So we put a few questions to Sound Supervisor Kami Asgar, Re-recording Mixer Beau Borders, FX Editors Sam Fan and Matt Cavanaugh, as well as Sound Assistant Jessica Parks.
I’ve been a big fan of Neill Blomkamp since working with him on District 9. He has a reputation for giving the sound team lots of freedom, so how was it working with Neil on Gran Turismo?
Kami Asgar: From the outset, Neill was enthusiastic about giving audiences a thrilling ride. He really wanted it to sound as exciting and dynamic as possible, making you feel part of the action. Most of our sound crew are car fanatics, so we were given a lot of latitude and trust to make it happen.
Sam Fan: Neill is also a car enthusiast and meticulous about engines! He was really open-minded and respected everyone’s input and what they could bring into the movie, giving clear direction on whether sound effects, music, or dialogue should drive a scene.
Clearly, it was important for the audience to distinguish between the different cars, and it sounded like you relied heavily on gearbox/turbo whine and cockpit rattles to do that. Were those real recordings or designed?
Beau Borders: A bit of both!! Charles Deenan and Source Sound provided incredibly precise recordings of these cars from so many different angles. I had a fantastic palette to choose from! These were authentic recordings, but as the LMP2 cars all follow a similar spec, there wasn’t much contrast between them in their engine note.
So, for dramatic purposes, we thought it would be cool to have a bit of a standoff between our hero and our two villains before LeMans starts, so we emphasized a sonic difference between them. We also wanted all three categories of racing to feel different.
Kami Asgar: This was a big challenge, as we had to procure race cars to record that sounded great and had different characters from each other. But we also had to stay true to Jann’s Nissan race cars. We recorded many versions of the Nissan GTR-engined street and race cars, including a matching Nissan-powered LMP2 car used during the Le Mans sequences. We recorded a Lamborghini GT3 race car, a McLaren GT2, and several others for his competitors’ cars.
Matt Cavanaugh: Charles’ crew really did an exceptional job recording real cars from many onboard perspectives, both interior and exterior. Later, different mics were muted or unmuted to determine the best sonic character for any given shot.
We also used the rattles from the game sounds just to give us the feel of the video game too! Sam and I sweetened the interior shots quite a bit, using different bumps and rattles from all kinds of sources, not just car recordings, since many of the shakes and bumps of the racing shots were from VFX added later on.
Envy is a great design tool in my bag, and I don’t think there's any professional mixer that doesn’t use Spanner or Slapper in their session. The products work as intended and have become industry standards for that reason.
I loved the treatment of kerb strikes and rumble strips when we were onboard with Jann. Where did that come from?
Beau: As loud as it is inside a real race car, drivers are still very aware of the sounds of things like kerbs, tyre lockups, and other surrounding cars.
During the first race at GT Academy, it was the idea of our Picture Editor, Colby Parker Jr., to create an “in-the-head” moment where we remove the engine sounds and focus on Jann’s breaths. With the engines gone, the kerb sounds provided by Matt Cavanaugh and Sam Fan were revealed.
To make them a bit more surreal, I bypassed the source sound and used only the output of the Slapper plugin. I used a preset I made for when I want a sound to bounce throughout the room and highlight Dolby Atmos.
We repeated this “in-your-head” trick a few times in the movie. It was a nice way to take a brief break from engines and music and shift the audience’s attention.
I utilize a Slapper setup where the output of a 7.0 delay feeds multiple Dolby Atmos Objects, creating a sense that a sound is pinging all throughout the room utilizing the height channels. Then when the film needs to be mixed into 7.1, 5.1 and Stereo, I rely on Spanner to make that effect translate.
The passbys in the film were really impressive. I adored that static shot of the 6-second gap between the leaders, where the beautiful ambience is punctuated by the chasing cars passing from rear to front. What was the process for creating those passbys?
