Amsterdam_sound-23 Asbjoern Andersen


Director David O. Russell's comedy-thriller film Amsterdam, set in 1930's New York City and now streaming on HBO Max, isn't your typical stage drama. Although it's a dialogue-driven period piece, the precisely crafted backgrounds add a feeling of frenetic energy. Here, sound supervisor Per Hallberg, sound designer Ann Scibelli, and re-recording mixers Andy Koyama and Beau Borders talk about how they used timing to skillfully craft a film that packs detail into the storyline and supporting backgrounds.
Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of 20th Century Studios
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The star-studded cast of 20th Century Studios Amsterdam extends below the line to post sound. Director David O. Russell drafted 3x Oscar-winning supervising sound editor Per Hallberg (known for his sound editing on Skyfall, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Braveheart) to lead the sound team. He tapped 5x MPSE Award-winning sound designer Ann Scibelli (known for her sound work Prometheus, Inglourious Basterds, and Greyhound), and re-recording mixers Andy Koyama (nom’d for an Oscar for Best Sound Mixing on Lone Survivor) and Beau Borders (who eaned two Oscars noms for mixing Lone Survivor and Greyhound). Sound edit and mix on Amsterdam were handled at Formorsa Group – with the film being finaled in both Dolby Atmos and IMAX at Formosa at Paramount on Stage 2.

For the sound team, “timing” was the main driving force behind each decision. On the editorial side, Hallberg and Scibelli needed to create a distinct hustle-and-bustle feeling for each location in New York City in the 1930s, but it also had to carefully tip-toe around the intricate dialogue. On the mix side, Borders and Koyama supported the pace of the dialogue by finding places to pepper in the effects, and music by composer Daniel Pemberton.

Here, they talk about researching and finding sounds to define New York City in the ’30s and Amsterdam and France during WWI, crafting fluid transitions between energetic exterior street scenes and busy (or intimate) interiors, creating a hopping party atmosphere despite the Covid-limited amount of extras on set, perfect the diegetic singing and musical performances, and, of course, how they protected the dialogue at all costs.



Amsterdam | Official Trailer | 20th Century Studios


Amsterdam | Official Trailer | 20th Century Studios

What were director David O. Russell’s goals for sound on Amsterdam? What did he want to tackle first in terms of sound?

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Sound Designer Ann Scibelli

Ann Scibelli (AS): David had a lot of ideas. It was nonstop. He and Jay Cassidy (picture editor) had specific things they wanted (mainly timings), especially in the scene when Liz Meekins is in the restaurant, and she comes out and gets thrown under the car. For that whole sequence in New York, they were specific about the types of sounds and the timing of how and where those sounds were placed. “We want this sound here, this horn here, this timing here.” It didn’t necessarily need to be the horn or the car engines they had in their Avid tracks, but timing-wise, it was very specific in that scene.

A lot of the other stuff he pretty much left us to figure out, but he definitely wanted New York to be alive and for every location of New York to sound distinct.

Per Hallberg (PH): The film is focused on dialogue and that is obvious even in the way it’s shot. David is the writer. He’s worked on this for a long time. For the dialogue work on this film, we had Will Riley (ADR Supervisor / Supervising Dialog Editor) cutting the dialogue primarily with us.

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Sound supervisor Per Hallberg

David shoots and reshoots and he doesn’t stop camera. He talks all the time. So by the time we got it, it was a patchwork that the picture editor had put together. With the dialogue being so rapid-fire, as Ann said, the timing of our effects had to be exact, to be able to fit into that landscape. Dialogue is number one, then effects and music need to play around that and fit in.

David is interesting. He has so many ideas that I’d just stop taking notes after a while. It seemed better to just listen and take it in. His ideas never stop. And it’s up to us to figure out what actually is going to play. We have this theory to go into the dub with less rather than more, and then we add when we need to instead of crowding a track. So I think it worked really well. It kept Ann busy all the way through the mix.

 

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There is definitely a perceptible sense of timing, especially in the opening sequences. There’s a syncopated feeling to the music and effects timings and how those interplay. It creates this jaunty, lively 1930s New York City vibe…

PH: David wanted to feel the changes in the locations that happen in the cuts. He wanted the audience to feel a change as the character walks through a door and out onto the street, and in through another door into a bar or restaurant. He’s doing that with rapid-fire dialogue and so it’s a little tricky. But I think we did achieve that sense of walking from one room to the next, from one location to the next, so the sound work matches the changes in locations.

