em!

But the microphones'
ranges were so short,

the actors couldn't even move.

She's gotta talk into the mic.

I can't pick it up.

Don't you remember I told you

there's a microphone
right there in the bush.

It was very limiting.

In the...

Surely...

0h.

But even despite
the limitations,

audiences loved sound,

and I think it's
because even in the sound

of a human voice,
we carry emotion.

Antonio.

He's alive!

But the addition of the voice

was not the only thing
that changed

in movies at that time.

Filmmakers began to realize
that sound effects

were also an important part
of cinema.

And they discovered
that you don't get

all the sound effects you want

by just hanging a microphone out
over the set.

The sounds aren't there.

So this is where slowly the idea

of the sound editor evolved

to add sounds after the fact.

There's fire,
there's explosions,

there's barnyard animals.

Cars and...

Motorcycles.

Different from buses,

different from trains.

With a little bit of wind

in the background,
and there's rain.

As sound editors,
we create a sound world

independent of what got recorded
at the time of shooting.

But it isn't probably

until you get to king Kong

that you could actually call it
sound design.

Many of the techniques we use

to manipulate sound today

were pioneered on that film.

The bulk of it is all about
characters that don't exist.

So Murray spivack
had to get creative

to find the right sound.

I went to the selig zoo
at the time.

I got all the roars I needed.

I then slowed those down
to half speed

and I played
the tiger growl backwards

against a lion roar forward,

and it gave me
sort of an uncanny roar.

These sound design
tricks are still in use today,

and that was a big step forward.

But Murray spivack
operated outside the system.

He was locked away
in the music department

and no one knew
what he was doing.

I think they felt
that the studio would say,

"don't bother with all that,"

if they knew the kind of effort

he was putting into it.

Because the studios
had their own collections

and their own stock
of sound effects,

and they would repeat them.

They wouldn't change them
over the years.

Each studio had
its own ricochet...

And face punch and explosion.

If they worked out successfully,

they'd be kept and used
over and over again.

They were just expected
to get something in there

and it'd be on budget.

But some of the biggest
innovations in film sound

actually had their roots
in radio.

Who knows what evil

lurks in the hearts of men?

The shadow or the whistler,

any of those shows
were fun to listen to.

And sound brought it to life.

Doors opening and closing

and footsteps.

Honey,
we are going to the kitchen.

Oh, it's not Milo
playing chess again.

What is it this time?

I can remember
lying on the floor

in front of the radio console.

I thought, "when I grow up,

I'm gonna make
footsteps like that."

Your imagination could dramatize
what you were hearing.

I just thought
it was really great.

You know, it was great
for your imagination,

great for your creative spirit,
simple.

And the innovator here
was Orson welles.

He was very adventuresome
in sound perspective.

Now the smoke
is crossing sixth Avenue.

Fifth Avenue.

A hundred yards away.

And so when he did citizen Kane,

he brought those techniques
in sound from radio to film.

By being as aggressive
spatially with sound

as he was with his depth
of focus on camera.

Charlie, what time is it?

New York?

Hm?

This idea that every space

has its own signature,

the sound energizes
the environment.

Now in complete control
of the government of the state.

And you can use even
very refined elements

of reverberation
to help you tell your story.

But this was a new innovation

for sound in film.

The norm
from the 1930s to the 1960s

was to emphasize music
over sound effects.

Why don't you say it,
you coward?

You're afraid to marry.

You'd rather live
with that silly little fool

who can't open her mouth
except to say, "yes," "no,"

and raise a passel
of mealy-mouthed brats

just like her!

You mustn't say things like that
about Melanie.

Who are you
to tell me I mustn't?

But if you run music
all the time in the film,

it has a cumulatively
counterproductive effect,

constantly injecting steroids.

But if you want
unrelieved tension,

don't use any music at all.

Hitchcock got
the power of sound.

He actually essentially
dictated a sound script

and he really incorporated
the uses of the sound

into the concept of the film.

Damn it.

Hearing their breaths

and feeling
the impacts and hits...

They kept you very connected
right with the characters.

And I think
that that was a scene

where it worked really well,

just having effects
on their own.

David lean focused on sound.

Stanley kubrick
focused on sound.

But the studios
weren't encouraging

of that kind of thing.

The Hollywood studio system

often had a built-in approach
to film sound

that was controlled
and traditional.

That's a parallel
to filmmakers maybe making

the same kind of movies
over and over again.

J“ pillow talk j“

j“ girls, girls j'

j“ girls, girls j'

j” beach blanket bingo j“

j“ that's the name
of the game j'

it was looked upon
as like a factory.

And that tends to restrict

the adventuresomeness,

especially
in a studio environment.

So the Hollywood films
that I had seen

as a kid growing up

didn't make me
want to become a filmmaker.

My way of thinking,
they were corporate creations.

But when I was ten, I learned
that there was such a thing

as a tape recorder.

And I understood intuitively
what it did and how it did it.

Enemy
tripod machines now in sight.

I would record from the radio

onto the tape recorder.

The war
of the worlds by hg Wells.

And then cut
the tape into pieces

and then rearrange the pieces
and scotch tape them

in a different order
than they were recorded

and flip them upside down
and play them backwards

and hear what that sounded like.

Now that's...

Now that's...
Now that's... now that's...

And then I came back
from school one day

and turned on the radio

and I was disoriented
for a moment

because I heard something
coming out of the radio

that sounded like what I had
recorded the day before.

And it was
a record made in France

of musique concrete

by Pierre Henry
and Pierre schaeffer.