Beau: That moment is one of our favourites! It follows a line from Jack letting Jann know he has some ground to make up. The gap of silence between the two passbys shows that he’s really got to hustle! Every department gets credit for that moment.
Matt: Any time you have nonstop action for long periods, you risk fatiguing the audience, and if everything sounds big, then nothing sounds big. I love how this sequence was constructed so we could rest our ears for a moment. And what better way to contrast the loud, screaming engines than by filling it with the sounds of lush trees and native French birds?
So we also punctuated the cars’ sudden appearances on screen with cannon fire and some designed whoosh/bass drops… that worked so naturally for pass-bys.
Beau, we know you’re also an accomplished race driver, so clearly there was a lot of emphasis on the accuracy of the driver’s experience. Still, I’m wondering what tricks you used to heighten and exaggerate what we hear in the name of storytelling.
Beau: It’s no secret that car racing has been near and dear to my heart since I was a little kid watching my Dad race around Daytona Speedway. Having spent over half my life competing in levels similar to those in the movie, I certainly tried to put my best foot forward to keep things authentic and exciting.
My favorite part about that was how the whole crew became total racing experts! Everyone constantly wanted to know how things would sound in reality, especially the dialogue department, which wondered about pit crew chatter, radios, PAs, and announcers.
Our mantra was to keep things realistic, but then kick up the energy as often as possible. That’s where we blurred the lines and added layers of sound fx that might not necessarily be literal, but they kept the momentum alive.
What about those wonderful “headspace” moments where we experience Jann’s state of focus or anxiety? Were those designed during the editorial or was it something that happened in the mix?
Kami Asgar: That happened mostly at the mix with our picture editors Colby Parker and Austyn Daines, who really had a very specific vision for each time we pulled out of reality and into Jann’s headspace. This vision couldn’t be achieved until we had all the elements together on the mix stage.
Matt Cavanaugh: These were another terrific deployment of breaking up the potentially constant engine revs and letting the audience’s ears rest momentarily. Maybe better than that, it helps the audience better empathize with Jann and experience what he’s going through.
I handled Jann’s sonic PTSD point-of-view headspace moments in the Le Mans race. I designed a low-frequency pulse that grew underneath a rising noise element that gradually overtook the sounds of the car and radio chatter and eventually gave way to a very satisfying needle drop from the music department. That was intercut with some crashes and crunches provided by Charles’ crew, which I sweetened with additional grunge to match changes to the VFX.
Was there some concept you had in your head to distinguish between the in-game car FX and the real-world scenes?
Sam: Neil wanted us to incorporate as many GT game sounds and PlayStation sounds as we could to resonate with the game’s fans. In fact, to make things as authentic as possible, our entire sound team purchased GT7 for this project. Sony even installed two driving simulator pods in our mixing stage to help us get acquainted with the game! We directly recorded various GTRs from the PS5 output, capturing different tracks and in-game racing sound perspectives, and incorporated them into specific scenes.
Polyphony was a great collaborator as well, providing us access to the entire UI and in-game racing sounds.
During the cafe racing scene, we blended sounds from a real GTR with in-game GTR moments. We utilized two distinct GTR engine sets to correspond with the VFX of the ghost car emerging from and then returning to the screen.
Beau: We never wanted to let the gamers down, so when we were truly in a Gran Turismo gaming environment, we wanted to keep the game sounds present in the real race scenes to connect the gamer audience to the film. When there were moments where the game became three-dimensional and while we were stuck with only PS5 Gran Turismo sounds, we utilized Spanner to fill the sounds in the room and encompass the audience.
Neill took things a step further and added game graphics to the real-world races, showing what place each car was in and whether it had gained or lost a position. These graphics don’t actually make a sound in the game, but we wanted to draw the audience’s attention to them. It’s subtle, but I think it works.
What was the workflow for temp mixes? Were you able to carry any of that work through into the final?
Kami: We consistently carried our work forward, but 90-95% of what was in those temps, including dialog, FX, and music, was recut for the final.
