574: Anora / The Revenant sound effects editor D. Chris Smith

[00:00:00] And so again in Anora, let's say there's a distant train where I might put a lot of reverb on it exterior and to make the train sound like it's coming from far away or a distant dog, you know, so we put all the sounds in their correct spaces and in their correct place in the, you know, on the screen. Hi, I'm Annie. You don't have cash. Let's go to the ATM. We could go chill out in a private room. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Film Buds podcast.

[00:00:27] This is episode number 574 and my name is Henry. This time got a great interview with sound effects editor D. Chris Smith. He has worked on a huge number of projects, including Anora recently, Scream 5 and 6, John Wick Chapter 2, The Revenant and many, many others.

[00:00:51] We talked about getting started in the film industry, the differences between sound design, sound effects, editing, etc. So you get ins and outs of that. Certain experiences on various projects that I've mentioned. It was a great conversation and thanks again to Chris for taking the time. As always, please make sure to rate, review, subscribe, like, follow all that stuff. We are, if you're not there already, we are also available on YouTube.

[00:01:20] There is a video version of this interview there, so check that out, please. But let's go ahead and get into my interview with D. Chris Smith. Take a listen. There we are. Hey, you hear me? Yeah. You hear me okay? Yes. Yes, I can. I'm doing this on my phone, so. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, because my computer is not set up for this. But anyway, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Very well. Very well.

[00:01:46] I'm humbled and honored you'd asked me to do this. I haven't, every once in a while I've done something like this, but not too often. And so it's a real thrill. I studied audio engineering in college and I've been doing, you know, podcasting and things like that for a long time. So sound, especially in movies is something I always really appreciate. And I, even at this point, I don't know that much about in terms of the technical, you know, the ins and outs. So that's why I really wanted to talk to someone as experienced as you. Yeah.

[00:02:17] First off, how did you get started in sound? Was that something you had wanted to do from the beginning? Did you stumble into it? You know, how did you get onto the stage, so to speak? Well, I like a lot of people that are in post-production and other aspects of sound. A lot of people get involved because of music and, and I'm no different. And so when I was growing up, I, I grew up in outside of Baltimore, but then my parents moved to Maine when I was a teenager, 16 or so.

[00:02:46] And I started rolling around with some kids and we, you know, playing in bands and I played some drums. And so I loved music and a lot of people get involved with engineering work, want to work in studios and that sort of thing. That's what I thought I was going to do. But then in the back of some magazine, maybe Rolling Stone magazine or some kind of music magazine, there was a picture of a guy and it was a recording school. And he was in front of one of those giant, giant mixing desks. And I, and I said, they quit and it clicked.

[00:03:16] And I was probably 17 maybe. And I said, man, I really, that looks cool. I've seen it. I saw it on TV, maybe, you know, like those mixing studios. And I just decided that I would go to school just like you did. And then out of school, well, I had a really good teacher in school too, that gave us a tour of this big post facility called Post Logic in Hollywood. And I kept in touch with him. And at the same time I was working in recording studios, but as an assistant, you know, you're

[00:03:45] emptying trash cans and there's this, I could see pretty, pretty early on that it's not a great way to make money working in a little music recording studio. It was really tough. But through my teacher and speaking with others, I sort of discovered that maybe I could actually make a good living and make a career out of if I, if I gravitated toward post production. So I think that's a pretty similar path to a lot of people.

[00:04:13] You know, you start off sort of doing one thing and then you might veer off. And it's related, a related field, you know, music. And so that's basically has been my journey. And so like many others, you know, I started working on, let's say, music videos. And I was an assistant engineer and I worked in the tape vault at a big facility. And, and then eventually I started doing some little music videos on my own.

[00:04:41] And then I mixed, I did a Metallica concert, you know, just me. And I mixed a whole live concert, you know, so little opportunities popped up along the way. And then I got, did a little short film. And then eventually I got into movies and that's, that's right. That's, although I do a lot of other things, movies, that's my biggest love, you know, is working on movies.

[00:05:10] In terms of learning more about it. So you've done a lot of different roles, like, you know, sound effects editor, you know, sound designer, and some of these might be intertwined or, you know, interchangeable. But I wanted to know what kind of how things differ from certain roles for you. And just in terms of the kind of ins and outs of you doing, you know, going from one to another, you know, how does it differ, you know, film to a music video, that sort of thing. So like, yeah, yeah.