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Re-recording mixer Beau Borders

Beau Borders (BB): The design of the sound effects created by Per and Ann follows this pattern, and the pattern goes in sync with the dialogue. Every scene starts out very frenetic and very busy, and then settles into a conversation.

In Burt’s office, there are phones ringing and someone typing, and cars are grinding gears outside. It’s all very busy. Then as the dialogue settles in, the music takes over and helps to carry the emotion. All those sound effects fizzle away into the background and it settles down. Then another scene starts and another music cue kicks in and the energy is back and we do it all over again.

With each scene, we determine where we’re at and what’s needed to identify that. For instance, in the spy lair under the hotel, we have phone operators and typing creating that frenetic energy that then settles down. So that was the rhythm that we decided to go with for this movie.

Amsterdam_sound-06

Re-recording mixer Andy Koyama

Andy Koyama (AK): The dialogue is so intricate. There are so many performances and not a lot of gaps. It has to be intelligible. We had to be very cautious of stepping on the dialogue.

BB: There was a particular sound that David [Russell] was guiding us towards. He really liked the sound of the old cars and their transmissions. The old cars have a real whine to the transmissions that almost sounds like going in reverse in a manual car. We realized that what David actually meant by “transmission” was the gear grinds. It sounds like something is happening incorrectly; something is happening out of rhythm. Something is happening that isn’t intended. You don’t want to grind your gear, but if you’re establishing Burt’s office and you’re moving through the city and you hear a little gear grind and a little something out of rhythm, it helps his character and it helps set up that things aren’t going very well and things are a little off kilter.

And when things are going well and we finally settle into a scene, you won’t hear those kinds of sounds. So it’s a subliminal note that our director wanted us to do.

 

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There’s a scene in which Burt and Harold walk to the restaurant to meet Miss Meekins. Under the dialogue, you hear the shift from the sound on the sidewalk into the restaurant ambience as they enter the establishment. This was a great example of the transitions you talked about earlier…

AS: Yes It is a good example. Burt and Harold enter the restaurant and the focus is on what is happening in the restaurant. The restaurant sounds disappear as they leave and they’re back in the chaos of the NYC street.
 

You had a great sound for Liz Meekins getting hit and run over by the car. What went into that?

AS: It’s terrible! I didn’t put any bones, gore, or blood in it. I tried to go for the reality of it but also the shock value of it. It’s shocking. You don’t expect her to get thrown into the street and run over. I basically used mostly car suspension. I had recorded a lowrider car that had hydraulics that made the car jump up off the ground. It worked well when the car ran over Miss Meekins.

 

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The film is set in NYC in 1933, and during WWI in France and Amsterdam. In terms of sound, how were you able to stay true to these eras? Were you able to record props or cars from the time? Any helpful libraries?

AS: We did record a few of the cars they used on the set. Charlie Campagna recorded it on the Paramount lot.

As far as the research for WWI, I Googled what types of weapons were used, and what types of planes, and then found recordings that we had captured previously or were available in libraries. I definitely wanted to be accurate to that period during World War I and to have the weapons they used, like Howitzers and Browning Automatics, and have the different types of planes, which were mostly German planes like the Fokker D.VII. And the UK and France each had a plane. I was trying to stay accurate to what they were using during that time period of WWI.
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And did you stray beyond the bounds of these eras sound-wise? Were there sounds not of the era that you snuck into the tracks?

AS: There were maybe a few car horns from the mid-30s, but it was still the 1930s. I really researched the sounds, especially the cameras. They had those 35mm box wind-up movie cameras. That was a sound I really had to find. It took a while to dig that up. I was really trying to be accurate with the sound.

…it gives you a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of accomplishment when you’re done with it.

PH: It’s something that we do, especially for a period piece. When you start cheating a little bit, it gets iffy. You might think that no one notices but, at the end of the day, if you really stay true to the film’s era and don’t step outside of the real thing, it gives you a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of accomplishment when you’re done with it. It feels darn good. Also, David explicitly wanted it to be New York City in the 1930s, so we really stuck to that.

