‘Gran Turismo’: Recording, Designing, and Mixing The Roaring Sound Of Speed

Director Neill Blomkamp’s theatrical take on Gran Turismo shows exceptional devotion to the sound of the cars, which fans of the game franchise have come to expect.

Here, we talk to a huge team of recordists – including John P. Fasal, Bryan O. Watkins, Ed Walker, and Watson Wu – and sound designers at TORQ/Source Sound UK – including Charles Deenen and James Evans – who focused on capturing and creating the sound of the cars in the film.

Rounding out our Q&A is re-recording mixer Beau Borders, who is a race car driver in real life. With that experience and his Oscar-nom’d mixing skills, he knows just how to bring the intensity of being behind the wheel to audiences sitting in the theater seats.

The car sound team also consisted of Travis Prater (car recordist), Tamas Csaba (production recordist), Nick Spradlin (sound designer), Tim Gedemer (sound designer), Kelly Baffoni and Greg Bonini (sound librarians), and Landen Belardes and Matt Severin (sound editors).

At 424 Post, Kami Asgar (supervising sound editor), Erin Oakly (supervising sound editor), Matt Cavanaugh (sound effects editor), Sam Fan (sound effects editor), and Chris Terhune (sound effects editor) handled overall supervision, all other design and sound editorial, car conforms, late adds, gameplay scenes, intro scenes, and more.

The car material was (content) pre-dubbed at Source Sound, and the final mix was done at Sony Pictures Studios on the Cary Grant Mix Stage by Beau Borders and Kevin O’Connell with mix tech Kyle Artz.

GRAN TURISMO – Official Trailer (HD)

In terms of sound editorial, when did you and your team get started on Gran Turismo, and can you talk about your contribution from prep through post?

Charles Deenen (CD): In the past, director Neill Blomkamp and Source Sound had worked on a few projects together. Through a close mutual friend, he got to know about our car work.

We got involved with the project in July 2022 with a 4-minute camera and sound check, shot at Hungaroring racetrack. Our friends at MMP film in Germany did an amazing job with the picture editorial for that film. We sound-designed and mixed it in a few days after, and it was received really well by the director and team. We were off to the races.

The first onboard car didn’t get recorded until the start of May, so everything got done pretty quickly after that.

We joined back in September 2022, at which time 424 Post, and re-recording mixers Beau Borders and Kevin O’Connell came onboard as well. 424 was going to lead the project and do all dialog, BG’s, conforms, and other design, etc., while we would take care of all the car design and car premix. We supported picture editorial at times with temp cuts and source material from January until May while they edited it down from a 3-hour movie to a 2-hour movie.

Starting from April ’23, we began making a ton of sound design elements: scene kicks, rumbles, paddles, pedals, rattles, shifts, howls, whines, tires, mechanical bits, jetty elements, and whatever else was going to be needed. Then the cat and mouse game started of trying to get the recordings done in time so that the rest of the car design and editorial could get completed. The first onboard car didn’t get recorded until the start of May, so everything got done pretty quickly after that. We delivered our last work on June 13th. After this, the mix, multiple conforms and picture changes still happened.

 

What were some of the cars you recorded for the film? Can you talk about the process of tracking them down, and finding a track to record at?

CD: For this film, there was a pretty limited budget available for car recordings, so we had to be diligent about what to spend it on. We knew we needed “ambience” cars and group cars. Luckily through Acura, we had an opportunity to record at Daytona to record their ARX. So we sent Watson Wu to record for 2 days to acquire anything possible in terms of track ambience and more. This ended up being a good foundation for distant and Drone-type shots, as well as pit-lane material.

First was the recording of the Lambo Super Trofeo at Thermal. Thankfully, we work on a lot of commercials so Lamborghini Italy connected us with a local race team.

Spearheaded by John Fasal, Bryan Watkins, and Travis Prater, they acquired a mass load of great material for the CAPA Huracan portrayed in the film.

With help from Kami, we acquired 3 cars in the UK to record sight unseen from the production team. This was a bit nerve-wracking as it was a pricey shoot due to the rareness of the cars, track location, and number of recordists needed. We hired Ed Walker and his team at Sounding Sweet to record them. This was a Nissan GTR GT3(used for the Nissan GT3 races), a McLaren GT3 car (partially used for the Capa Ligier), and a Nissan-powered LMP2 car from BBM Sport (used for Jann’s LMP Nissan). Ed and his team did a great job, but unfortunately on the record day, the location was troublesome. A lot of planes were landing or departing (which meant vacating the record location). He and his team didn’t get nearly the time required on the runway to do a full record. To do a good set of 3 cars in a day would be tricky already, but to do them in half the time is even harder.

