How the Harrowing Sound and Mix of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was made – with Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, and Lars Ginzel

Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Edward Berger, is a harrowing look at trench warfare during WWI. The film (adapted from Erich Maria Remarque's novel) depicts the physical and emotional atrocities of war as experienced by young German soldier Paul Bäumer. Here, supervising sound editor/sound designer Frank Kruse, co-sound designer Markus Stemler, and re-recording mixer Lars Ginzel talk about their approach to making the film feel gritty, scary, and devastating – putting the audience in the trench beside Paul and his fellow soldiers. Bonus: Also includes two bonus video interviews with the sound team and director:

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Netflix

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In his message on “The Reality of War,” the current Dalai Lama says, “War is neither glamorous nor attractive. It is monstrous. Its very nature is one of tragedy and suffering. War is like a fire in the human community, one whose fuel is living beings.”

Director Edward Berger captures that sentiment with acuity in his newly-released film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 anti-war novel Im Westen nichts Neues (aka, All Quiet on the Western Front). The story follows a young German soldier named Paul Bäumer, who suffers the tragedy of war on the frontlines of WWI in France – from the horror of life in the trenches and the uncertainty of survival to the devastating physical, emotional, and psychological damage inflicted by unrelenting violence.

Through their sound work on the film, sound supervisor/sound designer Frank Kruse, co-sound designer Markus Stemler, and re-recording mixer Lars Ginzel deliver an affecting experience that doesn’t glamorize war. The sound puts the audience on the frontlines, into the trenches, and even under the rubble on the battlefield.

Kruse talks about creating the sound of the “war machine” – a metaphorical sonic undercurrent that represents the literal machinery that war requires but also the soldiers who are turned into machinery and treated as replaceable parts. He and Stemler go into detail on designing the tanks, crafting the soldiers’ kits in foley and having the foley team supply the mud and dirt elements that lend a grimy feel to the film, working with the extensive production effects (such as crowds, vehicles, explosions, and more) captured on set by production sound mixer Viktor Prášil, designing subjective POV sequences that don’t feel ‘dreamy,’ and much more!

On the mix side, Ginzel talks about the challenges of weaving the effects, music, and dialogue (including numerous crowd layers) into the battle sequences, how he used the Dolby Atmos surround format to put the sounds of war overhead while the soldiers were in the trenches, how he was able to create a sense of depth and scope on the battlefield that extends beyond the screen, and more!

We also talk about their approaches to specific scenes, such as the French using tanks and flamethrowers while advancing on the Germans, the nighttime camp sequence in which the German soldiers learn that a truce is being negotiated, Paul’s one-on-one conflict with a French typographer, Paul being pulled from the rubble after an explosion destroys their bunkers, and others.

All Quiet on the Western Front | Official Trailer | Netflix

Where did you do sound editorial on All Quiet on the Western Front? Were you working remotely?

Sound supervisor/sound designer Frank Kruse

Frank Kruse (FK): Markus [Stemler] and myself are freelance and have our own 7.1 cutting rooms. Alex Buck our dialogue and ADR supervisor, and Benjamin Hörbe our ADR editor do as well. We’re all in Berlin – some in different areas, others very close.

The foley stage (Tonstudio Warns, with Carsten Richter and Daniel Weis as artists) is next door to Markus’s and my studio so it’s very easy and direct to work with them.

We did the ADR and crowd recordings at Rotor Studios in Potsdam which enabled us to do outdoor and studio recordings in the same place.

You can say we were pretty close but the project did require some remote communication. We were pretty lucky to come out of a very low Covid rate in late summer 2021 so requirements for isolation didn’t compare to what everyone went through during the shoot (let alone the work situation the year before). We still had to minimize the number of people attending the mix but it was never remote and key team members were able to attend the mix. Generally, this team had collaborated many times before which was key to pull this off in the time frame we had.
 

Where did you do the final mix for this film? And what format did you mix in? (Atmos? 5.1?)

Re-recording mixer Lars Ginzel

Lars Ginzel (LG): The final was done on the main mixing stage at The Post Republic in Berlin. Everything was mixed in theatrical Atmos and then all subsequent mixes and deliverables were derived from that.

Because of our schedule, Stefan Korte came on board to pre-mix the foley for a couple of days while I was still pre-mixing the dialogue on a smaller stage, which took a bit longer than initially planned. In Germany, we rarely have two mixers on board throughout the project so, after double-staging for dialogue and foley, I went back to premixing the effects and mixing the final myself.
 