[00:05:37] Anora, for example, you know, what was your, your role and your process and experience on that? Well, Anora in particular, so yeah, I wear an awful lot of hats and not everyone does. I mean, some people just are music editors and some people are just dialogue editors. That's pretty common. And some people are just sound effects editors, some mix only.

[00:05:59] And then the newer, the newer generation of folks, I'm a little bit older now, but are doing a lot more things. You know, they came up from editing and sound design. So Anora was a, was a really interesting project. I had done a friend of mine that was the director, Sean, Sean Baker, and, and has done his past three movies. And so I did Sean's last movie called Red Rocket, which I loved. And I did it with my friend, John Warren.

[00:06:29] It's at his place. And then Anora came along and we did that. So I didn't have a huge amount of time on it, maybe like three weeks. And then next thing we know, it won the Cannes Film Festival, which is really exciting. And then it seemed to have some Oscar buzz. And then of course, then it swept the Oscars, you know, including Best Picture. So it's interesting, such a little film, you just, sometimes you just don't know, you know,

[00:06:57] sometimes the smallest little film can, can sweep the Oscars or a major film festival, or maybe it can lead to something else. So yes, I didn't work too often, too, too long on Anora, but it was great. We had a, we had a really good time on it. And, but other projects are three months. Sometimes it's a year, like they come and go a lot these days, you know?

[00:07:22] So a lot of that has to do with CGI and maybe they go reshoot. And so often movies these days, big and small, you're working on them and then they sort of stop for a while and then maybe later on they pick up. But in the old days, they didn't do that. So, but now everything, the schedules are just in flux completely. So it makes, it makes for a challenge, a challenging schedule, if you will. Were you creating sounds?

[00:07:50] Were you mixing in what, you know, what were you doing for that? Right. Even, even if it was just a couple of weeks. When you're hired as a sound designer on a feature film or sound effects editor, which is, that's what I was hired to do on that particular movie. And so a friend of mine did all the backgrounds. Adam did all the backgrounds and ambiences.

[00:08:14] And on that particular one, I just did all the vehicles and doors and, and fight. And there was trains and seagulls and other things like that. So I just, on that particular movie, there wasn't a lot of design. It was more what we call hard effects, more straight up sound effects. And so, but we tried to, to make it seem really authentic when they go to Vegas and then they,

[00:08:41] there's a lot of trains in her little town where she lives, subways, New York. So that's what I did on that one, sound effects editing. So are you on set for a role like that? Or are you just in the studio for that? And my, it's just post-production. So it's already been shot. But on the larger films, we come, as soon as they do the assembly or the first cut, you know, we might come on.

[00:09:08] And then we might, basically the way the bigger films work is that we, we are pulled on once they get the director's cut done and we do a quick cut of the film and then we go on to a big mixing stage and we mix a soundtrack. It's called a temp mix, a temp dub. And we might do this on the larger movies. We might do this five, six times, sometimes more. And by the end, you have figured everything out and you do the final mix.

[00:09:36] But on an independent movie, we just usually, because there's no money, typically, we wait until they lock the picture. So it's completely, the editing process has been done. And then the sound team's brought on. And that was the case of Anora. Oh, and to answer one of your other questions that I think you were alluding to, one of our jobs, it's evolved over the years, but one of the things that we do as sound effects editors is that we pre-mix all of our sounds.

[00:10:05] And so we don't just cut a door or a car. We would cut the car. If it goes across the screen, we would pan it. We would put reverb on it. We would maybe EQ it. And we'd get it as close to final as possible in our little studios offline. And so after a while, you get really good at that and you get good at mixing. And that's why a lot of people leave.

[00:10:32] They go on to mix, become mixers because they've been doing it for so long like me. Although, I mean, you've been a part of so many really big projects like, you know, John Wick is in there. Revenant's Beam, you know, kind of goes on and on. Are there any big projects, either those or others that really stand out to you as either having had a lot of big learning lessons, anything really super challenging or just a really you're looking back and like, wow, that was a pretty wild experience.

