00:00Now we need to talk about Nomad.
00:03Could you as a team describe the process of creating that signature scanning noise?
00:08Well it started before we saw any visuals at all on the film.
00:13In fact, Gareth approached us six years ago with this concept and that's when we started
00:18like gestating ideas for the movie before a frame, a picture had been shot.
00:24And I remember in the script, we're talking about this sort of big ship in the stratosphere
00:30that can go around the globe, shoot down blue beams across the terrain and scan and target
00:37to be able to bomb AI bases.
00:41And so when we first started working on the sound, we didn't have any visual effects.
00:48So we were kind of like, which is a wonderful freeing creative thing that just have like
00:53this, you're working in the dark with a blank canvas and what do you do?
00:58And Gareth's direction to us was, well, it should sound dangerous.
01:04And it should sound like if you were to put your hand into the beam and hold it there
01:09for too long, you're going to get cancer.
01:12And I love that kind of direction where it's not like, make it sound like this sound from
01:17another movie.
01:18It's more of like an emotion, it's he's going for something visceral that we then as sound
01:23artists get to interpret and come up with, okay, what is that dangerous sound of something
01:29volatile and corrosive and powerful and dangerous?
01:34And so I did a bunch of experimentation.
01:38One of our sound designers, Malta Beeler, did a bunch of experimentation.
01:42What we wound up with was sort of a hybrid of both of our work, which is the only synthetic,
01:49like purely synthetic sound that we use in the movie.
01:52Even though it's a sci-fi movie, we based most of the sounds on actual organic recordings.
01:58These were pure synth, which is ironic because it's the West who's trying to destroy AI,
02:03but they are using the most synthetic technology of everyone.
02:07So there's an irony in that.
02:11First, we created sort of these dangerous synthetic tones, mostly deep frequencies that
02:17then we would add like a riz to, which to me, reminds me of like something corrosive,
02:25like a Jacob's Ladder-ish, you know, a buzz that kind of resonates.
02:30And what we wound up doing is we started to see the visuals come in and the beams would
02:36kind of shift and switch and do this sort of stuff.
02:41We would do these sort of like, which was perfect because that made it sound even more
02:49volatile and dangerous, like this building energy that would then cut off and shift.
02:54So actually, that was one of the easier sound concepts in the movie, but one of my favorites
03:03because it's just, it's so pure and fun cinematically.
03:09The other interesting thing sonically about Nomad is that in the third act, when we go
03:15aboard Nomad, we get to play with the whole idea of what happens, you know, when the hatch
03:22door on the jet that they travel to Nomad on, when the hatch door, when Joshua blows
03:29it and suddenly we're exposed to space and all the atmosphere gets sucked out of the
03:35jet.
03:38And so we, you know, we suck the sound out as the atmosphere is being sucked out.
03:45And for me, that's like such a beautiful moment because it's really in that moment, sounds
03:50telling the story, telling you what's going on and making it become a poignant moment
03:59because Joshua fortunately was able to get into his space suit and Alfie is standing
04:04there in front of him in no space suit.
04:09And it's suddenly like hits home.
04:11Oh yeah, that's right.
04:13Because by this point in the movie, you've, you've in a way grown to love this, this little
04:19girl so much, you've in a way forgotten that she's actually a robot.
04:23And then you're reminded in this, in this moment, oh yeah, that's right.
04:27She's actually a machine because she's able to survive without a problem in this, in this
04:33environment that suddenly is devoid of oxygen.
04:37And the only reason he's able to survive is he's in this space suit.
04:42And that whole, that whole moment is, is sort of that whole realization is made possible
04:50by what we do with the, with the sound.
04:54And then as we travel through Nomad in that whole third act, it becomes a real sort of
05:01balancing act, you know, for, for Dean and Tom, especially mixing as far as like, okay,
05:08how far can we push it in every given moment to explain the geography of Nomad in terms
05:16of like, how are we in an airlock?
05:21Are we in a space that, that has atmosphere or are we in a part of the ship that's already
05:26lost its atmosphere because the, the ship is, you know, starting to, to break apart.
05:33And so it's, it's a really, I think it's subtle and probably for a lot of audience, people
05:39in the audience, it was, it actually is subliminal.
05:42Maybe they're not even aware that this is being done with the sound because it's, it's
05:48a delicate balance really to make it feel believable moment to moment, but also to always
05:55be reinforcing that idea, you know, that the oxygen is actually running out.
06:03So for me, it's an interesting sort of way that we use sound to help tell the story,
06:12but in, in, in subtle, maybe more subtle ways that, that sometimes become almost subliminal,
06:20but still, you know, impact us as an audience.
06:24From an intellectual point of view, it's like the, where, where the Nomad is in space is
06:31always sort of, it, it, it adjusts from like higher up where obviously, you know, explosions
06:39are going to be more muted and more silent to lower down in more atmosphere where you're
06:44going to hear more.
06:45And that gave us the, the sort of leeway to play them differently in a way moment to moment,
06:51which I think was, was super valuable in terms of being able to create all these gradations
06:59of color within this sort of the sonic tapestry that we're constantly weaving.