When did you start sound editorial on All Quiet on the Western Front? And what did director Edward Berger want you to tackle first? Was there a specific scene or aspect of the sound that he was most concerned with?

FK: The first thing I did was get in touch with Viktor Prášil the production sound mixer before they started shooting in the Czech Republic to talk workflow and media management. Most importantly, I let him know that we really needed his help with capturing just as much crowd and vehicles as possible during the shoot. This was during a spike in Covid cases, so going there ourselves and helping with that was impossible. No one knew how things would look 6 months later during post.

Based on the script, I made a list of elements that I asked him to record and I was excited to learn that he had already done a similar thing and knew exactly why and what we would likely need. He also flagged a bunch of potentially tricky props and costumes like the soldier’s boots. They had these hard leather soles with solid metal spikes (like little pyramids) that were incredibly loud but also visible. You can see them in the changing room after the boys receive their uniforms. So Viktor ended up with a whole van of carpeting to roll onto sets where needed.

…we really needed his help with capturing just as much crowd and vehicles as possible during the shoot.

Later, when I looked at what he and his team recorded for us on set, I was very excited. There were tons of battle scenes with screams and shouts or just the movement that he managed to record with multiple perspectives and a boom mic – even surround mics. Plus, he had multiple extra mics going during the actual on-camera takes so Alex was able to cut those along with the dialogue and split them onto dedicated crowd tracks.

Viktor multi-mic recorded the tanks, trucks, and also the General’s limousine. Some recordings were in 192Khz, and it was all presented as labeled Pro Tools sessions with makers for which scene they were. He also captured extra screams while running – huge groups of extras fighting in the original mud and dirt.

Go behind the sound & music of All Quiet on the Western Front – with the Soundworks Collection

Thanks to Viktor Prášil and his team, we had a treasure trove of extra sound to start with.

I’ve never gotten so many wild tracks from set in such a way. It turned out that we got a sound effects recordist on the same ticket! Thanks to Viktor Prášil and his team, we had a treasure trove of extra sound to start with.

We did some early work on the opening montage in late August 2021. The main work was done in October/November and the pre-mix started in early December, which was a really short time frame given the length and complexity of the film.

Edward Berger had sent me a draft of the script about a year before they started shooting so I knew what was coming and I did some early research but when I saw the first rough cut sequences my jaw dropped looking at what they had accomplished on set. It was fantastic and terrifying (looking at our time frame). I talked to Hanse Warns (Supervising foley editor and CEO of Tonstudio Warns) and our two foley artists Carsten [Richter] and Daniel [Weis] about what was coming at them and they prepared for tons of mud and dirt.

Edward talked a lot about establishing a sound of the ‘war machine.’

When starting a few sketches for the opening, Edward talked a lot about establishing a sound of the “war machine.” This is a metaphorical sound that had an undercurrent of the massive machinery the war required: steel mills, pounding massive iron gears, machines that worked to feed the insane murderous war with a never-ending supply of grenades and weapons where the only shortage was the supply of soldiers, and then the soldiers being turned into machinery and treated as such being sent into pointless battles just like a part of the rest of the machinery.

He wanted to hear some kind of undercurrent reflecting this across the montage after the main title where we see how the dead are collected from the first battlefield and we follow the uniforms being recycled and mended in the sewing workshop for the next batch of recruits. If you listen closely, you can hear pounding low metal pistons and other heavy industrial sounds tuned in pitch and rhythm to the score.

…the natural sound of the sewing machine turns into the sound of an endless burst of machine gun fire…

Over the sewing machines scene, the natural sound of the sewing machine turns into the sound of an endless burst of machine gun fire that then turns into the rattling and grinding of the chain drive of the truck. Originally, I wanted the audience to clearly hear the sewing machine becoming a machine gun but no matter what sound I tried in context it always sounded like a big sewing machine. It’s actually a perfect school-book example of the “what you see is what you hear” illusion that we use all the time in our job, except this time it didn’t work in my favor with regard to the original idea. But after letting it all sit for a while, we liked it more and more and thought it was actually better to not make it completely obvious.

Video interview: Behind The Sound and Score of All Quiet on the Western Front – with composer Volker Bertelmann, Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer Frank Kruse, Sound Designer Markus Stemler, and Re-Recording Mixer Lars Ginzel.

When the film was released, it made me really happy that one reviewer specifically mentioned this transition and the “sewing machine gun.”