On top of that, the McLaren didn’t sound as great, so we ended up changing that quite a bit in post. This meant in many cases creating material like bys and more from onboards, creating new shift moments, backfire moments, and more.

Another batch of cars we recorded was for the Academy GTRs. 1 “stock” GTR, and 1 Race prepped GTR. Both were tracked down by Dustin Troyan, and recorded by John Fasal and Travis Prater at the California City airport. The Stock GTR ended up being used for Jann’s GTR, while the Race Prepped and other library cars were used for the other GTRs. It might sound odd that the more stock GTR sounded better, but more horsepower doesn’t always mean better sound. All that extra air and pressure sometimes creates a louder, but less precise tonal car.

The rest of the cars were pulled from the Source Sound / Torq library, or licensed.

Afterward, the big task started of organizing, cleaning, and then applying our processing tricks on it, ready for our car editorial and design to start. Our crew set up 8-16 track files where each mic angle was represented, and aligned with the exterior captures, for ease of use.

 

What was your recording setup like? Can you walk me through a typical car recording session? How do you prepare? Do you have a cue sheet for actions that you want to record?

Ed Walker (EW): We were able to get access to rig the Nissan GTR GT3 and McLaren GT3 a few days before the recording session, this really helped us get ahead as the Nissan GTR GT3 was ready to go as soon as it rolled off the transporter at 8 am. Charles sent us a comprehensive and prioritized shot list which we talked through with the driver before we set about recording the maneuvers in order of priority.

John P. Fasal (JPF): In our situation, we were fortunate that Travis is in-house at Source Sound and quite familiar with the footage and the way the team designs the cars. We also used a shot list from Charles and made sure to prioritize the key must-haves in order to be ready for the inevitable mechanical, location, or weather-related issues that can impact the shoot.

 

How do you mic up the cars (what mics in what locations on/in the vehicle)?

EW: For the UK car recording, it was a Sounding Sweet team effort – Beth, Alex, Simon, and I have recorded hundreds of cars together, so we were able to rig the cars very quickly and efficiently. We had 3 x DPA 4062s in the engine bay, 1 x DPA 4062 for the air intake, 2 x DPA 4062s close to the exhaust, 2 x DPA 4011s slightly further from the exhausts, a couple of Schertler contact mics on the chassis and near the gearbox, and then in this case a couple of DPA 4062s for the interior sound near the exhaust on the inside and by the front bulkhead. Charles also asked for a couple of Shure SM57s next to the exhausts. So that’s quite a few mics! With this kind of high-pressure recording situation, you can’t really have too many mics.

JPF: We use a very similar set of mics and concentrate on the engine, intake, and exhaust as well as anything on a particular car that has a unique character.

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What mics do you use for distant perspectives and bys? What were some of your challenges in recording groups of cars racing around a track?

EW: We had a few trackside rigs with DPA 4017, Sony ECM100u, Audio Technica BP4025 microphones and the recorders were Sound Devices MixPre-10 IIs. The trackside recorders were jam synced with timecode to the 2 x MixPre-10 IIs we had onboard. All recording at 96kHz 32-bit floating point.

Bryan Watkins (BW): We were using MixPre-10 II’s for on boards and exteriors. Exteriors were recorded with Sennheiser MKH 8040s to get an ambient feel of the racetrack/cars. For the closer maneuvers, we had DPA 4017s and Neumann RSM 191s.

The challenges are always the ambient noise around the track. Thankfully our location was in the desert so traffic was not an issue. I always take a walk around the access points of the track to find areas where the car is doing the most interesting things. Hopefully without picking up air conditioning units, traffic, or generators. If you don’t move locations you get the same audio over and over. I like to be just past corners so the cars come in with speed downshifting and then you get a nice upshift and accel by. Then I move again to get fast-bys on a straightaway. For ambient track stuff, I like to get above the track on a balcony or grandstand but that wasn’t an option at this location.

Watson Wu (WW): My role was to record as many sounds as possible during race days. I chose to bring my smallest Mid-side stereo mic. Inside a Rycote Windshield Kit #9 were Schoeps MK 41 capsule with CMC1L preamp for Mid channel and Schoeps MK 8 capsule with CMC1L preamp for Side channel.

