‘The Creator’ sound team members Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, Ian Voigt and Tom Ozanich: ‘It was grueling, but very rewarding’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

You get the feeling from talking to four of the Oscar-nominated members from the sound team of the sci-fi action thriller “The Creator” – supervising sound editor/sound designers Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, sound mixer Ian Voigt and rerecording mixer Tom Ozanich – that they have never been through anything quite like the adventure they just experienced providing the sonics for this feature. It was shot on location in many countries throughout Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, the director Gareth Edwards (“Rogue One,” “Godzilla”) eschewing backlot and green screen while recreating the vibe of a small indie production. “We shot it guerilla style, but then fuse all of this technology into what looks and sounds like a $300 million movie but isn’t,” stresses Aadahl.

“Sonically, Gareth wanted to combine this sort of realism using the actual sounds of nature in all of these different countries with the very high-tech end of what sound design can do and utilize this whole spectrum of sound from sci-fi to realistic.” Watch our exclusive video interview with the quartet Best Sound nominees above.

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SEE‘The Creator’ reviews: John David Washington leads ‘highly entertaining film with intense action and mind-blowing cinematography’

Yes, “The Creator” was made on a tight $80 million budget, which is something resembling chump change for an ambitious production of this scale. The film is set roughly 40 years in the future after an artificial intelligence detonates a nuclear warhead in Los Angeles, starting a war of humans against AI robots. It stars John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Ken Watanabe and Allison Janney. Van der Ryn explains that while the natural sounds culled from shooting in the different exotic locations elicit authenticity, “We had to create this layer of imagined future technology. Voices get treated in a whole combination of different ways. Sometimes they feel almost low-tech, and  them sometimes they’re super high-tech. It took an incredible amount of work with these robot voices, which Tom can speak to. He did an amazing job.”

The AI robots in the film (one in particular) are far more than a mere collection of beeps and buzzes. Ozanich notes that the lead robot character of Alphie (Voyles) “takes on this more-human-than-some-of-the-humans characteristics. That was a critical part of the movie we wanted to protect…We’ve also got robots that are so processed that, while they’re speaking English and we can understand them, they’re clearly robotic. But I would say this is probably the most complicated dialogue movie I’ve ever done in terms of all the different treatments and things that are going on.”

SEE‘The Creator’ trailer: ‘Rogue One’ filmmaker Gareth Edwards returns with A.I. action drama [Watch]

In terms of recording the production itself, Voigt, as the sound mixer, was always cognizant of the fact his director was intent on “reinventing the wheel.” He stresses, “Basically, I ended up doing the whole film handheld. And it was never easy, because Gareth loves the idea of having people naturally talking in the background of stuff. Basically everywhere we went was so far and so remote. And we never really had time to settle down in any location. We were always on the move. I have to say, it was grueling, but very rewarding at the same time. That way of filmmaking has changed the way I look at everything now. It can be done better and much more economically. And also, from my point of view, I was always the guy stuck 100 yards away and I hated that. Being much closer to the action and with the artists and interacting was so much more rewarding for me.”

The four sound teammates all have abundant feature resumes, including working on the “A Quiet Place,” “Transformer” and “Lord of the Rings” films and have 16 Academy Award nominations between them. While they’re proud to have their sound stand out as a central character in their movies, having sound come through as distinctive without being obtrusive or overly noticeable is sometimes a difficult balance to strike.

SEE‘Rogue One’ director Gareth Edwards: ‘I’d do it again if I had a time machine’

“Absolutely true,” Van der Ryn acknowledges. “One of the really interesting things about sound is that most of the time when it gets noticed, it’s because there’s something wrong with it. So when we’re doing our work at its peak and when we’re really successful, it’s not so much noticed as felt, because it’s so integrated with the storytelling and with the environment and with the tone. As an audience, (sound is most appreciated) when you’re sort of sucked into it and it becomes an experience that you go with. We want it to be something that sticks with you and resonates with you in a way that an hour later, a day later, a week later, you’re going to be thinking and still feeling like, ‘Wow, that was an experience. That was a journey that I went on’.”

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