That was a revelation to me

that there were people
in the world, French people,

doing what I was doing

and they were
making records of it.

And so I suddenly saw
what I was doing

had a broader application.

I loved ingmar bergman films
at age 15

and I loved kurosawa

because the imprint
of the personality

of these filmmakers
was very strong.

In 1963, I went
to a university in Paris

studying for a year

right at the height
of the new wave.

I saw Jean-Luc godard's
film breathless

and I could tell
that rules were being broken.

J“ pa-pa-pa-pa-pa, Patricia j“

j“ Patricia j“

And that got me excited.

I got injected with the film bug

and went to usc.

I met Walter murch
in film school.

He was a graduate student,
I was an undergrad.

It was very easy
to make friends,

and that was part of the fun
of being there.

And it was only
when I got to film school

that I realized that you have
to do to sound in film

very kinds of things
that I was doing

with these random sounds

that I recorded
back in the early '505.

Walter was coming up
with sound ideas

and running tracks backwards.

Basically,
that's all he was doing,

was creating sound tracks.

But it was an unusual time

to go to film school

because television
was killing film.

President Kennedy
has been shot in Dallas, Texas.

The '60s were a time
when we were focused

on what we saw
on television and the news.

I think it was

the most powerful
civil rights protest.

Full of unrest and politics.

Hollywood's film
felt a little out of sync.

I want to hear nothing more
about this troublemaker.

It was actually rock and roll

when musicians like the Beatles

that were capturing
culture's imagination...

More than film.

And that year was
the absolute bottom

of number of films
produced in Hollywood.

The model on which
they had built their studios

was not working anymore.

There was not enough jobs.

That was extended to us
young film students

was a fellowship
by Warner brothers,

which George won.

And George met
the only other person on the lot

who had a beard,
who was Francis coppola,

who was directing
finian's rainbow.

We had both been
film students, long hair.

Everybody else on that crew
was over 50.

So at the end
of finian's rainbow,

Francis wanted to make a movie
on his own called rain people.

And he said,
"do you know anybody

who knows anything about sound?"

And I said,
"oh, I got the perfect guy,

Rain people is a road movie,

much like easy rider.

Our two guys in easy rider
were travelling west to east,

the rain people
was traveling the other way.

So we built this truck

and just went across the country
making a movie.

And it was the nagra,

which a smaller,
lighter sound equipment

that actually started
the ability

to shoot movies on the street.

If we can make a film
out of a shoe store in Nebraska,

why do we have to be
in Hollywood?

So we moved to San Francisco.

Francis, George and me
were all in our late twenties

and we formed American zoetrope.

One of the dreams
or goals of zoetrope

was to break down the barriers

between picture editing
and sound editing

and sound mixing.

Then I could let
my musique concrete demon

out of the bottle completely,

which was a whole new direction.

So immediately after finishing
the mix on rain people,

George and I got together

to write the screenplay
for thx 1138

and we got financing
from Warner's.

I would cut picture
during the day,

and then Walter
would come in at night

and cut the sound.

I took it upon myself
to record every sound effect

for the film myself.

Thx had a very eerie,
strange soundtrack.

And based
on the dismal performance

of the film commercially,

Warner brothers cancelled
the development advance

that they had made to zoetrope.

They claimed that this was
a personal loan to Francis

and he owed them
all this money back.

The equivalent today
would be three million.

Bankrupted our company,

made it so I couldn't work
in business for a while.

It was the end of the road

as far as zoetrope was
concerned.

And in that state,

Francis was offered to direct
this sleazy gangster film

that 12 other directors
had turned down,

which was the godfather.

But he wanted to invest the film

with the sensibility
of the European film and art

that had influenced all of us.

And he pulled all of us into it.

When I was the kid growing up,

one of the composers
who was doing

the most advanced thinking
at the time was John cage.

He was proselytizing
that everything is music.

Even the sound that the audience
makes in the theater is music.

And even the sound

of the lid of the piano
going down is kind of music.

He made us pay attention.

So in the godfather,

the moment leading up
to sollozzo death,

it is accompanied by this
screechy John-cagey sound.

What you're actually
listening to

are Michael's neurons

clashing against each other

as he's making the decision
to actually kill these people.

And the murder of a dream he had

of having nothing to do
with the family.

It's not technically music,

but it conjures up emotion
and meaning.

Obviously it became a big hit,

and that bailed zoetrope out.

We were able
to keep going after that.

This one time I'll let you
ask me about my affairs.

But the soundtrack
of the godfather,

as it was released
in the theaters in 1972,

was virtually identical
to the soundtrack

of gone with the wind
released in 1939.

You will promise, won't you?

It's mono film
with just a single speaker

behind the screen.

Is that... is that all, Ashley?

So sound in film
didn't really change.

But contrast that
with the music industry,

which was adopting
all of this new technology.

Things like the lp,

which by the late 1950s,
had stereo sound.

Stereo spread the music
across two different speakers...

Surrounding you

and immersing you in the music.

And the Beatles in particular

were really testing
the boundaries of the medium.

I remember
when I played revolver,

it was a visceral feel,

you could feel
the sound in your body.

Turn off your mind, relax j“

j' and float downstream j'

In the song "revolution 9"...

J' number nine, number nine j'

George Martin
brought this ability

to mix and create sound design

that would then be melded
with rock and roll.

"Revolution 9"
was fascinating to me

because it was just
like musique concrete.

As we come out of the... the
hippies '60s era of rock music,

we brought that sensibility
to cinema and thought,

"why can't movies be in stereo?“

And it was
in that overheated environment

that dolby came along
from the music industry

in the mid '70s
and took the lid off.

