Working: The Sounds That Make a Movie

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host Isaac Butler talks to the very in-demand sound designer Johnnie Burn, who has worked on multiple great and sonically rich films like Nope, Poor Things, and the dark historical drama The Zone of Interest, which tells the story of a Nazi commandant and his family who live right outside the walls of Auschwitz. In the interview, Johnnie discusses the crucial role that audio plays in the film and his close attention to historical accuracy. He also discusses the difference between his theatrical mix and a mix he creates for smaller devices, like phones and ipads. After the interview, Isaac and co-host June Thomas discuss the role of sound in their own work. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Johnnie shares a strange discovery he made while tweaking the audio levels for The Zone of Interest. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Really immersive cinema isn't so much about having loads of sound or loud sound or sound flying around your
0:13.4	head it's about having sound you can believe in. In a sort of Marvel blockbuster
0:17.5	over-the-top kind of hyperbolic sound works really well but in something like the
0:21.8	zone of interest it has to have a fragility to it and
0:24.4	that only comes from trying to do things for real and reenacting.
0:30.0	Welcome back to Working. I'm your host June Thomas.
0:33.4	And I'm your other host Isaac Butler.
0:35.6	Isaac, it is always a thrill to talk to you and it's been too long.
0:40.2	It has been too long. Happy New Year, June.
0:42.2	Thank you, same to you.
0:44.0	Hey, whose voice did we hear at the top of the show?
0:46.0	That was the incredible sound designer for film Johnny Byrne.
0:52.0	And why did you want to speak with Johnny right now?
0:55.0	Well, Johnny Burn is one of the top sound designers in movies today.
0:59.0	He actually has two films out right now.
1:02.0	One is poor things, which we don't really talk about. The one that we do talk about is the zone of interest and that beyond being one of my favorite movies of the year, easily one of the greatest sound designs I've ever heard and I wanted to talk to him and know how he did it.
1:16.0	It's also a very weird use of sound design because the point of the film is, you know, it's about the private life, the personal life, of the film is you know it's about the private life the personal life of the
1:24.4	commandant of Auschwitz during World War II and his family so you there's one
1:29.2	movie that you watch which is about this family going about their kind of mundane,
1:34.0	weirdly idyllic life while their bureaucrat dad
1:37.0	figures out how to gasp thousands of people.
1:39.0	So that's the first film.
	...

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