AS: I actually enjoyed doing the research on it. I find it interesting to learn about the sounds and technology of that time period.

 

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Let’s talk about the sound of Amsterdam. In this location, you don’t see much of the exteriors, so what were some ways that you were able to use sound to help this location feel distinct?

PH: You start with trying to figure out what Amsterdam at that time was all about. There’s water all around it, so you have seagulls. And it’s a harbor, so there are the horns and different barges and bicycles and bicycle bells. Slowly but surely you start building that up.

AS: We were trying to very carefully place sounds, again, to not interfere with the story and dialogue.

We’d play the dialogue as loud as it was going to be and then cut in the details around it…

PH: We were trying to be true to the real thing. So the church bells you hear were actually recorded in Amsterdam. They’re the real thing. Nobody else knows that, but we do. And that feels good.

Throughout this whole thing, Ann and I would listen to different things and cut in sounds, but we would always be conscious of the dialogue. We’d play the dialogue as loud as it was going to be and then cut in the details around it because if one sound is in the wrong place, it would ruin it. You might scare the filmmaker off if they start feeling like there’s too much in the track. They might want to take all the details out. You don’t want that to happen. So we were playing the dialogue all the time so that when the filmmakers come in, they can hear that the sounds aren’t stepping all over it. That it’s not overdone. It’s doing what it needs to do.
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There’s the scene in the hospital with Valerie pulling shrapnel from the wounds of Harold and Burt. As she drops the metal into a porcelain bowl, it makes clinking sounds. Was that clinking happening during production? And if so, did that make it challenging to work with the production dialogue? Was that something you had to take out and re-cut back in?

AS: They really loved the sound of production there. They just wanted the production sound. Will [Riley] dug up all the takes of that scene and layered together all their production sound. That’s basically all production. It sounded real. All the shrapnel was production.

All the shrapnel was production.

The only sound that was missing was when she opens up her hand and it’s full of metal shrapnel. There was a little sound from production, but we added a bit of foley to accentuate that move. Everything else was production.

PH: It wasn’t always the sync production. If they heard one “tink” that they really liked, there was a big search to find more of those that we could steal and move into the places they needed to go. But they were original production recordings that we were picking from.
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Let’s talk about the on-camera singing. Burt, Harold, and Valerie do a nonsense song and it sounded fabulous. Were those production tracks? Or studio recordings and playback? How did you handle that?

PH: Of course, they shot it during production, but what you hear in the final mix is ADR. They recorded it a few times in the studio. It was quite a large job for us to shoot the ADR and cut it, and then we handed it off to the music editor who worked hard to get the pitch and timing right for everybody so that it sounded perfect yet natural. It really goes into beautiful harmony there between them, both times they do it, and you can only do so much processing before it starts sounding wrong. Our eminent music editors Robin Baynton and Terry Wilson did the final pass on that before we put it up on the mix stage.
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Christian Bale has a few singing parts in this film. They all sounded amazing! Was he a pretty good singer?

AK: Yeah, he is! Actually, at times they experimented with correcting the pitch of some of the singing and eventually decided not to because they felt it was taking away from the magic of the original performances. They didn’t want to make it too perfect because that was detracting from the moment.

AS: Yes, he was great. I was impressed with his singing! They all were really good.

They didn’t want to make it too perfect because that was detracting from the moment.

PH: Christian is just great, period. When you come to the singing, it’s like, “Holy shit, he can do that, too.” What a performance he does.

He would come into the picture department and listen to takes. They would redo lines over and over so that they had the right words, but also the right feeling. A lot of that came from David, but also from Christian Bale himself. He wanted to come in and do it again. He felt like he could do it better. It’s not easy to go back to something you did a long time ago and match that same character. To do that is pretty impressive.


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Amsterdam_sound-14

Looking at the Gala sequence, there was a lot to cover sound-wise. You have a huge party, General Dillenbeck’s speech, and also the shooting. What were some of your challenges here in terms of sound? Or what were your opportunities to help tell this story through sound?