Providing stereo sound

in more and more theaters.

But I remember
a nameless film executive

at one of the distributors
in Hollywood

who actually hit his desk
and said,

"god damn it," he said,

"it's good stories
and comfortable seats,

that's what sells movies,
not sound."

But then in 1976
with a star is born,

Barbra Streisand
had the imagination to say,

"I want to do this stereo sound
with my film,"

and just to tell the studio,
"we're gonna do it."

With one more look at you j'

that all-enveloping sound,

and especially coming
from the audiences

to involve you
as an audience member

into the concert.

J“ leave a troubled past
and I might start anew j'

on a star is born,
Barbra Streisand insisted on,

and in fact got
an extraordinary amount of time

to do the sound edit
and sound mix.

In fact, it was something

on the order of magnitude
of four months,

at a time when it was
more traditional

to have seven weeks.

The deal with first artist was
that the artist was responsible

for anything
over six million dollars.

I spent the six million dollars
on the movie.

But then when I got into sound,
I spent another million dollars.

J“ are you a figment
of my imagination? J“

j' or I of yours j'

when Warner brothers
saw the film,

they liked it so much

that they didn't make me pay
the million dollars.

I thought it was wonderful.

I was willing to spend it.

There was a degree of reality
that you can get from stereo

that's never possible
with a mono sound track.

And bless Barbra Streisand
for recognizing the value.

But it wasn't just the way

films were played in theaters

that was changing
during this time,

it was the way
they were recorded too.

I was a teenager in the '70s
and I saw the film Nashville.

And I think that was probably

the film that turned my ears

on to what was possible
in a movie with sound.

When they come into the airport,
I mean, that's a...

Incredibly beautiful
piece of sound.

Who do you think
you are? Marlon Brando?

Barbara Jean,
ladies and gentlemen!

There's airplanes
that come in and out

and obliterate
what people are saying,

there's a reporter
on a microphone,

there's a marching band.

And thank you,
Franklin high school band.

I think you kids
get better every year.

All right, twirlers,
let's twirl!

You're woven
through that entire tapestry,

and the sound
is what's pulling it,

the sound is what's telling you

where you're gonna go next.

Jim webb obviously had worked

with Robert Altman
on many of his films.

He's the master of multi-track,

just ahead of their time
and pushing the limits.

Before that,
they recorded one track,

but now we don't shoot
two tracks or three tracks.

We've got eight,
ten, sixteen tracks.

Other members
of the chamber of commerce,

Barbara Jean reportedly...

You know, everybody had a mic.

No matter how many people
were in the scene,

they all had microphones

and they were all
on mic all the time.

All the other
friends, members and...

She's fallen.
Harold, come on! She's fallen!

It was amazing how the story
was driven by the sound

in a way that I don't think
had happened before then

in American films.

My generation, you know,

Francis and George,
Marty and Brian

and... and my whole group
that I sort of grew up with,

very sound conscious generation.

So between
the technological and creative

advances of the early 19705,
sound was taking root

in a new American renaissance
of movies

in a way that had never
been heard before.

Oh, I... I understand.

But heading into the late '705,

even bigger breakthroughs
were on the way.

Most directors
spent a lot of time

with their cameramen
and the actors.

I just take
the same amount of time

and spend it also
with the sound designer.

But when I started my next film,

Francis was doing
the conversation,

and Walter was busy on that.

So I called Ken miura
at the usc and said,

"do you have anybody else
like Walter?"

He said,
"yeah, I got somebody here.

My mother tells me
that, as a toddler,

I loved to act out to music,
that if she put a record on,

that I would not only dance
around the room,

but I would assume characters,
I'd be a cowboy

or I'd be some kind
of pirate or something.

But when I was
about six years old,

I had a serious illness
and I was in bed

for a few weeks and very weak.

But my father had access
to a tape recorder

and he brought that home.

I began recording
television shows

by putting a microphone
up to the TV

and recording
the Saturday morning cartoons.

There were
two television stations,

and one of them had
the Warner brothers package

of syndicated film.

I loved recording errol Flynn
movies in particular.

They ran
the cagney gangster movies

and bogart films.

So I got very familiar
with the sounds

of Warner brothers
classic library.

The other channel,
pretty much mgm.

Somewhere over the rainbow j“

j' singin' in the rain j'

j“ just singin' in the rain j'

As the other children
were developing

the love for certain music,

I was listening
to these explosions.

So I began collecting
things I liked.

I'd seek after a movie
just to record the battle scene

and just listen to them.

I think the thousands of hours
I spent doing that as a kid,

unknown to me, that was
building up an inventory

of how sound in movies
was part of the experience.

I started making
my own little movies.

And of course in those days
you couldn't record live sound

while you're shooting
super hit films,

but I could generate
a sound track after the fact

by taking sound effects
I'd extracted from movies

and television shows
and putting them in my movies.

I first met Ben burtt
at usc film school.

We kind of were kindred spirits.

Whereas a lot of the students

were into all the antonioni
and the arty films,

we kind of like the traditional
Hollywood fun films and serials.

Rod flash!

So we wrote this movie

called
rod flash conquers infinity.

Ben and I dressed up

in these knockoff
flash Gordon things

that we got at an army
surplus store in Hollywood.

We were making the voyage

to the planet extraneous.

We discovered a dinosaur,

and of course we have
a pretty girl in, like, a cape.

And Ben
did the sound on that one.

So I was just finishing
at usc cinema,

and Gary Kurtz, who had
represented George Lucas,

came down to school

looking for a student
interested in sound

who they could mold
into their own ways.