Sam: We definitely did do our best to preserve intent in terms of sonic character, storytelling, motivation, volume levels, panning, reverb, etc. Some scenes were developed starting from the first temp mix, undergoing continuous improvements and evaluations across the different temp mixes. This was especially true for design moments. After each temp mix, we would refine and enhance certain scenes. The core rhythm and beats from the temp mixes were largely retained since they resonated with the audience.
Jessica: This film was a little different because we had a few more early temp mixes than usual, which means our team spent more of their time preparing the reels for temp and temp mixing when they’d usually be starting to cut. Combine that with all of the custom recordings captured for the cars and the time that took, and Kevin and Beau had quite a lot of brand new work on their hands come predub time.
Beau: The cars were not available to be recorded until very late in the schedule. Source Sound then needed time to edit them, so we never had the most important sound fx category until the final mix! Fortunately, Neill and our picture editors could spend a lot of time with Kami, the sound editors and myself at Sony to preview all the engine sounds and give feedback.
I’m always interested in how people handle the transition from editorial to mix. Did you have a conversation at the start to settle on a session template and a specific set of verbs and delays? Or was it a case of building new sessions before the mix?
Kami: We were very fortunate to know who was mixing the final, and we had different mixers through the temps. Still, we worked in Kevin and Beau’s templates throughout which really made it easy to keep the organization flowing.
Beau: I’ve worked extensively with 424 Post, and Sam Fan and Matt Cavanaugh have worked comfortably in my template, so that was an easy conversation. Charles Deenan’s crew at Source Sound had their own template, but they did a great job of combining their setup and mine for the film. Because we knew there would be tons of picture changes and visual FX updates all the way till the end, we decided to keep some harmonic and delay plugins live on a portion of the over 900 tracks, and we kept the engines on Elastic Audio tracks. This was a huge burden on the ProTools, but once we overcame our sync issues we decided this was the best way to keep our options open. Source Sound never had the final music, and the best way to make the engine notes and the musical notes get along was to adjust pitch and time on the fly.
It was a tough setup for the crew but it was worth it in the end.
We kept the engines on Elastic Audio tracks. Source Sound never had the final music, and the best way to make the engine notes and the musical notes get along was to adjust pitch and time on the fly.
What was the process for embellishing the raw car recordings? Was it just a bit of EQ, or were you adding tons of layers and putting everything through a guitar pedal and a PA?
Kami: That’s Charles’ secret recipe, he and his crew have LOTS of tricks up their sleeves to make things exciting. He’s utilized various plugins to clean up the recordings and to accentuate the aspects of the engine we wanted to highlight. A lot of the tracks we got from Source Sound had baked in FX, but not in any way to tie the mixers hands.
Matt: I was surprised at how little help the car recordings needed from extra plugins or sound design sweeteners. It really speaks to the enormous benefit of collecting quality custom recordings for a project. The recordings they captured were not only extensive and beautifully captured, but the cars themselves were driven aggressively with lots of different maneuvers. Without that, our palette would have been severely hamstrung, and the cars likely would’ve sounded repetitive and boring.
For a deeper dive into the process Charles and his team at Source Sound used to record, edit and premix the vehicles, check out the fantastic interview over at asoundeffect.com
Jann’s horrific crash at the Nurburgring was incredibly effective. The “takeoff” moment is wonderful but I’m really interested in how you built and mixed the onboard POV as the car flips and tumbles over the barriers.
Sam: When Kami first showed me the crash video, it was a profoundly shocking and harrowing experience.
On the car flips, we aimed to capture the sensation of the wind blowing through as the car reached the tipping point, propelling it further. We’ve been developing the wind whoosh since the temp mix. Given their fleeting nature, the impacts and the tumbling needed to be crisp and distinct.