Schoeps MK 41 capsule is like a laser pointer. I will squeeze and contort my body around personnel and various objects, so I can directly point the mic and track specific cars for the most isolated captures. Oftentimes, I either point the mic at the moving cars or in between cars and the walls. Concrete surfaces are great for reflecting sounds.

After recording many ins and outs of various race cars, I then moved the mic to the upright position to capture track ambience sounds (set on a Manfrotto 5001b light stand). Mid-side method is so versatile, allowing post-production to create mono, narrow, or wide stereo image fields.

I had to walk and bicycle through the entire track, searching for the quietest spots to avoid noisy people and loud PA speakers (they were everywhere!). When the best spots were discovered, I then zip-tied various Zoom brand handheld recorders on metal posts, high enough for no one to mess with. These were the new Zoom M2 and Zoom H2n recorders.

The next day, I was set to do the same but the weather wasn’t stable. Sennheiser MKH 418s Mid-side stereo mic in a Rycote Windshield Kit #2 is what I always use for potential bad weather recordings. This beast of a mic reacts quite well to race cars and other loud sounds. The Zoom F3 set at 32-bit, 96 kHz was my preferred recorder for long runtime. I’m still surprised at how well this tiny, lightweight recorder works and how good it sounds. Shure SE846 earphones are what I use to monitor and protect my ears.

CD: We opted for creating groups versus recording groups. James created group by’s and “on tracks” of GTRs to allow for a faster work process during early temps. All other cars were recorded separately, so that each car could be panned throughout the full 7.1/Atmos space, and you really felt surrounded by the action.

 

What was the most challenging car to record and why? OR, what was the most unique sounding car and how did it stand out sonically?

EW: There were quite a few challenges we faced during the recording session, we were recording single-seat race cars, so it wasn’t possible to sit in the passenger seat and give the driver directions. Communication with the driver was difficult as the driver was wearing a helmet and the exhausts were very loud. The Nissan GTR and LMP2 cars also had side exit exhausts, which is a real problem when it comes to protecting the mics from the wind and airflow around the car.

The LMP2 was the most challenging, as the cockpit was very tight and the mics were attached to the outer shell which was detached from the car while we rigged the cables and engine mics. Everything had to line up perfectly when the car was put back together. Race cars don’t like to stand still for long, and the throttle response is almost binary, so if it is going…… it’s gone.

Being a mid-engine race car there is always the challenge of what parts need to be removed in order for us to put our mics in the optimum position…

JPF: I always love the sound of Lamborghinis and the Super Trofeo was no exception. Being a mid-engine race car there is always the challenge of what parts need to be removed in order for us to put our mics in the optimum position and how they can be mounted. Then, of course, heat comes into play for mic and cable placement. We were fortunate to be able to rig the car in an air-conditioned garage, but the car ran on the track in temperatures approaching 100 degrees F so the engine compartment was quite toasty!

Although the car was a 2-seater, both seats were sometimes occupied for training purposes and the recorders had to be mounted to accommodate that. Levels were checked after a few runs and then ran unattended for multiple practice sessions with limited or no access. Fortunately, everything survived and we got some great material!

Sound design-wise, how were you able to give the audience that intense feeling of being inside the car with the drivers?

James Evans (JE): We had some incredible recordings from our team to start with. I began by thoroughly cleaning and denoising those interior recordings to reveal the whines, body, and tonal character of each of these cars. Then, we processed that with saturation, bass enhancement, and various processing techniques to make it feel like what one of these drivers would experience during a race.

To bring the interiors to life and to enhance the speed, we designed tons of interior rattle sounds.

To bring the interiors to life and to enhance the speed, we designed tons of interior rattle sounds. I experimented extensively by placing a contact microphone on various items and vigorously shaking them. A surprising favorite was a contact microphone on an old VHS tape, pitched down, and bombed with distortion and filter sweeps. Introducing and developing these interior effects significantly helped convey the feeling of speed without compromising the accuracy of the engine design.

Designing exterior car passes also contributed to intensifying the races. We created morphed growls and whooshes mixed with car passes for quick zip-bys that could be panned for overtakes, providing a more intimidating sound for other racers when in the cabin perspective.

CD: We process each microphone for its optimal use, and on several occasions, we process each in multiple ways before we start adding additional material, so we can use it for interior, exterior, movement, or other.

…it goes from organized chaos to calm focus. It is incredibly hard to portray this with sound.