I went out to the studio
and met with the two of them.

They outlined the film
they were gonna make.

They had artwork on the walls
done by Ralph mcquarrie,

concept art for the film.

I was astounded by what I saw.

This was a film
I always wanted to work on.

This had spaceships and monsters

and weapons like iightsabers.

It was called star wars.

So I leaped at the chance,
and the initial discussion was,

“would you like to help
collect sounds for a wookiee?"

This was still about a year
away from principal photography.

I put Ben on in the beginning
because I...

I knew I had to figure out a way
of making these characters real,

and I knew it depended on how
we developed these languages.

And that's what Ben spent
the better part of a year doing.

We were trying
to find an animal that had

enough vocal expressiveness
in its sounds

that we could use it
for the wookiee.

So there was
a young bear named pooh,

and we spent an afternoon
with this bear in a pen

coaxing it
to say different sounds.

The way they got it to make
sound was to show it bread.

The bear would...

And then you give him the bread,
and then he'd be like...

George wanted to know

before they filmed the movie

how would the wookiee sound.

Well, you said it, Chewie.

This is not the way

that most filmmakers
worked at that time.

I knew the sound
was part of the foundation

of what the movie
was gonna to be.

So everything had to have been
figured out way ahead of time.

So I proceeded on to work my way

through the screenplay
of star wars.

I read through it
and made some notes,

broke it down and I realized

there were hundreds of things
in the script,

from Darth Vader's breathing,

you had the death star,
you had tie fighters

and a whole library
of things in there.

I said,
"well, do you want sounds

for the rest of these things
as well?"

The answer was,
"yeah, sure, just... just...

Just spend some time."

And so I operated
out of my apartment

for many months coming up

with expeditions
to go out and gather sound.

While George,
he was off in england

busy shooting the movie,
I was still based in la.

He wanted me to go out
and record real motors

and real airplanes
and real rusty doors,

this hum of a projector,

a buzzing sound
behind a television set.

I tried to go into factories
and a scuba shop.

I just started recording
everything I'd get my hands on

and to populate the universe
of star wars

with the sounds of things
that we would hear as real.

We didn't wanna follow
the conventions

of science fiction
that were current at the time,

which was things
like forbidden planet

or war of the worlds using
electronic music technology.

We didn't use synthesizers
or anything like that.

We used real sound effects.

So a year or so
went by me collecting,

and when they returned
from filming,

I kind of got a note saying,
"we'll take the tapes

and deliver them
to northern California."

They were doing the picture
editing in George's house.

So I started to cut
my sound effects

into the editor's cuts
of the movie.

But r2-d2 took a long time.

There were many versions of that

over months that were failures.

You have to actually
make him talk

and make you understand
what he's saying.

And r2 had no mouth at all.

What mission?
What are you talking about?

We were very worried that it
would be incomprehensible.

What eventually happened was,

as George and I were talking
to each other, we would say,

“well, r2 comes up
to this point in a movie

and he kind of goes..."

And suddenly
we realized we were talking

with expressive sounds.

They had
the intonation of meaning.

We were verbalizing
a sound that worked for us.

And that led down
the road of doing just that.

I could do a vocalization

and play something
on the keyboard.

And you could sort of work
two things together.

What mission?
What are you talking about?

I've just
about had enough of you.

Go that way. You'll be
malfunctioning within a day,

you near-sighted scrap pile.

We were not sure that audiences

would comprehend this
at all, though.

I was nervous,
as anybody would be.

And I thought maybe
this was probably the end,

I'd go back and become
a science teacher

somewhere in the east.

You gotta remember,

my first film was a failure.

I thought
the ultimate honor would be

if we could be invited
to a Star Trek convention.

I could sell t-shirts.

Maybe we'd have
a card table there

with, you know,
handout posters or something.

That to me would have been
the peak of my career.

When the film was finished,

fox didn't really know
what they had.

And I sat in a meeting

with a fox executive
with Gary Kurtz,

and the fox executive said,

"we like your movie, Gary,
but we think it's a sleeper.

We think it's gonna open
very slowly."

I sat in the coronet theatre
in San Francisco

for the opening show there,
the 70 mm print

and I was sitting actually
in the middle of the audience.

And this guy sitting next to me
as the plane comes overhead.

And this guy goes, "holy shit!
Holy shit! Holy shit!"

And two weeks later,
there were lines

around the blocks
across the country

waiting for star wars.

The award goes
to Mr. Benjamin burtt Jr.

Thank you very much.

I'd like to of course
thank George Lucas,

who had all the great ideas
and provided all the inspiration

for the things in star wars.

Thank you very much.

He was the imaginative director

who will say,

"let's take the next step
in the sound story."

George Lucas and Gary Kurtz,

Barbra Streisand
on a star is born,

Francis coppola,
Stanley kubrick,

those are the key players
who will say,

"yes, I'll do this."

Star wars was a revolution.

It was that soundtrack
that changed everything, 1977.

In people's minds,

there was a time
when sound was cool,

and it created this era
driven by the filmmakers.

At that time,
David lynch and Alan splet

came out of af!
And were a partnership.

These really great minds
were doing experimental things.

I believe the source
of everyone's creativity

comes from within.

And Alan,
he was a born sound man.

Very interested in music,

especially classical music.

And he was
a joyous experimenter.

The trick for the human being

is experiencing
this deepest level of life.

The unbounded infinite ocean
of consciousness

at the base
of all matter and mind

where sounds play a huge role

in the abstract cinema.

