How to win an Oscar for Sound Design with Nina Hartstone

#sounddesign #academyaward #oscar 

This week on the podcast I’m talking to academy award winning supervising sound editor Nina Hartstone. 

Nina has been working in the business for over thirty years, she’s worked her way up from assistant sound editor roles in the 90s right through to winning an Oscar for her work on Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Her recent projects include Saltburn, Enola Holmes 1 and 2 and 'I wanna dance with somebody'. I spoke to Nina about how she got started in the business, her advice for people starting out, what makes good sound design and what it was like winning an Oscar.

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Transcript

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[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I'm speaking to Academy award-winning supervising sound editor Nina hearstone n has been working in the business for over 30 years she's worked a way out from assistant sound editor on roles in the '90s right through to winning an Oscar for her work on Bohemian rap city recent projects include saltburn anola holes one and two and I want to dance with somebody the Whitney Houston story I spoke to Nina about how she got into the industry she gave me some tips for you to do the same and get your career started in sound we also talked about what makes good sound design and she told me what it was like to win an Oscar enjoy I'll start where I start with most people which is could you talk me through how you got into the industry in the first place yes uh so I've been in the industry a very long time since last century in fact um basically I uh my father works in the industry works in the industry he still does some teaching he was uh worked at Pim Studios as a re-recording mixer um so I was introduced to film from a young age but I always wanted to be in the art department so when I did work experience um at school age I actually joined uh the art department on Batman and fell in love with doing all of that so my uh degree at University of kenter Canterbury was in Visual and performed Arts which was basically film studies and art history and I used uh my holidays to work on set and and get involved with film making as much as possible but when I uh had finally graduated again because it was a long time ago there was no practical aspect to my degree it was all sort of film Theory watching films talking about films which was great but qualified me for precisely nothing so I ended up uh uh needing to get a job and I got an introduction with um a supervising sound editor who was doing lowbudget films at Prim Studios like cybor cop and woman of Desire um and back then it was all on 35 mil and mag and so I sort of begged to be able to just come along and make the tea and watch what they were doing and um that's how I started off I just sort of learned the post-production process um film by film and then I rode the wave of digital audio workstations coming in um and not because I had any computer knowledge at all it's just that I was one of the young people on the Block and so people thought I might know how to work them so I sat there and used my lunch hours and evenings with the manual pressing buttons to figure out what they did make useful so um so you mentioned it I was going to mention it later on but I'm going to mention cybor cop because I think it's awesome when I looked at your imtv and I did a bit of stalking I was like I've got Academy Award winner who started off in a film called cyborg cop so can you tell me about the cyborg cop shoot please what is the film I've not seen it it is uh I'm trying to it's a long time ago so I'm casting my my memories back I think it's it's sort of like RoboCop but uh a bit of a cheaper version of it I worked on that and I worked on another one called project shadowchaser that was a little bit like sort of Androids do Die Hard oh love I love this sound right on my street it was so it was so fun and that product Shadow Chaser I was on the shoot for um and then cyal coopos was in post so I to be honest with you I can't remember the plot terribly well but it was you know it was those sort of actually films and we're just trying to make it all as exciting and uh get as many good sounds in there as possible love it love it I'm going to definitely watch those two movies um so then could you tell me um so you're now supervising sound editor in Practical terms what what does that role in compass it basically means I um I am a sound editor and I am on the film overseeing The Sound editorial team in post-production so because sound is it could be a little bit disjointed sound because you have your production sound mixer on set and then they finish as the shoot finishes and then quite often you don't actually have anyone on sound for a few weeks until you get an edit of the film and that's the point normally where I would come on and bring a team on and we'd start working on the editorial side of the sound and then I would see it through uh alongside the re-recording mixes when we finally mix it so it's really sort of uh overseeing the sound the creation of sound for the film and working on the S with the sound that was recorded on set right gotcha and so obviously you've been around in the industry for a long time uh how has it changed over the years do you think I mean it's changed certainly for me in sound it's changed hugely when I started off I was definitely the only woman on the Block um so that that side of it uh it's it's improving somewhat it's still there still a long way to go in terms of um getting better representation in sound uh not just G but across all all aspects so that that sort of side of things is changing and and definitely you know for me like I said my rise through sort of going from actually working on film being such a sort of tactile and um as an assistant that job was involved a lot of kind of um physical input you know rewinding films and carrying hands up to projection and all those sorts of things whereas these days everything is you know is very based for a lot of it and except for those fun recording days so I thing it's you know the technology obviously is constantly moving on but the the great thing is we're always just trying to decide how we want something to sound and then seeing how the technology can help us do that rather than make the technology lead you know just because it can do something doesn't mean to say it should yeah yeah and I would say uh as I've got older the move to desk based stuff is actually quite quite nice I think to lift things boxes and stuff I'm quite happy with a desk based coffee style exact cre it also means you appreciate those days much more when you are do get to do something physical so when we go and have our big crowd recording sessions or go out and record sound effects and things it's actually it's kind of fun you know it's like something a bit different yeah yeah definitely um so then uh if you were to give somebody some advice now so say they're leaving University they want to work in post sound what would you what would you advise them to do I would say get involved with as many people as possible who are making films there are so many um young people uh making movies out there whether it's short films or whatever I mean it's a small industry really over here and I think um it it's great to sort of put yourself out there and start learning about um you know get getting yourself connections with people who are making films because you never know where those connections are going to lead and that's still how I work now every you know so much of my work comes through having a chance meeting with someone and then the next you know that just ends up um turning into something you know kind of cool and fun uh so definitely try and get together with other filmmakers um and also just watch films and listen to the sound on them and just think about how the sound is telling the story The more you sort of start unpicking uh the way our films put together the more knowledge you then have when you do get to go into the industry um I mean it's it's hard it's definitely hard to get started these days but there are a lot of schemes out there as well I would definitely say look through um all the sort of websites all the film-based websites you know um things like the guilds and Screen skills and all those other places and just see what opportunities there are um very often still a lot of the people who come into the industry might start as a runner um or or that kind of thing just because you that again how you meet people yeah yeah absolutely and thinking about those um say the student movies or the first features what and I know this is a big question because you've obviously been doing it a long while but what makes good sound design what what's what's your sort of top tip for that I mean it really depends on the kind of film that you're doing I think one of the first things we always think about is how um how what what is the language of our film what is the sound language of our film and how best to um enable that and so uh you know a film could be a big sci-fi big action thing where sound