I read a lot about everyday life… in the trenches – about trying to stay a human being and not becoming ‘soil’ themselves.

The other early sequence was the very first battle scene, going in and out of exterior and subjective POV of the soldier. I read a lot about everyday life (if you can call it that) in the trenches – about trying to stay a human being and not becoming “soil” themselves. There is constant cold and wet conditions. I wanted to create an abstract but organic sound of the earth and soil as an element. I recorded different mics being dragged through sand and dirt and created a surround layer that sounded a bit like your head being dragged through dirt. You can hear it as the soldier hides behind the fallen tree and the off-screen grenade blast kicks off a rain of soil that turns into this aggressive earth sound and the rest of the sound goes all dull and muffled. You can hear the scratching and crunching going around the room. Metaphorically speaking, it’s the sound of the soil the poor guy is potentially going to be turned into.

So these two sequences became the starting point for the work. We worked on these weeks before the first spotting session. I sent stems back to Sven Budelmann, the picture editor, and they continued to work against those first layouts.
 

Foley Artist Daniel Weis geared up in original WWI uniform

Can you talk about your sound sources for the design and effects? Since it’s a historical WWI-based film, what were some helpful resources (libraries, custom recordings of WWI weapons, vehicles, tanks, uniforms, shoes, etc)? And what was the most challenging sound for you to track down?

FK: Generally speaking, it was quite tricky yet interesting to research how WWI actually sounded. There are very few recordings that I found from that time and, as you can imagine, they are extremely lo-fi (wax cylinder recordings).

I stumbled across an article written in German that quoted a bunch of letters that German soldiers wrote to their families at home describing the terror and sound in some detail. Some even had onomatopoetic descriptions of the incoming grenades and the differences between them. Apparently, the German soldiers had nicknames for the sounds. Machine guns were named “sewing machine,” the sound of an igniter was called “canary bird,” and a grenade explosion “box of coal” or “suitcase.” The article even mentions the sound that the bodies made as they were decomposing on the battlefield – just unbelievable horrific details of what these soldiers went through on all sides.

In light of this article, I thought that the only way to approach the sound for this film wasn’t really via scientific accuracy but more from an emotional approach that would (hopefully) at least scratch the surface of what the real thing might have felt like. What does “realism” even mean in the first place when it comes to war?

…the only way to approach the sound for this film wasn’t really via scientific accuracy but more from an emotional approach…

I found early on that most (if not all) original tanks from that time were nearly impossible to source. There are some replica versions of the original French tanks but having seen and heard a few online, they sounded fairly contemporary and I thought that’s possibly because they used modern engines under the hood. So, I thought it wouldn’t be worth recording. Plus, we already had a version of that via Viktor’s extensive multitrack recordings of the tank they had on set.

Since the tanks would have to sound like a sort of “iron monster,” and become something that’s more than just an engine with a few metal squeaks, we decided to design the tanks using layers of Viktor’s recording with all sorts of groans and almost whale-like metal sounds, which also helped to leave space for the music. A lot of that was based on dedicated effects/foley sessions and other treated elements.

…the tanks would have to sound like a sort of ‘iron monster’…

The grenades and guns were also based partly around explosions and gunshots that we chopped out of the vast amount of the takes they shot. The positions of the various mics and the reflections that the huge set (an abandoned airfield) created added a lot of realism and had great (often random) compression to them. So we created a whole grenade and gunshot library from all the interesting sounds we cut from the production sound. In addition to that, we layered close gun library recordings.

We also had a full uniform kit that was kindly provided by the wonderful Costume department: a helmet, the infamous boots that I mentioned above, the belt and all the gear attached to it, the gas mask, and the spade.

The foley team also have a full-size dummy body made of ballistic gel that had the weight of a human body that they used and abused for body falls in the mud and for various other impacts.
 

How were you able to use sound to bring the audience into the soldiers’ experience of war?

FK: There are a couple of moments in the film where the sound changes into very subjective perspectives. The first battle moment, the bunker collapse, the moment in the tank battle, and the shift after Paul killed the French soldier. These were all moments that worked in collaboration with the visuals and, essentially, because the script made room for them.

…the relentless ongoing sounds of the battlefield play an important role in this.