You wanna bring people
into a world

and give them an experience.

And you could get lost
in there for years.

So it was in the air,
breaking the mold

and trying things
that seemed crazy

and seeing if they worked.

The '70s was a really good time
of filmmaking.

And there was no more
experimental or chaotic film

in all of history
that so changed the way

film sound
was done and presented

as apocalypse now.

During the shooting
of apocalypse now,

Francis heard
a record by tomita,

which was the planets
by Gustav holst in four-track.

The idea was
that you put speakers

at each corner of your room,
and you sat in the center

and you were surrounded
by the music.

Francis heard it and thought,

"this is how I want
the film to sound."

But all of us
working on the sound,

Richard beggs,
Mark berger and myself,

we'd only worked in mono,

none of us had even worked
on a stereo film

let alone this whole
new six-track surround format.

We were exploring the unknown

going into this whole
new continent

where we move objects all
the way around the theater...

Which had never
been done before.

If you're breaking new ground,

then people who are interested
in new ground come

because they wanna
participate in it

and more ground gets broken.

I spent about half
of my time on apocalypse

in the mix sitting there

watching Walter murch
and Mark berger

and Richard beggs and Francis

figure out what this movie
was going to sound like.

Working on apocalypse now
was my film school.

Ultimately, we wound up spending

a year-and-a-half
editing the sound

and nine months doing the mix,

which is just unheard of.

Just about everything
that could possibly go right

or go wrong did.

The whole apocalypse now
expefience

was like dropping acid.

J“ this is the end,
beautiful friend j'

What you have
at the beginning of the film

is captain Willard
in his Saigon hotel room

hallucinating, regretting
what he's done in the war.

Everything that you see and hear

is being filtered
through his consciousness.

J“ waiting
for the summer rain, yeah j'

And that decision
is what allowed Walter

to do what he did
with the sound...

To tell the story
more from the point of view

of this character in this
crazy situation in Vietnam.

Saigon.

And it frames the whole movie.

The most interesting sound
is designed into the script

and is designed into the scenes.

And so I wrote out a script

for the sound treatment
of the film to guide the mix.

Walter decided
that it was more efficient

if each editor be responsible
for one whole layer of sound.

So that the helicopters
were edited by one editor

and the background voices
were edited by another editor.

Les hodgson
was in charge of atmospheres.

Les wiggins
was in charge of munitions.

Patjackson
was in charge of the boat.

So that there was a consistency.

To treat
each sound editor as the head

of an instrument grouping
in an orchestra.

You are the lead violin.

You are a head of the woodwinds.

You are head of percussion.

You're head of the brasses.

And as chef is dying,

had Jackson change
the pitch of the boat

so that the boat sound
is going down.

I think the biggest lesson
I learned from apocalypse now,

sitting there, was figuring out
from moment to moment

what sounds to use
and what sounds not to use.

Those kinds of decisions
are the essence of film.

And the exhibitors,
they're gonna play the picture

on our terms, with our sound,
the way we want them to show it.

The film did run

in this six-track
surround format.

And as things have evolved
over the next 30, 40 years,

that format is now
the ground standard

of how you mix a film.

The soundtrack is at least
as important as the film

and the director
of the soundtrack,

of the entire movie
is Walter murch.

Cheers!

In a way, Walter murch

is the father of us all

in this modern era
of film sound.

Apocalypse now
marked the culmination

of over 50 years
of film sound development.

And its repercussions
can still be felt today.

But the next big challenge
for sound

was how to work
in the crazy new digital world.

I always thought that animation

was such a visual medium.

But when I started putting
just the right sound effects,

it just made it
a thousand times better.

February of 1986,
we formed pixar.

And I'd been working
on animating these desk lamps.

So I made this little one
and a half minute short film

called luxo Jr.

And of course we wanted
Ben burtt to do the sound.

But they told us he was busy.

And they said,
"but there's this young guy

that's been working with Ben,
he's really, really good.

Let's give this new guy a try.
His name's Gary rydstrom."

But I wanted Ben burtt.

I think all
of my early opportunities

were shows that people
wanted Ben burtt.

I mean, it's how it works
in the world, right?

"We'd like Ben burtt, please."

"He's not available."
"Who else you got?"

Now, luxo Jr. was definitely

a huge step forward
for animation,

and they had
a very real look to him.

And Gary kept looking
at it going,

"I wanna ground this
in reality."

I had this digital workstation

called the synclavier

where I could take real sounds,
load them into the computer

and manipulate them
on the keyboard,

like scraping metal,
the screwing in of light bulbs,

harsh boring sounds,
the Springs.

You record sounds you don't know

what they're going to be for
but they're interesting.

And later on
you'll find little tidbits

that have a little vocal quality
as sad or happy.

And next thing
you know, he brought me down

and he showed me
a first pass of luxo Jr.

And the characters came alive.

He crafted their voices

and he gave them weight.

Gary got it.

He took the medium
of computer animation

to new heights.

And pretty much
everything pixar did,

Gary did the sound for it.

I thought, "this is cool,

I'm part of something
really big here."

George Lucas and Ben burtt,

Francis coppola
and Walter murch,

David lynch and Alan splet.

Great directors connected
at the hip to a sound person.

One of mine was
with John lasseter,

and another one was
with Steven Spielberg.

Action!

Welcome to Jurassic park.

We're gonna make a fortune
with this place.

I think Gary rydstrom's
greatest contribution

Jurassic park was presuming
hat dinosaurs sounded like,

to make them extraordinary,
but also natural.

And the first time
I ever heard the t-Rex,

I did literally
fall off my chair.