is playing a very important role in the tension and the excitement of what you're watching or it could be a very delicate drama um where literally the tiniest breath and lip smack is telling you uh about your character everything we're trying to do with sound because we do record so much of it in post production and create an awful lot of the world that you are watching in post so much of what we do we're always trying to make sure that we're we're sort of gluing the sound onto the picture that we're actually just trying to draw the viewer in uh to being to to feeling like they're in that World um which is you know it could be from the performance of the character it could be actually the physicality of the character with their Foley or it could be the ACT you know the soundscape of of the what what you are seeing on screen and so I think the thing that makes good sound is just is is really the thing that is telling the story the most but also bringing the viewer into that world and suspending the disbelief of the fact that this thing is all you know created and an artifice actually yeah and even on those early projects it can really save your bacon sound it really can really like uh fill gaps in the story that you've not considered when you shot it and expand the story massively beyond what you imagin when you first shot it 100% And it sound is also so important for sort of pulling You Through The Narrative of a movie because sound can really affect how uh a scene plays how an edit of a scene plays whether it feels slow or fast and also the transitions from one scene to another are very often dealt with uh with sound you know whether you have a pre-lap or a post laap or whether you go hard from one scene to another or where you whether you gently sort of fade across into the next scene so I think those kind of things can really influence the pacing um of of how a movie feels when you watch it yeah and I noticed on your um IMDb that you've done a lot of sort of ADR recording that kind of stuff do you watch films now and instantly know when something's been recorded later or when it's been glued together are you are you able to sense that yes and I I'm a nightmare to watch films with because I I think I I've always it's very difficult to actually put that head aside and just watch a film um I mean the reality is every so much of what we do with is we're just trying to make it all feel real and let the viewer absorb into that world and and feel like they're getting to know those characters and I think the thing is as humans we're so expert at something being real and something being fake we're so we could so tell really quickly if something is not coming out of someone's mouth at the right pace or the right kind of performance for what their physicality is doing and so um it's it's it's a difficult thing to do to get that right when you do re-record performances in post but it's one of the things that obviously I'm I'm hyper kind of aware of whenever I'm watching movies and it's the sort of thing that bumps me out quite quickly I can imagine do you um have you got any tips for that and are you often I'm assuming when you do those sessions you've got the director in directing have you got any tips for sort of dealing with actors and performers I think the main thing I would say about dealing with actor's performance and and recording their performances in ADR is allowing the actor the space and time to get back into the character you know very often they come to it and they they haven't been on the film for a while they it's quite a sterile environment quite often an ADR theater you know your voice in the theater sounds louder than it does out in the real world um and you don't have your costume you don't have your coars you don't have your props the whole thing does feel quite different and so every actor has a different process and allowing your actor and And discussing with them how you know what would work best for them so the things that we do is we'll let them move around as much as possible if they're in a scene and they're lying down we say lie down in the theater if you're happy to do that you can perform it from the exactly the same position if you're walking around the room will'll boom you and you can walk and do your deliver your lines because that's what you were doing on screen and it's just allowing the actor to try and give the best performance because the reality is how however good you you know however clean and good and everything that your mics are and however much you match it from a technical side if you haven't got the performance it's never going to sit in and so that that really is the thing that comes first so working alongside the director and the actor to get them comfortable and put them in a space where they feel like they could give a good performance again um is is definitely the key for ADR yeah good tip um and then looking at your so you got Academy Award for Bohemian rap today which has got a huge amount of scenes where Sound and Music kind of overlap and merge and kind of cross over so how difficult was that and I'm assuming you had a close relationship with music on that one yeah it was a re it was a great project to be involved with in in that sense because I mean one of the things I do love about my job is that it's always changing and every film I go on I I end up learning new new things and and developing new skills and actually going about things in a different way because every project needs something different and the great thing about Bohemian rapidy was that we had a very cohesive Sound and Music team so we were all constantly working together there wasn't the same sort of division you quite often see between Sound and Music um and for me a personal Challenge on there was then starting to work with vocals so sort of treating the vocals as if they're like sung dialogue in a way um to try and make it really feel um so often in in musical films it feels like when when the when the music starts it almost feels like the whole world drops away and someone's turned the music on you know I'll show my age by saying put the record on or or put a CD on but uh whereas we were always trying to make it feel like an organic synthesis from from dialogue scenes into the musical scenes you know and so everything all felt uh very much gelled together and and one continuous performance and did you get sick of the Queen songs or no no do you know what it's so funny you sort of you think you might right because we' have listened to them so many times but uh the there just such great music to listen to that's the thing I think there's some there's amazing musical complexity in there um and obviously just the stunning playing of the instruments and Freddy's incredible voice you just the energy that you get from Queen music is is incredible and uh I loved every minute of listening to and continue to listen to it if it comes on the radio it goes straight up the volume goes straight up in the car so I could sing along it's it's great I love it oh brilliant brilliant and then so you've had this awesome experience on this movie and then you've gone and won an award for it cademy award what was that like did how does that even work do you do you get any sense of whether your team's going to win it or is it just so Random you had no idea you have no idea and it just feels it feels so fortunate particularly on that film where we had a fantastic team you know we really all got on really well we were all pulling in the same direction we were all trying to make the film as great as it could possibly be for Sound and Music um and I think so the whole experience was really fun I mean what's not fun about coming into work and listening to live age you know so many days of your life as well so um it was a wonderful experience working on it and then for it to start receiving some awards recognition was really just the icing on the cake you just you can't actually believe that this is the journey you're going on and I think it you know lots of people really loved that film when it came out it did incredibly well in the box office and it just seemed to be sort of riding a bit of a wave so it it's you don't actually know if you're going to win or anything but it was one of those things where you get a nomination and then the next one to come and you're just like oh my goodness this is just and then for me obviously as a as a woman in this scenario I was trying to work out what I was going to wear I mean I'm used to being behind the camera not really being looked at yeah and it was a definitely a hard um hard but it was an interesting then Dimension came into my life of having to actually talk about film and you know talk to press and do all those kind of things which is something that you know I hadn't hadn't had to do really up until that point and have you got any memories from that night did you meet any Mega stars is there anyone who sticks out uh we just we had just such a fun time because Queen opened the Oscars so they with Adam Lambert actually did were the opening act and uh having the band there was just incredible as it as we were going through and it was um it was a super fun night just that we carried on