For the cockpit, we relied a lot on mechanical bits: whines, transmission howls, and rattles. Getting out of the way of dialog would be mainly done by only playing the transmission whines or rattles. Additive whines, howls, “trailer style” rises, scene kicks, rumbles, air-distortions, and more were added to create a sense of closeness in the cockpit.

When you’re inside a car, you feel the movement, you feel your body taking jolts. Your mind is focusing on a dozen things at once. At first, this can feel chaotic, and panic-inducing. But once you get your mind straight, it goes from organized chaos to calm focus. It is incredibly hard to portray this with sound. Throughout the years, we’ve experimented with this a lot and have noticed what viewers react to, in order to give them a similar sense. As long as it feels grounded, and believable, anything that wakes up the senses gives a similar feel. Huge changes in POV, huge changes in dynamics, careful use of extreme low end to offset, and more will all give a similar sensation. Portraying chaos – organized chaos to focused calm – induces the same sense you’d have in a car from beginner to pro.

We all agreed early on that we wouldn’t do the typical Hollywood approach of endless shifting. Every car fanatic (including ourselves) laughs at it.

We all agreed early on that we wouldn’t do the typical Hollywood approach of endless shifting. Every car fanatic (including ourselves) laughs at it. This gets interesting because the more steady you get, the more it’ll clash tonally with the music. So we made sure there were enough non-tonal elements to grab for when the score and cars clashed. In many spots, we tuned the cars to the music, so that they could live in harmony together.

When cars would start up, we added massive, clean low-end, so you’d really feel it in the theatre, just like with real-life cars. When the GTR starts up the first time, and you’re in a good theatre, it’ll rumble the seats.

During the sound design phase, we wanted to make sure things made sense for a race-car driver, and not just a viewer. Luckily, we were able to lean on re-recording mixer and car racer Beau Borders to give us detailed feedback. He did a fantastic job of keeping this intense car feel going in the mix.

Beau also allowed us to keep a ton of plugins live on the tracks during the mix (normally a no-go on theatrical mix stages), but this really helped to get the power across without having to bake it all in.

 

What were some of your challenges in piecing the recordings together to design the cars we ultimately hear in the film?

JE: We paid careful attention to accuracy in the film. We wanted race drivers, car enthusiasts, and general petrolheads to fully believe what they were hearing and become completely immersed. That being said, we wanted it to be as exciting as possible for everyone who watched it.

Maintaining the cars’ accuracy, excitement, and raw power was particularly challenging in head-to-head races on straights. The cars at that point would have relatively steady engine movements. In those moments, we gradually introduced whines, rattles, and processed filter sweeps from various microphones to convey what the drivers must be feeling rather than just what they would be hearing.

…we gradually introduced whines, rattles, and processed filter sweeps from various microphones to convey what the drivers must be feeling…

The balancing act of excitement and accuracy posed a challenge. For instance, we created an entirely new library of organic kick-ins, whoosh-bys, and risers so that the audience would feel the sound design without it overpowering what they were hearing.

CD: With car film, you can make the car action as representative as possible. Going through the gears right, perfect spot for deceleration, etc., but it’s a difficult task to keep up with picture edits as each conform calls for a near total ground-up re-editing of the cars to get this right. That’d be a way to ensure that it translates from shot to shot, keeping the scene flowing, so you’re in the right gear, the right RPM, the right amount of torque, and more. Technology has enabled filmmakers to continue editing a film throughout the mix and this causes a bit of kink in the cable of car audio flow, with almost any car project.

With each car, we took very different approaches sound-wise.

The second challenge was that we knew with 15+ cars on the screen at times, noise was going to be our issue. So we ensured that everything was as clean as possible, designed and edited with separate layers of design for the car, car parts, noise layers, and more. In that way during the final mix, additive or subtractive noise could be easily done. With each car, we took very different approaches sound-wise. Some had to backfire more (dirty, grungy, the LMP cars), some had to sound more precise, whine more, and some had to sound meaner. With that in mind, we applied various techniques to the recordings. Here’s a comparison example of two cars’ recordings versus what ended up in the movie (car only):

 

Mix-wise, how were you able to give the audience that intense feeling of being inside the car with the drivers? (Beau, knowing what this actually sounds/feels like, how were you able to deliver that feeling to the audience through your mix?) Also, what was your approach to mixing the sounds of the driver shifting gears and breaking – what was the most effective way to mix those moments?