[00:11:02] You know, anything that kind of more so than others that sent out to you? The Revenant was one like that. That was a unique situation where they had a supervising sound editor on the project. And they didn't do it. Remember how I mentioned a minute ago, often you do a quick mix, you screen it to an audience, you screen it to the studio, and then they give you notes. And then you do it again and again. And by the end, you're done. But in the case of The Revenant, they didn't do that. They didn't do any temp mixes.

[00:11:31] The director didn't want to do that. So when they showed up to Universal the first day and hit play, it didn't go well. And so they fired the supervising sound editor. Very nice guy. But they fired him. And they called me and a couple other people and somebody from Skywalker. And they said, get over to Universal. And we had to sort of redo the movie there quickly. And that was a huge challenge.

[00:12:00] There was politics involved. You know, there was... The director was unhappy. The editor was a little difficult. And, you know, a lot's at stake and we're paying tons of money. There must have been 20 people working on it. And scrambling to kind of realize the director's vision. So that was really difficult. It worked out great, though. We were all really happy with the result. We loved how it turned out. But that was really tough.

[00:12:28] And the other thing that happens a lot on movies, on the bigger movies, they're always changing the cut. I sort of mentioned that a couple of times already. They're always... Everything's in flux. And so... And there's new CGI coming in. And so a lot of times on the bigger movies, half your time is spent what we call conforming. We get the new picture. And then none of our sounds are in sync with the new picture because they've changed the cut.

[00:12:56] And we have to move everything and put it back in place. And that's called conform. And so we spend a lot of time doing that. Like, you go through and you cut a big scene. And then you get the new version of the picture. And it's just there's holes in it. And everything's moved. Or they swap things. And you have to figure out how to put it together. These days we have software to help us do that. But it used to just be completely manual. You know?

[00:13:26] So that's a big part of the process. And so the reason I'm mentioning that is... Some movies... Black Adam would be another one. Where they're always changing. Everything's changing all the time. And it's so difficult to kind of put it all back together again. And you have to do that, you know, five times. And at the same time of putting it all back together again and making a cohesive soundtrack... You also have to do new things. The director might have some notes.

[00:13:56] A big part of our job is logistics. That's a big part of our job. And then the other side of it is the creative. But the logistics is just as important. It almost takes half the time. You have to lay everything out in a way that somebody can take your work... And understand it. And mix it properly. And so... You know, that's a big part of it as well. Is it typical for you to be working closely with the director on most projects?

[00:14:26] Or does it really kind of vary? Like, do some people not have a real eye or attention to that? And then others really, really do? You... The temp dubs that I keep mentioning, the temp mixes that we do, on the larger projects, that's when you meet the director. So you go onto the stage with all your stuff and you do a mix. And you might... Maybe a movie is broken down in, let's say, six 20-minute sections. We work in about 20-minute sections. We call reels.

[00:14:56] And so we mix a reel. And then the director might come in. We'll hit play. Play it down. And then he'll give us notes. And then we'll work on the thing. So... On the larger movies, the only time we really get to see the director is during the mix. It's pretty rare that they come in and hang out with you beforehand. On the smaller movies, which I love, you get to hang out with the directors. They'll come in your studio. They'll hang out. And you get to work with them. And it's a much more personal thing.

[00:15:26] But on the larger movies, like, the directors have so much going on. And they're dealing with visual effects. And they're dealing with producers. And they're dealing with the music and color and all this stuff. They don't really have much time for you. So that's why we try to figure everything out during these temporary temp mixes. So by the time we get to the final mix, we're pretty close. But I like working with...

[00:15:55] It's really rewarding and fun when the director can come and hang out with you. You can get so much done. And it's super fun. So I like it when it happens. Does that process change at all for a music video? Because you've done, like, some Sabrina Carpenter music videos and others as well. Since that is a more, I'm guessing, would be a more condensed production time. Does that kind of process change at all?

[00:16:21] And then also, for music videos, are you typically mixing? Are you, you know, editing? Well, there's one huge, huge difference. Is that a music video that you would see mostly on YouTube these days, something like that. And they're just stereo mixes. And they're for... And they're sort of mixed for a laptop or for headphones, something like that. They would be pretty quick.