Talk about innovative.

It was just unbelievable a sound

that he did on Jurassic park.

So we just asked him
to do sound for us

on the first
computer animated feature film.

You've got a friend in me j'

I just appreciated
how Gary was making sure

that the sounds he used

supported
the emotional intention

of the narrative
of whatever was going on.

- Say, what's that button do?
- I'll show you.

Buzz lightyear to the rescue!

Whoa!

Woody's got something like that.

His is a pull string.

We wanted to have one thing

that both Woody and buzz had

that you could tell Woody's
was older and cheesier

and buzz's was new
and high tech.

And that was a sound system.

I had an old Casper doll.

There's a record in there
that he is, um... come on.

See, that's like, "I love you."

He's sounding awesome
these days.

Oop, come on, Casper.

Reach for the sky!

Gary loved that idea.

We were innovating
with computers so much

and creating new tools
for animation

and, therefore,
he was at the same time

kind of really using computers
for the first time

in really clever ways
to do sound design.

You know,
it's mind-blowing to think

that just, I don't know,

even many people
around the industry

were still cutting sound
at that time on mag.

Up until the early 1990s,

we were cutting one track
of sound at a time

on mag film.

But by the mid-1990s,
sound editing migrated

to computer systems
like pro tools.

Now we could see
the waveforms we were editing,

but more importantly,
sound editors could finally hear

how all their tracks
played together.

It was a very exciting time

for all people
in visual and sound.

So all of a sudden,
I get this call.

The wachowskis said,

"remember that really
great script called the matrix

that we used to talk about
on the mixing stage?

It's green lit."

And the fact that the movie

was about this digital reality
that was coming through wire,

I thought there was
some parallel

to trying to do
all of the sound design

in the digital world.

And it was a chance
to apply this technology.

It was still sketchy,

but allowed
for all these possibilities.

Like one of the first
sounds that I developed

was the sound of Neo perceiving
himself being digitized.

Did you?

In the digital world
everything is zeros and ones,

just little boxes, basically.

I wanted to get that feeling
across to the audience,

the jaggedness.

Computers did allow to do

some very fun creative work
on the matrix.

It would not
have been time otherwise.

And I've always had a
love-hate thing with technology.

Computers suck.

You know, part of me just wants
to live in the woods,

you know, and...
And carve sticks.

I have seen the future.
This is it.

It definitely does not work.

But another part of me just
loves all these fancy tools.

These days there's so many tools

to manipulate a sound
that now pretty much in sound,

if you can think it,
you can do it.

But ultimately,
it wasn't about the technology,

it's the contribution
of dozens of sound people,

a circle of talent
who collaborate

behind the scenes
to help tell the story.

And a human voice, you know,

it's the great position
of the individual.

You can have
all sorts of nuances,

and that's unique.

If you listen real close,

you can hear them whisper
their legacy to you,

"carpe diem.

Seize the day, boys."

When you're recording
production sound,

what you're really trying
to capture is the performance.

You have my permission to die.

People's voice is
a really complex instrument.

With a boom microphone, you're

about maybe ten inches away
from a person's mouth.

It's an enormous sense
of intimacy that you get.

I remember on funny girl,

we filmed it
to a pre-recorded track.

J' for whatever my man is j“

j'iamhisj'

Willie leans towards me and he
says, "what do you think?"

And I said,
"it could be better."

Because I believe
in working in the moment.

I have to do it live.

And he said okay.

So they put a boom like this
because it had to be close up.

When I know I'll come back j”

j' on my knees someday j'

j' for whatever my man is j“

j'iamhisj'

j' forever more j'

and I thought, "yeah,
that's the kind of feeling

I'd like to get into my man."

As a director,
I can hear the truth

when an actor
is indicating something or...

Feeling it.

- What are you, a demon?
- I'm not. You know me.

- You spit on the torah!
- I love the torah!

You spit on it,
you spit on everything

and everyone and nature itself!

In god's face, in my face,
and hadass's face!

As a production sound mixer,
one film that I'm very proud of

is a film
that Patty Jenkins directed.

It was called monster.

It was about the serial killer
Aileen Wuornos.

You don't have to do this.

- Get down.
- You don't.

We captured every little breath.

Oh, god, my wife.

My wife.

My daughter is having a baby.

Oh, god. Oh, god, I'm sorry.

That was one of those moments
where literally the hair

stood on the back of your neck
at the end of the performance.

It's just all those things

that you battle
as I sound mixer.

You're dealing with wind.
That is never our friend.

And there's many, many things
that are required for things

to look right on camera
that are noisy.

I know ships that sail
into the triangle do not...

Guilty of putting me
in this dreadful pickle.

If you're hearing those,
that takes you out of the story.

That's why we edit the dialogue.

My mom is Kay Rose,
and she was the first woman

to win an Oscar for sound.

She could hear clicks and pops
that shouldn't be there,

take it out,
fill it with ambience

and be very smooth.

Ordinary people was a movie
my mom and I worked on,

and it was one
of the hardest sound jobs

we'd ever, ever done.

The movie is about a family

affected by the death
of their older son.

The surviving son
goes to a psychiatrist.

Ah, hi, yeah, come in.
It's okay, they all do that.

And they chose
an aluminum warehouse

near an airport
for these very intimate scenes

with the psychiatrist...

Sit.

Which was awful.

I had a fairly strong idea
aboutsound,

but I had not
directed a film before.

So I needed help,

and she did just a great job.

It took weeks to try
to get out the little clicks

and pops and planes.

Boating accident...

