If I asked you to describe what a bird sounds like, or even if I asked you for your best R2-D2 impression, you’d be able to fulfill either of those requests on command. But say that you had to come up with a sound for something that didn’t exist yet? It’s a harder order to fill, which is part of why The Creator’s 2024 Oscar nominees for Best Sound are so good at what they do.
The other part is being able to take an oddly specific instruction from writer/director Gareth Edwards, and turn it into the unique and awe-inspiring sci-fi movie soundscape that defines the massive USS NOMAD.
The Notes Gareth Edwards Gave The Creator’s Sound Team For Creating NOMAD’s Laser Sound
During a recent press day celebrating the nominations that director Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi movie racked up for this year’s contest, I had the honor of speaking with Supervising Sound Editors/Sound Designers Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, as well as Re-Recording Mixer Dean Zupancic. All three men were on hand to discuss just what went into the award-nominated sound work that played a part in giving life to John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles’ perilous journey.
A good portion of The Creator’s adventure involves NOMAD, a roving warship that the U.S. military commands, in an effort to combat the A.I. threat they see in the world. Believe it or not, Gareth Edwards approached the sound team as early as six years ago to start developing what the craft would sound like. This was probably fueled by the fact that the Rogue One director was inspired to create this ship after seeing “weird shit” on an Area 51 road trip.
Using the language of the script was only part of the cocktail that made this very singular sound happen. As Erik Aadahl shared with CinemaBlend, it was Edwards’ specific directions that helped color it all in. Without any visual guidelines to go by, here’s what Aadahl revealed kicked off NOMAD’s sound design process.
When we first started working on the sound we didn't have any visual effects. So we were kind of like, which is a wonderful, freeing, creative thing that just have like this, you're working in the dark with a blank canvas, and what do you do? And Gareth's direction to us was, ‘Well, it should sound dangerous, and it should sound like if you were to put your hand into the beam and hold it there for too long, you're gonna get cancer.’ And I love that kind of direction where it's not like, ‘Make it sound like this sound from another movie.’ It's more of an emotion. He’s going for something visceral that we then, as sound artists, get to interpret and come up with, ‘Okay, what is that dangerous sound of something volatile and corrosive and powerful and dangerous?’[...] What we wound up with was sort of a hybrid of both of our work which is the only synthetic, like purely synthetic sound that we use in the movie, even though it's a sci-fi movie.
Clearly Gareth Edwards was inspired by what he saw on his pivotal Nevada road trip, as NOMAD’s visual and sonic signatures have already caught on with fans of The Creator. When there are YouTube videos of your movie’s battleship firing up its weapons systems, you can definitely make a claim that you’ve made some sort of a dent on the consciousness.
Eventually Edwards’ own habit of vocalizing sound effects not only helped define the sounds of NOMAD, but also helped the Academy Award nominated VFX team shape the look of this massive force of destruction. That scope would also encourage the rest of The Creator’s sound team to dig deeper and play with what the audience would hear in a way that actually connected to the very real heart of this epic adventure.
How NOMAD’s Extended Soundscape Helped Sell The Creator’s Emotional Core
As Supervising Sound Editors/Sound Designer Erik Aadahl mentioned above, the sounds of NOMAD’s lasers were built off of the influences of corrosion and artificiality. But fellow Supervising Sound Editors/Sound Designer Ethan Van der Ryn used the opportunity to discuss how using sound, and sometimes the lack thereof, really tied into a particular moment of The Creator’s third act race for survival.
Joshua (John David Washington) and Alfie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles) find themselves bringing the fight to their would-be opponents, as the commandeer a commercial space vehicle from futuristic LAX and dock with NOMAD. Intent on sabotaging this particular war machine, there are moments where it gets explosive and the presence of atmosphere is lost.
In the old days of sci-fi, there wouldn’t be much mind paid to that fact. Once movies like 2009's Star Trek started to pay attention to how the vacuum of space offered unique opportunities to tweak the audience’s ears, all sorts of things were possible. As Ethan Van der Ryn spoke with CinemaBlend, he reflected on how that attention to detail led to some pure sonic storytelling:
…when Joshua blows [the hatch door] and suddenly we're exposed to space, all the atmosphere gets sucked out of the jet. And so we sucked the sound out, as the atmosphere is being sucked out. And for me that's like such a beautiful moment, because it's really in that moment, sound telling the story, telling you what's going on, and making it become a poignant moment. Because Joshua fortunately was able to get into his space suit, and Alfie is standing there in front of him in no spacesuit. It suddenly hits home, ‘Oh yeah, that's right,’ because by this point in the movie, you've in a way grown to love this little girl so much. You've in a way forgotten that she's actually a robot, and then you're reminded in this moment, ‘Oh yeah, that's right. She's actually a machine,’ 'cause she's able to survive without a problem in this environment that suddenly is devoid of oxygen. And the only reason he's able to survive is he's in this spacesuit. That whole moment is, that whole realization is made possible by what we do with the sound.
Moments both tender and terrifying were seen in The Creator’s first trailer, and that’s actually only part of the entire package that those who hold a Hulu subscription can currently stream for themselves. Neither side of that equation is played as an exercise of showboating, as Gareth Edwards’ vision for this particular story hews towards a more organic near future than something like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story or even his 2014 Godzilla reboot.
That approach best sums up this final section from Ethan Van der Ryn’s remarks. Though we’ve talked about corrosion, artificiality and lasers that look and sound like they’d give you cancer, it’s the summation below that truly digs to the core of why The Creator is one of the nominees for excellence in sound at this year’s Academy Awards. With that in mind, here’s what Van der Ryn had to say:
I think it's subtle and probably for a lot of people in the audience, it actually is subliminal. Maybe they're not even aware that this is being done with the sound, because it's a delicate balance really to make it feel believable moment to moment. … From an intellectual point of view, it's like where the NOMAD is in space it always sort of adjusts. From higher up where obviously you know, explosions are gonna be more muted and more silent, to lower down and more atmosphere where you're gonna hear more. And that gave us the sort of leeway to play them differently in a way, moment to moment, which I think was super valuable in terms of being able to create all these gradations of color within this sort of the sonic tapestry that we're constantly weaving.
Whether it's inspiring futuristic shock and awe, or tying together the motional beats of The Creator, NOMAD is an impressive centerpiece. As audiences have had a chance to get to know it first hand, all that awaits is the final judgement of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' voting board. We'll find out how this story ends soon enough, as the 96th Academy Awards will air on Sunday, March 10th, only on ABC.