[00:16:49] You know, I might spend a day, maybe two days. Like a day. That particular director, Dave Meyer, who brings me a lot of work, great guy. He's never come to my studio. He likes working from his place. And so we put everything on Frame.io. It's pretty cool. A lot of people use it these days. And there's others. But that's one that that director likes to use.

[00:17:12] So he just either texts me his notes or he puts notes that are tied to the picture on this platform I mentioned. And so something like a Sabrina Carpenter, it's pretty quick. It's like a day or two. And I would do the entire mix. So I would do the sound design. I would do the mix. I would do all the notes. And then next thing you know, it's up on YouTube.

[00:17:37] And there are some other music videos that I've done recently. I've done some stuff for Snoop and Dre recently. The same director where we went into a big stage and mixed. And spent a lot more time. Spent a couple days. With Dre. Sitting there next to me. Having a gin and juice. I'm not kidding. And he was great. But yeah, that might take a little longer.

[00:18:04] Are there any genres, any styles of sound or any parts of the job that you really cling to? Like, oh man, I get to be a part of this action movie. I'm going to probably be able to get to do this type of sound. Or is there anything, any kind of role that you like seek out more than others? Or are they all sort of similar for you? Well, that's a good point. You know, there are certain. On the action stuff, I do a lot of the fights. And what else?

[00:18:32] You know, like a lot of John Wick, I did a lot of the guns. The gun foley when he goes into the shop, this secret shop. And he selects all his guns. And so I did all that stuff. But I will say horror is really... Anyone will tell you that's in the sound business loves working on horror films. Really fun. So I really like doing the horror, the weird stuff. I like sci-fi.

[00:19:02] It's great. Really fun to do. And I have such an appreciation of sci-fi films from a very young age. You just have to watch your ears when you're cutting guns for weeks. It's quite loud. So vehicles I don't like doing. They're really hard. Horses are really challenging because... Some people are really good at horses. But you've got to remember, horses have all these different ways that they run, they walk, they trot, they canter, they gallop. They come in and stop.

[00:19:32] And they're really challenging to do. And, you know, when you're looking at a horse on the screen, you can see all four of his legs and what they're doing. And sometimes they go from like a walk to a gallop. And so you have to really make it look right. It takes a long time to do it. So that's not my favorite. Any four-legged animal is not that fun to me. I would prefer just to do, you know, like a fight scene or a gun battle or something like that.

[00:20:02] And vehicles now are really difficult because you don't often have all the sounds you need. You know, unless, like a good friend of mine, Peter Brown supervises all the Fast and Furious movies and they'll spend a year recording cars, you know, for that movie. And so they'll take all these drift cars and you put microphones in the engine and on the tailpipe and you have it doing all these different things.

[00:20:28] And if you have a complete workup, almost anything you can imagine that car doing, you have a recording of and then it's rather fun. But often you don't have all the stuff that you need and it makes it challenging. So talking about horror, did that come into play with Scream? Like were there any standout things on those movies that really got you into the horror sounds?

[00:20:55] Yeah, there's a lot of gore, but I like the more psychological, weird design sounds and voices and atmospheres. That stuff is really fun, fun for me. If you were to go into a creepy old house and the house is sort of alive, you know, you're making weird voices and drips and creating like a really creepy environment. It's really fun.

[00:21:22] And like for The Conjuring, we did weird ghost things, ghost sounds, and I worked on a couple of those. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I really do like going to a theater is because I can really appreciate the sound. Yeah. Which is even having like a nice TV and stuff in your home, it's like you get to go to the theater and it's like truly all around you, you know, it's blaring.

[00:21:45] So, you know, you really get to, at least for me, I get to really admire the detail of everything, which in other situations you might miss, you know. And also sound is half. Visuals and visuals have, now that includes music, you know, music and sound, that's half of the experience. Sometimes more, you know. And then visuals are the other half, but that can be sometimes more as well. So, but to me, mostly it's 50-50, you know, visuals versus sound, you know.

[00:22:15] So, it's quite important. But you're right, when you go into a theater and you can feel the subwoofers and it's very immersive and there's strange sounds coming from the surround speakers and now everything's Atmos. So, things are coming from the ceiling as well. It's fun. It's really fun. I enjoy it too.