For ten minutes
of production dialogue, weeks.

You wanna tell me about it?

The silence
was meant to illustrate pain,

the disconnect between people.

You can go upstairs
to that room of yours

and clean out the closet.

Because it really is a mess.

The dialogue department.

We're the queens
of the soundtrack.

Jake, my Jake.

Everything
falls apart without it.

It's the thing that everything
has to work around.

And you don't wanna lose
a moment in a film saying

to, you know, your friend,
you know, "what did he say?"

That's why sometimes
we need to shoot adr.

Adr stands for...

Lillian!

Automated dialogue replacement.

It's dialogue

that's rerecorded
in a sound studio.

Good.

You pick out some lines

that might
be really low to hear,

the actors have to come in,
re-record

and then we as editors
have to cut it

to try to match
those people's mouths.

So Beth bergeron hired me

on a league of their own.

One of the scenes that I cut
was when Tom Hanks is yelling.

There's no crying in baseball!

Her crying on the set

was actually
really kind of soft.

Are you crying? Are you crying?

And so, in order
to get her crying again,

you had to get Tom Hanks
as well.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Because they're overlapping
each other.

All right, listen, listen,
listen, listen, listen.

Rogers hornsby was my manager

and he called me a talking pile
of pig shit.

So that way, when they mix,

they can then bring up
her crying

when they need to.

- Did I cry?
- No. No.

No, because there is
no crying in baseball.

I loved working on that film.

But ourjob is also
to add the background people,

and that's what we call
group adr.

Most people might not realize

that that whole opening of argo,

the assumption is, "oh,
that's all recorded on set."

But the truth is
all of that's reconstructed.

We had over a hundred
Farsi speaking crews and extras.

We were making the crowd
right in the middle of it,

from behind windows,
from the rooftops.

After a few hours of this,
everyone was, like, hugging

and a few people were crying

and we found out
that some of our voice talent

had actually lived
through the revolution.

And all of that emotion
that we were recording,

it became part of the DNA
of the scene.

When people ask me
about working on Selma,

I tell them it's
the... the first film

that I've worked on
that really meant something.

When they're on the bridge,

they're running for their lives
so they don't get killed.

You want the audience
to feel the pain.

When I had people
running by the mics,

it's more real
because it's got movement,

it's got cloth movement,
it's got feet,

they're turning their heads,

and they're doing efforts,

and so it just sounds more real.

Stop it!

It was so important to me
to work on this film.

It allows me to relive

some of the things
as I was a child

that speaks
to what people went through,

what we're still
going through today.

I'm just really proud
that I was able to work on it.

But surrounding
the voices in the movie

is a whole world
of sound effects

created and cut
by the sound editors,

and it consists
of three distinct parts.

Highway to the danger zone j'

I got hired to do top gun

with George waters.

So I spent a week in San Diego
recording jets with John fasal.

But the jets themselves
are not that interesting.

They sounded kind of wimpy.

So it created a library
of mostly exotic animal roars.

Lions and tiger roars
and monkey screeches.

And that
wound up being the thing.

It gave them
a cutting sharp feeling.

And it's the single
most labor-intensive

editing process
I've ever experienced.

It took forever,

which the studio
was very frightened by

and didn't understand.

So at one point
in the middle of this process,

there was an executor
from the studio.

He came over to fire me

and he said,

"this movie
isn't about the sound."

But months later,
we were nominated

for an academy award.

And I will say
that he sent me flowers,

and the note said,

"I guess
it was about the sound."

She's also
a civilian contractor,

so you do not salute her,
but you'd better listen to her.

People who say, well, you know,

it's a big action war movie,
a guy should do the sound.

I was like, "why?
Has he been in a war?"

This idea of one gender

being better at it than another,

I think it's kind of silly.

It's experience.

You're sitting in front

of this big piece of equipment,

and it looks
very complicated and technical.

And it's sort of that thing
like you peek your head

into the cockpit,
and there's all that equipment,

ooh, you wind up
with some big guy

who looks like he was
in the air force in there

'cause, you know,

if anything goes wrong,
that person

will get a screwdriver,
I don't know.

Because the job consists of,

you know, pushing little buttons
and turning little knobs

and that's not particularly
a macho endeavor at all.

But if you don't see anybody
like yourself doing something,

then that doesn't seem
like a place you could fit in.

Foley is a subset
of sound effects.

We're called foley artists.

And truly what we do
is custom sound effects.

We're really like performers.

Getting into their mindset...

We really give them character.

It's that detail that
you don't really think about

that makes it come alive.

There's a very famous story

where Jack foley heard

the director of Spartacus
bemoaning the fact

that the armor they were wearing

sounded like tin pots.

They're saying,
"we have to go back over

and reshoot the picture
at a huge cost.

Jack said, "wait a second."

He runs out to his car,
he grabs some props,

some big set of keys,
etc., etc.,

comes in and works his magic.

Which is kind of fun,

'cause that's what foley
really is for us, it's magic.

And the last subset
of sound effects are ambiences.

Atmospheric beds of sounds

that editors lay
underneath everything else.

I think that any film

like lost in translation,

building the...
The world and the atmosphere,

the sound
is such a big part of it

that you don't realize
until you're working on it.

Picking up
all those little details

and adding these layers
that makes,

I think, you feel
like you're really there.

There's this whole
other world that it brings.

That's really half the movie.

It's a bed of sound
and the scene

that sets you
in that environment.

A bed of crickets.

The sound of a room.

Or birds.

It has to be evocative.

When I was 11 years old,

I had a mild case of polio.