AS: The Gala was one of my biggest challenges, getting the correct crowd size and getting all the layers for the general crowd ambience and the specific loop group lines. You have the reactions to General Gil Dillenbeck’s speech. I didn’t want to make it sound hokey or comical, which it could easily have become. I wanted the reactions to be more subtle.

I wanted the reactions to be more subtle.

Then there was the shooting sequence up in the balcony. They’re shooting down into this big crowd and the people slowly react to the first few gunshots. The timing of that was tricky.

PH: The crowd really plays a big part. It’s an underlying storyline throughout that scene, especially toward the end. It goes from this big party feeling to a feeling that something isn’t right. Then the shooter falls from the balcony to the ground and a few more people realize that something isn’t right. But most people are still focused on the speech. It was this slow shift and it needed to be really smooth.

The shifts needed to almost be invisible, and that was something that Ann worked on from the beginning because there wasn’t much there from production. They didn’t have that many people in the theater when they shot the scene. Or, they didn’t record the crowd necessarily. Everything you hear was a construction after the fact.

The shifts needed to almost be invisible, and that was something that Ann worked on…

When we spotted with Ann, we asked how many people do you want in the auditorium, and David said about 250-300 people. So we had to get the size right, and then make all the shifts in emotion and tension. It turned into a beautiful scene by the end.

AK: The crowd is what gave energy to that scene.

BB: With the crowd, we had to over-embellish in a way because we had to give the illusion that there were a lot more people there than there really were. Because of Covid restrictions, they had to keep their numbers down when they were filming. So, we had to give the audience the sense that there was a mezzanine floor and there was a much bigger crowd in attendance.

We would also bend reality a little bit by starting the party very busy and very fun with the crowd. And then there’s one particular moment where we just decided to really isolate their voices and take out the crowd almost entirely just to try to create a little segmented moment that felt different than other moments. That way when we build up to the General’s speech, the crowd could come back and give us that feeling that what he just said to these people really resonated, and that he’s foiled the plan with this one great speech.

AK: Because there’s no underscore when he’s getting to the great conspiracy, it was all the effects side that created that drama.
[tweet_box]Assembling the Detailed Sound and Mix of ‘Amsterdam'[/tweet_box]

Amsterdam_sound-15

How did you handle the “live” music for the Gala from a mixing perspective? How did you make that feel in-situ?

AK: I believe on set they had some vintage pieces play back, and then the music supervisor Trygge Toven put together an amazing band. They reproduced all of these vintage pieces so you would feel it – as if you were in that time. The band was absolutely fantastic. And then we just try to make it diegetic, make it feel like it’s coming off the stage but still maintain all that energy. It was super fun and they did a wonderful job reproducing the period stuff.

 

Amsterdam_sound-16

For General Dillenbeck’s speech, did you try to match the sound of production to the sound of that specific vintage mic?

PH: Andy handled the dialogue and music. At first, he wanted to do the processing a bit more vintage but the picture editor Jay Cassidy said the mics sounded really nice back then. So we had to make the dialogue cleaner actually.

…we tried to make the sound of his voice naturalistic in the space – not amplified, but filling the space with reverb and delay.

I’d say there is only a slight treatment to his speech, but not very much. We wanted it to sound really up front and clean. You almost want to hear it sound like an old radio, but it didn’t go that way. I think the impact of the speech was the important part, and you want that to penetrate and not think about much else in that moment. So the less treatment, the better off we were in this case.

AK: Probably at the time, that mic was only feeding the radio broadcast and not feeding a PA inside the theater. So we tried to make the sound of his voice naturalistic in the space – not amplified, but filling the space with reverb and delay. So it was kind of a cheat because they probably did not have a big PA system in that venue in the period. So we primarily used reverb, trying to emulate the space of the room.
Amsterdam_sound-17

Did you have a favorite scene in terms of sound editorial?

AS: I’d say the opening scene was fun and challenging, as were the crowds for the Gala. I also enjoyed doing the WWI sequence in France.

PH: This film was different in that the war is heard from a distance. We’re quite a bit away from the front, so it doesn’t distract from what they’re talking about. We don’t get worried about them. There was the choice of not shooting a battle scene, and it’s a pretty hard cut straight to them being rolled into the hospital. And even there, all the pain and screaming was pulled out and we didn’t really play it. So that whole setup becomes something other than it could have been. It worked well for the film because it’s all held back. We hear a bit of the gurney, and a bit of some voices. When we cut to Valerie picking out the shrapnel, we don’t hear much else.

