Hi Reddit – I’m Johnnie Burn, Oscar-winning sound designer behind The Zone of Interest, Poor Things, Under the Skin, Nope and TUNER.
My mum once said: “What do you mean you do the sound on films? They sound alright to me.”
I was also sound designer on films like Hamnet, Bugonia, The Favourite, Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster, Waves, Ammonite, Kinds of Kindness, and 28 Years Later.
Info for TUNER:
- Release Date: May 22 (NY/LA); May 29 (Nationwide)
- Distribution: The film is being distributed by Black Bear Pictures
- Trailer: https://youtu.be/rdlOZhl-nSA?si=fl-EMvv72dK-vdFS
- Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Leo Woodall, Havana Rose Liu
Synopsis:
With his once-promising musical career over, he works across New York with his mentor Harry Horowitz (Academy Award-winner Dustin Hoffman), encountering a range of characters, including composition student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), with whom he forges an unexpected connection. Niki’s safecracking work threatens his budding romance with Ruthie and pulls him into increasingly dangerous territory. Blending romance, drama, and the taut suspense of a heist thriller, Tuner also features performances from Tony Award®-winner Tovah Feldshuh, Lior Raz, with Jean Reno.
AMA! Back at 3 PM ET today to answer questions.
by TunerAMA
6 Comments
Your mum’s quote is perfect lol. Zone of Interest was absolutely incredible – the way sound worked in that film was haunting, especially with what you couldn’t hear vs what you could
How do you even approach something like that where the audio design has to carry so much weight for the story?
To what degree are different surround formats “natively captured” with multiple microphones on set vs. “hand-crafted” vs “virtually created” in most scenes?
An example of what I mean by “hand-crafted” – Some channels are obviously directly edited in like when a “god” character or pa announcement comes from the overhead channels, but the rest is pretty opaque to me.
Mica Levi’s score in Under the Skin is hypnotic and unearthly. I feel like at various points, the film’s score with its dissonance and ambience doubles as its sound effects. As in: the alien noises of the score become the alien noises of Scarlett Johansson’s lair. Does working with a composer like Mica Levi make a sound designer’s job easier or harder?
The sound design in *Nope* was one of the bits that got under my skin the most (Gordy’s attack and the screams from inside Jean Jacket spring to mind).
What methods were used to achieve those sounds? They were among the scariest bits of the movie.
Has AI’s ability to clean-up location audio by removing background sounds like wind or traffic made ADR less necessary?
The sound design in The Zone of Interest and Under the Skin reminded me at times of the sound design in films by David Lynch. Would you say his work is a reference point for you? And who or what else inspires you?