So as a reward
for getting better,

my mom drove me
to yosemite national park.

Once I went through that tunnel
and it opened up

and I saw half dome
and El capitan,

I said, "well, this is...
This is it for me.

I don't wanna look at this,
I wanna be in it.“

The sound of those falls

rushing past me as I climbed up.

The power of water.

I'd like to use that in film.

I was working
on a river runs through it,

and the sound designer
just said,

"look, I just need you
to go out and record sounds."

I knew every stream
within a hundred miles.

When I heard it back
in the film,

I could feel the moisture
of the stream

and I could hear the presence
of this volume of air.

That hit me so heavily.

I thought to myself,

"this is me
with my father fishing

as an eight-year-old boy."

It brings me to a really...

Peaceful, important time
in my life.

Everything has emotion
and, therefore, spirit.

Ang really wanted the wind

to have its own character
in this movie.

Wind sound was very expressive

for their characters.

How much they're quiet
about their feelings...

How much repression they endure.

That's the art of sound,

that ability
to interpret expressively

things that are happening.

And the final
element of the soundtrack

is music.

It has a direct connection
to emotion.

The great thing about music is

it's there
that you as an audience

can connect on a human level.

It has a way of inviting you in.

The way in which
he records them,

the way in which
they're executed

is extremely lavish
and epic really.

I love that hans doesn't give up

and he just keeps trying
to make it better

and better
and better and better.

He's obsessed.

Look who is here.

I think the heart
has to come first

and then the intellect
will follow.

- Hey, guys, hey.
- Daddy!

- How are you?
- Daddy!

How are you?

Your job is to come up
with the unimaginable for them.

You think about
people's favorite movie moments,

and it's usually
the score element.

Black panther was set in Africa,

and music is so important
setting that up.

Is the first person I called.

When I write music
for any of his projects,

I'm always pushing myself
to another kind of level.

Music is what ties
the whole thing together.

Experimenting
in contemporary music.

But also not being
scared to bring in

the classic,
really heroic theme.

And how do we tie that together

in one consistent
piece of music.

We're gonna write something new,

we're gonna create
something completely different.

And then we watched it, it was
like, man, this is perfect.

In a song,
I can do in three minutes

what a really great movie
needs hours to do.

It's the collaborative effort

of all those people...

That make that soundtrack
what it is.

And the very last step
is to provide that

to the sound mixing stage.

Re-recording mixing is

a key component of film sound.

You take all the elements
from the sound editors

and you finally
bring them together

like a conductor would.

You may turn up the
music to enhance the emotion.

You may turn up
the sound effects

to add a visceral punch.

Or you may turn them both down

to focus on a line of dialogue.

I'm glad it's you.

Mixing also involves thinking

about where sounds
are placed on the screen

and how they move.

We use this panning technique
everywhere in roma.

Like, what components could go
from that side to that side.

Left, center, right.

Have the voices move that way

when the camera pans that way.

Alfonso was constantly
trying to get us

to keep things moving.

Roma is filled with a lot

of foreground,
background sounds.

The film is very oral,
there's a lot of...

There are a lot of sounds
going on.

The dance between the elements
is what I consider cinematic.

This is what the core
of mixing is,

is taking all these components,
creating a place for them all.

So it's just really
building the track slowly,

having everything
play harmoniously.

At one point you go,

"okay, we got a movie.
Sounds like a movie."

And when you feel
those goosebumps,

then you've done it right.

The circle of talent

is a collaborative group
of people

that spend hours and hours
and days and days

in the trenches
that are doing all the work.

And if people have to try
and find meaning

in what they do,

it's the group of people
that you're working with.

But it's easy
to lose sight of that.

Because I had public success
so quickly in my career.

We come to work every day

thinking you're an
Oscar-winning genius.

Thank you very much.

But you can't put that kind
of pressure on yourself

that each time you do something
it's gonna shake the world.

And it led
to a nervous breakdown.

And finally came one day where
I just couldn't work anymore.

I was just sitting
at the console

crying to myself
I didn't know why.

It was because I invested
too much in it.

To be honest,
one of the main things

I would always try to do

is get home
for dinner with my family.

And I have to appreciate
my wife Peggy

and all the years
she's dragged me

back out of my world
of make-believe.

Don't lose your foot.

Plant it in something outside.

Those are good things.

You kind of get to the point
where you realize

that you wanna be happy
doing the work you're doing,

that the... the pleasure is on
what happens on a daily basis.

We come in on any given Tuesday

and you're working
with making pass-bys

out of bicycle rattling.

If you can enjoy that
and see that

for what it is,
for a daily task,

then that's
where the pleasure will lie.

I love what I do.

It's very tedious,
it's very time-consuming,

but when I can play
something back

and I can feel it,
I was like, “oh, man."

You know, it's just...
It's like really satisfying.

I just couldn't believe

I was getting paid real money

to have so much fun.

I always say, you know,

I would hate to have a real job.

Pinch myself every day.

Even in my early sound career

I remember
how magical it felt to me.

Movies were a place to have
emotion that was safe.

Of all the ways, all the things
I can do in movies

or have done in movies,
sound is still the best way

to experience emotion
working on a movie, to me.

So the creation
of the sound film

made sound an art form.

It's been very valuable
in the evolution

of human's relationship
to the cosmos.

The work you all do make
massive contributions

to the telling of the story.

And I love all your cleverness

andingenufly
and I love the sense of fun.

And it makes
these moments eternal.

You know how to whistle,
don't you, Steve?

Come on, then!

I'll be right here.

Run, forrest, run!

Hold on!