Markus Stemler (MS): The story is not so much about tactical operations on the battlefield as it is about how a single soldier experiences the war on the frontline. To that point, the camera mostly stays very close on Paul who kind of represents every single soldier on the field, German or French. Among all the sounds that war can produce, the human voice is still the most important one in order to tell what they are going through. Therefore all the breaths, efforts, screams, etc. played a key role in the mix, even though you wouldn’t normally hear much of a single soldier in the cacophony of a battle.

Behind the sound of All Quiet on the Western Front – with director Edward Berger, sound supervisor and sound designer Frank Kruse, co-sound designer Markus Stemler, re-recording mixer Lars Ginzel, and production sound mixer Viktor Prášil

LG: I also think the relentless ongoing sounds of the battlefield play an important role in this. They set the “normal” for the soldiers, which is so extreme that for an audience it is already hard to endure those three main battle sequences. But we did not want to make the battlefield feel heroic, or in a sense cinematic or stylized. There’s nothing aesthetic about war; it’s just horror.
 

Can you talk about your approach to sound in the trenches? And how did you intensify that experience in the mix?

FK: There are different trench situations. The rainy scene was meant more like “another day at the office” in trench-ville. It was about making it sound like the gunfire and grenades around them were just what was “daily routine” (if you can use that euphemism.) It was really about the rain and the cold, the wet and mud, and the miserable conditions those guys had to deal with.

The rainy scene was meant more like “another day at the office” in trench-ville.

The first attack at the beginning of the film was really throwing the new recruits – and the audience – straight into the chaos of war. The young soldiers are pretty much being sent into battle almost straight after receiving their uniforms. At that stage, it’s mostly the direct impacts and shooting in the trenches, and commands being shouted close and distant.

Then there are quite a few trench scenes that are very quiet. For the nighttime scene with Paul and Albert, I made a wasteland ambience from echoey metallic dangling sounds and wind through wire in addition to the sound of horses’ screams. It gave the scene an ominous tonality. The echoes of the flares helped a lot to give a sense of the size of the front.

Other trench scenes, like the pre-battle situations, are just winds or stillness contrasting the chaos that is about to unfold.

All the voices from the crowd, the coughing, the cries for help, or men screaming in agony are made distant and almost fragile to underline the exhaustion.

Then there are the post-battle trench situations that we made a bit unrealistically quiet and calm. All the voices from the crowd, the coughing, the cries for help, or men screaming in agony are made distant and almost fragile to underline the exhaustion. The same happens with some parts of the background foley action. As Paul discovers his friend in the mud, you can see a soldier frantically digging in the background. All that is almost mute while all the background ambience and crowd keep going. We hope this contrast adds to underline the trauma of Paul.

LG: As Frank points out, there are very different situations and moods we needed to evoke while being in the trenches. So there was no such thing as one general approach.

In the mix, I did try to make use of Dolby Atmos and often have the background shooting, explosions, and shouts literally coming from above. So I used a lot of objects to place these on the top. I also added reverbs and echos and the complexity of everything else that is often happening at the same time; the difference is really subtle. But I did try to recreate the feel of being in this narrow ditch with some subtle close reflection and the feeling of having left the realm of whatever is happening on the surface for a bit.

Can you talk about your approach to sound above the trenches, as the soldiers run across the open field toward the French? What were some key sounds to making this experience feel terrifying? How were you able to intensify that in the mix?

FK: Edward wanted these attacks to move between observing into the POV of a protagonist and back again. There are a lot of layers of very distant, closer, and very close and on-screen gunshots, machine gun fire, explosions at various distances, and then, of course, the crowd, screams, and also the sounds of 100 extras running and stumbling, falling through dirt and mud. Edward also warned us that they would add a lot more muzzle fire than we saw in our first turnovers throughout the film so the density of these scenes grew as the film was getting closer to the mix.

Edward is a big fan of using breaths and efforts to keep us connected to Paul in the battles.

Generally speaking, we wanted to keep all the on-screen stuff rather dry and transient and have the close explosions fairly dry and tight to preserve a certain level of transparency and not overload the battles with long reverbs as there was just so much going on. Edward is a big fan of using breaths and efforts to keep us connected to Paul in the battles. This also helped to make these scenes three-dimensional in terms of sound.

Benjamin recorded a ton of exterior crowd for the battle scenes. He had our crowd actors run past mics at different perspectives while screaming to get the natural doppler effects. He said they got visited by the local police at one point. They wanted to see where all the death screams were coming from and if anyone needed help.