Beau Borders (BB): As you can tell by everyone’s testimonies, I was blessed with the most incredible ingredients to work with! The real joy on this project was collaborating with a crew that was so enthusiastic about giving the audience a uniquely visceral experience during these racing sequences.

No one was more enthusiastic about this than our director Neill. In my first meeting with him, we discussed the phenomenon that has happened to me after every car race I’ve ever competed in: that the adrenalized physical and mental experience that racers feel and remember is always so much more intense, insane, and thrilling than our onboard camera and microphone picks up! When drivers hop out of the car, we describe every rev, rattle, sight, and smell as if it has the intensity of a rocket going into space. But our onboard cameras always feel so much more slow and mellow than what we remember. I told Neill that I’d really like to work with the crew to make the movie sound like the thing that’s in my head, rather than the thing that’s on my onboard camera!

I’ve competed in roughly 200 car races over the years, and many of them were similar to the style and level that Jann races in during the film. Because of this, I was naturally obsessed with showing the audience how much work it is to pilot one of these machines, and how a driver needs to operate on the absolute limit at all times.

Our picture editors Colby Parker Jr. and Austyn Daines were especially receptive to this by altering many insert shots to show proper gear shifts and footwork to make the action more accurate to picture. Once we established our sonic base-coat in the realm of reality, we were able to dig deeper into the tracks to amp up the intensity.

The editors, recordists, and designers provided an incredibly dense and intricate palette to work with, but they were never able to edit against the final music, which we typically don’t get until the final mix. Because of this, we decided to leave all the car motors on “elastic audio” tracks in Pro Tools (which didn’t make life easier for the sound editors Matt Cavanaugh and Sam Fan!). We constantly manipulated pitch and time in the hopes that our engines would live nicely with the music, and Matt and Sam never stopped editing and sweetening the tracks all the way to the Printmaster.

 

Sound design-wise, what was your favorite racing moment to create? What went into it?

JE: I really enjoyed designing the GT Academy final race. The camera perspectives of inside the engine and right beside the tire allowed us to really play with texture and fresh organic design. The camera work was mind-blowing; that combined with heightened rumble strips and huge grinding brake sounds really worked.

That race was also unique in that all racers were in the same car with various skill levels. The sound recordists and drivers captured some outstanding feathering and hesitant GTR sounds. Being able to express that not all the racers were as confident on the track as Jann and Matty was particularly fun to design.

 

Mix-wise, what was your favorite racing moment? Why? Can you talk about your mix for that scene?

BB: I really loved the build-up to the start of LeMans. Every department on the sound team was so well represented there. Our dialogue crew was tasked with re-creating this dense palette of PA announcements, crowd, and radios in various languages surrounding the venue.

Our music department had to navigate from Enya-over-ear-buds to a huge musical score to a live French national anthem accompanied by a singing Loop Group.

Neill designed a great homage to Steve McQueen’s LeMans film by removing all music and real-world sounds as Jann belts in and prepares for the race. We focus on Gary Hecker’s brilliant foley of the seat belts and then we introduce a heartbeat that leads right up to these intense engine startups provided by our incredible sound recordists. It’s a great representation of how anxiety-inducing the start of a race really is!

 

What are you most proud of in terms of your sound contribution to Gran Turismo?

WW: After several attempts, I was able to record really clean ins, outs, startups, and shutdowns of specific cars. Those were shocking moments despite how busy the track was.

The track ambience at the right spots was great too.

BB: I’m incredibly proud of our crew for being willing to go the extra mile to give the audience an experience that feels as close to the real thing as you can get in a theater. And I’m so grateful that Neill had the enthusiasm to make a film where sound is such a key part of the storytelling.

We wanted to give…everybody involved something to be proud of, by placing the listener in the car, around the car, and being able to hear it as if you were right there.

CD: We wanted to give Neill, Sony, and everybody involved something to be proud of, by placing the listener in the car, around the car, and being able to hear it as if you were right there. The feedback has been immensely positive. Hundreds of reviewers, moviegoers, and fans were commenting on the experience, and how much they liked the sound design in the film.

In the end, as a team, that’s all you can wish for. The viewer’s positive experience with the film, including the sound of the film, is the ultimate goal. As of September 1st, the film had a 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. We all secretly hope that sound had a big positive influence on that.

 

A big thanks to Charles Deenen, James Evans, John Fasal, Bryan Watkins, Watson Wu, Ed Walker, and Beau Borders for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Gran Turismo and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

 

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