I truly wanted the audience to hear and feel each collision. Every impact was layered with 4-6 different sounds. For the interior POV, the slow motion and breathing effects were elements Austyn integrated while editing the scene. During those quieter moments, we incorporated subtle details like the rattling of gears to enhance the visuals and heighten the contrast.
Beau: This was another great example of how removing sounds is sometimes more effective than adding them. We had every possible sound covered, but we decided to let the engines fade away exactly in time with the music fading away. The corner where Jann had his accident (in real life and in the movie) is called “Flugplatz”, which means “Air Field” in German. It’s known as a part of the track where cars get a bit airborne, but the way his car got so much air underneath and peeled off the track was very rare and bizarre. To accentuate this we dropped out all sound and focussed on a wind vacuum. Even though the engine in reality would rev wildly up to the limiter when the wheels left the ground, we didn’t play that sound. Instead, we tried to suspend reality for a moment, which gave the actual car impacts much more force. Since our POV is from inside the car, we moved all the crashes and debris around the room to give the sense of the car flipping wildly. Lastly, we added creaks, groans, heat ticks and fuel leaking all around us as the car settled upside down.
Matchbox changed the game for me, not only in terms of saving me scores of time by helping minimize the damage caused by picture changes and running complicated conforms successfully, but also as a utility tool to help me catch sneaky VFX changes, sharing conform fix notes as user markers between editors, bypassing the picture department for a jump note between random versions, and much more.
So, I’m guessing you had a locked cut and final VFX when you started the project. What was your workflow for dealing with updates?
Jessica: Films like these – action movies with a high VFX budget – never have a locked cut before we begin sound editorial or even before the final mix! VFX is often updated even after the mix has been printed and delivered. In this environment, Matchbox has become an invaluable tool for catching those updates.
Some VFX updates impact sound, and some don’t. Collaborative picture departments (like this one) try to help sound by flagging significant VFX changes for us, but they can’t catch everything and don’t always know whether it needs sound or not, leaving us to discover for ourselves. This is where the matchbox video comparison and visual diffs feature really shines – at a glance, we can tell where we need to update, and the time it has saved is immeasurable.
Sam: Even on the final delivery day on stage, we were still addressing last-minute VFX updates. Both Matt and I heavily relied on Matchbox for any picture or VFX updates. We each took different reels and shared Matchbox projects with each other for review and updates.
Matt: I certainly WISH we’d had a locked picture and final VFX when we started, but as with most of the movies I work on, GT continued to evolve until the very end of the final mix, a practice that I’m still reluctantly learning to accept. Being able to keep up with the sometimes obscene number of changes arriving so late during the post-sound process would be unbearable without tools like Matchbox. With Matchbox’s video compare, I almost never need to rely on EDLs or change notes anymore. Just a quick comparison of the old and new picture and I’ve got a fairly accurate map of the changes that I can then massage into the most efficient and least destructive conform possible. Since Matchbox also lets you place custom markers and export the conform as a saved file, Sam and I could easily flag any VFX changes with notes and pass the Matchbox file back and forth for either of us to execute or to open up later if we needed to reference a specific change between versions.
Did you generally have a key assistant who handled the turnovers and worked out all the changes, or was it left to each editor to manage their own updates?
Jessica: Me! But thanks to the time Matchbox saves, Sam and Matt found it most efficient to run Matchbox for themselves once I pushed the new version through to the stage.
Kami: For this many temps, Matchbox was essential. Sometimes it was just a couple of days from turnover to screenings, and we needed to update sessions, re-mix entire reels, and output for every screening.
Sam: We underwent eight different temp mixes before arriving at the final mix! On the dialogue and effects sides we preferred to handle updates ourselves. This was particularly true when we knew the session’s contents and could identify parts we might repurpose from an earlier version or reuse in certain situations.
As a Sound Assistant, Matchbox is the main event. Before we had a music editor, I used it during the temps to compare music tracks from the AAF and update the temp music sessions without having to painstakingly listen and compare. It’s extremely useful.