We focus in on them, with them, very intimately. We don’t get distracted by the blood and the gore.

We focus in on them, with them, very intimately. We don’t get distracted by the blood and the gore. And we could have done that because you see it. You see them pull the bandage off his back and it could have been really wet and squishy, but we don’t have that. It turns into a beautiful piece instead. It slowly shifts even more toward the dialogue when Burt, Harold, and Valerie make their pact after the mini-revolution they have in the hospital room. It’s intimate, and I enjoy listening to it every time. I like the choices we made and how we got it to work together.
Amsterdam_sound-18

On the mixing side, for music and dialogue, Andy, did you have a favorite scene?

AK: The Gala was a lot of fun because we got to play with the music and the perspectives, like going backstage. And then we get into conversations and have to pull everything back. There was a lot of shaping in there and that was fun to do.
Amsterdam_sound-19

What about mixing the effects? Beau, did you have a favorite scene to mix?

BB: I really loved working with the sound effects crew to build all the vintage New York backdrops and vintage Amsterdam backdrops – trying to make it so that if you just close your eyes, you feel like you’re in a city or feel like you’re close to the harbor and the water.

…our director didn’t want it to sound like a stage play. He wanted to explore the environments.

I really like that our director didn’t want it to sound like a stage play. He wanted to explore the environments. In particular, when our leads are trying to meet with Miss Meekins, they’re moving from the exterior city in through the restaurant and then back out into the city, and we were able to really use the space in a very fun way.
Amsterdam_sound-20

I happened to see the film in IMAX, and was wondering how the IMAX mix compares to the Dolby Atmos mix. What are the differences?

BB: There’s very little difference. In a movie like this, the dialogue is absolutely key and the center speaker in IMAX is pretty much the same as in a regular theatrical release. Mixing for IMAX is about bass management, so it didn’t really affect frequencies related to dialogue. It was really about making you hear the same thing in IMAX that you’d hear in the Dolby Atmos or 7.1 or 5.1 theatrical mix.

AK: Generally, we try to make the IMAX mix sound equivalent to the Atmos mix, especially in a film like this. We want to try to make it as close as possible.

BB: All the detail flushing happened in our Atmos mix. The action of the shootout and the Gala, all the detail you hear throughout the film was put up in the Atmos mix. With IMAX, we were just managing the low end, especially in the music.
Amsterdam_sound-21

How was working on Amsterdam a unique experience for you?

AS: For me, it’s a unique experience because I rarely get to work on films like this. I usually work on films with heavy action or science fiction. It’s more challenging to be subtle than loud. I really enjoyed the process of researching things and being accurate to the period. Personally, I loved working on it. I had a great time working with Per, the mixers Beau and Andy, and the rest of the team.. It’s great to work with such an amazing group of talent.

PH: It could be scary to work on a David Russell movie because he never stops. He never has a moment when there are no more ideas or changes. I enjoyed working with him and Jay Cassidy the picture editor. Jay is an old friend of mine. We’ve worked together early on in my career and it was great to get back with him again.

There isn’t a single thing in this movie that didn’t have a purpose.

We had the benefit of having Jay with us through the whole mix period, and I do see him as our captain steering the ship. Nobody knew all the details – what the film was needing and when – like he did. He really helped out turning this into a group of people who understood the same movie.

It’s our job to understand what the director really needs. Even though someone could read half a book to give you one note, what is it in that you actually need to understand? What is going to work? There isn’t a single thing in this movie that didn’t have a purpose. When you can work together to make that happen, you feel it come together. It’s beautiful when it needs to be, and funny when it needs to be. Everyone had the same idea, the same feeling of what the film needed and that doesn’t always happen. On this one, that really fell into place in a great way. It’s so satisfying to do it, and it’s satisfying when you’re done. That’s the way to work and it’s beautiful when it works that way. So, that was my favorite part of the film.

 

A big thanks to Per Hallberg, Ann Scibelli, Andy Koyama, and Beau Borders for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Amsterdam and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

 

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