until about 6: 17:47

00 in the morning with a with a little interlude of me at the Vanity Fair party talking to BBC Radio barkshire just to bring me back down to her oh nice love it I love it um the other one that that stuck out as a recent film that's kind of uh went massive when it came out with salt bur so what talk to me about that project what you know it's it's a very I like I love it as a film I think it's really cool um and it's a very strange film so what was your experience like working on that oh I mean incredible just uh honestly again loved every minute of that film Emerald is such a fantastic filmmaker um and so brilliantly collaborative as well she's you know so good with her actors um and such incredible performances in that film all the way along and the the whole the sort of the needle drops and the musical aspect to it too were just made it a very high energy very fun very collaborative process obviously um you know some some scenes in there that could be quite shock shocking for people to watch them the first time round and and I do remember early on sort of watching the whole thing and going okay but it's right up my street really you know I I love all that kind of stuff as I when I was doing my University degree I sort of I studied David Cronenberg and David Lynch and you know all I I do love a film that is saying something new and that is you know actually just so engaging to watch and you don't know where it's going to go next and it was just so brilliantly um created and put together by Emerald uh and we had such a great time the whole team just all working together on it that uh yeah just just a a brilliant brilliant uh very very fortunate and great uh job to have been a part of hope you enjoyed this week's episode if you want more advice from industry professionals who are out there at the moment working or you just want to listen to some cool stories from film sets from around the world then please do subscribe[Music]