[00:22:34] Either when you're growing up or even now, are there any, whether it's in music and film, is there any sound work that stuck out as being something that you really admired or something that you just really, okay, go ahead. Absolutely, absolutely. I made a little list. Okay. All right. So, Star Wars, the first three, you know, these are all, these are all films that sort of legendary sound films that I, that, you know, that I love and pretty much everyone loves.

[00:23:03] Like, legendary sound jobs, very signature sounds. Back to the Future had really cool sounds. Raiders of the Lost Ark. And I got to work with one of the, work for the guy that did the sound for Raiders, Steve Flick. He's still around. Great guy. What else? I put, um, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, The Mission Impossibles. Here's a big one. All the James Bond movies.

[00:23:31] Very amazing sound jobs. Saving Private Ryan. You know? So, all of those things. And there was actually one movie called, um, Blowout. It was a John Travolta movie. Really old. And that's one of the things that got me interested in sound. He was, in the movie, he plays the role of a sound editor. And he was recording sounds. And he's editing them together. And I was watching him do this.

[00:24:00] And I was fascinated by it. And so, I never forgot it. I saw it at a pretty young age. And I think that was one of the reasons that I'm in film today is that movie. I, uh, well, when I first started getting interested in sound, it kind of went hand in hand with movies. But when you really, I think, either start listening to things on headphones or you go to a theater and you start listening to it, especially with a movie that has such diverse sound.

[00:24:30] It is a really eye-opening experience. Because you think, okay, all this had to be created and manipulated and mixed. And the sound is, I think, a lot of people don't realize how essential it is to really having an immersive, a realistic, whatever experience to that movie. Yeah. And it's true. Yeah. I mean, and it's interesting. Nowadays, you're probably in the minority.

[00:24:57] Probably most people, a lot of people just watching their TV or headphones or a laptop, you know. There's a lot of that. The only thing that I would say about that, look, I feel the same way you do. When I'm sitting in a mix and we're mixing a movie and I'm looking around and listening, it's spectacular. It really is.

[00:25:19] But I will say, I think in spite of making a career, I have made a career out of sound and absolutely love it. You know, to me, the thing that's even more important, though, is the story. The story, the acting, the writing, you know. It's like you could be at home watching on a terrible sound system. It's a great movie. It's going to get you. Yeah. You know. So... And that is a good point because end of the day, if you don't have the basis for the good

[00:25:48] story, it doesn't matter how good everything else is. Yeah. Because then people are just like, well, you know, I'm bored. I'm going to turn it off. It's like if the story, the characters aren't grabbing you, you know, the technical stuff, it basically becomes irrelevant for the average viewer, you know. It's the same thing with songs, like music. Like sometimes you can have a song, like an old song, and it doesn't sound that great. It wasn't recorded that well. But there's something about it. It's got that thing, you know, that's cool.

[00:26:17] And it really gets you, the emotions or whatever it is. So I think we're on the same page on that. Is there anything else coming up? Anything else recent that you kind of plug? Anything else on the horizon? It's interesting. I never know what I'm going to be working on. It's hard to say. But, you know, it's a little bit of a challenging time with entertainment. And a lot of things are being sent overseas right now.

[00:26:46] So but we're hoping, you know, as a community, everyone's been a bit slow this past year. But we're hoping that it seems like things are really picking up. And my friend's working on the new Superman. And somebody else is working on the new Naked Gun. And it seems like things are really going. So I am really hopeful. And I think there's a lot of good things coming up. Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's Odyssey is coming up and F1. And so I'm excited about that.

[00:27:16] Yeah. Chris, thank you very much for taking the time to talk. I feel like I've already learned quite a bit that I didn't know before. So I really appreciate it. But I really have enjoyed it. I mean, you've been a part of so many amazing projects that I do really hold close. And I and I love. And so your work is very essential to that. That appreciation and that entertainment. So, yeah, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. It's really nice of you to have me on and say hi to the wife. All right. I will. OK.

[00:27:46] All right. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye. All right. Well, that is about it. Thanks again to Chris for that. I hope to have you on again sometime soon. Hope you enjoyed it even half as much as I did. And see you next time, y'all. Bye bye. Bye bye.