LG: The key was really to give the audience this sense of depth in the sound, as Frank described. This gave a sense of the scope of the battlefield way beyond what could be seen on screen, while also keeping it dynamic and changing at the same time. It was really interesting and striking to realize how much bringing certain layers of background fighting (that Frank and Markus had created) up and down could control the feel of things being too much or just right for an audience. It was a great reminder of the old principle that in situations like those battles, the only way to make things seem louder and more intense is by reduction.

…the only way to make things seem louder and more intense is by reduction.

Our ears are super sensitive to human voices, so all the screams and shouts from the crowd sessions helped to keep the human aspect alive. Again, there were a number of layers for this – the dedicated and hand-picked screams and shouts from the crowd recording sessions, more general shouts, and distant masses just shouting.

In all that chaos, we tried not to lose our focus on the protagonists. So there would always be a clear focus to look out for and to keep a grip on the audience’s attention. For this, all the breathing and efforts along with the detailed foley were extremely important.

About 30 mins into the film, the soldiers take shelter in the bunker during a barrage, and much of what is happening is outside (off-screen). Can you share some details of what makes this scene work so well from a sound standpoint?

FK: The great thing about that scene after the first barrage has ended is that the characters are listening to what is going on outside but the dialogue doesn’t begin with someone saying “Hey, what’s that sound?”

…the characters are listening to what is going on outside but the dialogue doesn’t begin with someone saying Hey, what’s that sound?’

Instead, the audience hears the sound of the flare that we established before and Tjaden just says “Feuerwalze” and describes what’s going to come referring to the sound of the flare responding to a question that hasn’t been asked. This is a good example of anticipating sound on the script level. I actually started working on the sound of the flare in the bunker first so that it would work in there, and then used it as a basis for the exteriors just to avoid having to re-do all the exterior ones if they hadn’t worked for inside the bunker.
 

In the next scene, Paul is buried in the rubble and experiencing noise-induced hearing loss. He can hear the muted sound of movement as his platoon digs him out. Can you talk about your approach to the edit and mix of this scene?

FK: Since the sound of the bunker collapsing was supposed to be quite overwhelming to make the drop into Paul’s “grave,” I worked a lot on the timing of how Paul gains consciousness. I wanted to bring back some kind of muffled, thick ambience to establish a small claustrophobic space. The idea was that we begin to hear some weird earth movement very muffled and Paul’s own breaths very close and crystal clear so that you only realize his hearing loss as the wooden planks are removed and the voices of his rescuers stay muffled the whole way, even during the exterior crane shot.

It was actually a late-night experiment…with some odd super-small reverb and LFE on all the planks being moved…

Only after a while do the muffled dialogue and the rest of the world open up. The idea was that the audience stays with Paul – down there with him – even though the camera has already gone outside. It was actually a late-night experiment I did in my room with some odd super-small reverb and LFE on all the planks being moved while keeping the dust and Paul’s breaths clear and clean.

Edward liked it and Lars refined the transitions during the mix in context with the music that was not yet there when I made my version. Also, thanks to the Atmos format, it wasn’t the only scene where sounds from above made total sense in this film.

…that tiny moment of break gives the audience the chance to enter the sequence completely from Paul’s ears and eyes…

LG: The timing took a while to figure out and we actually mixed two or three versions – both longer and shorter – before we found the right pacing for the transition back to reality. But this was also one of those cases where Edward really wanted to experiment and see how the different timings worked in order to get the result he was looking for. And he was brave enough to go with the idea of the sound not going straight back to normal once we cut to the camera pulling up from Paul.

For me, the beginning of that sequence was also very crucial. Edward did have a clear idea of how and how long the debris should be fading out. And there was actually little time left before we start to see Paul again in the dark. But it was also an important moment to give the audience a tiny moment of rest, which is why we faded the music up just a bit later than proposed by Volker Bertelmann the composer. But that tiny moment of break gives the audience the chance to enter the sequence completely from Paul’s ears and eyes and thus the music became a massive support for the subjective storytelling as opposed to being the external guide to lead through that whole sequence to come.
 

There’s a really intense fight about halfway through the film when the Germans rush the French and overtake their trenches. They find the mess area (kitchen area) and start eating. A low rumble makes everything shake (pots, table, tins on the shelf), the rats all run out, and the soldiers realize something big is coming… it’s the tanks. They slowly emerge from the smoke and roll over the trenches. What a great sequence for sound, probably my favorite in the film! Can you talk about your sound and mix for this sequence? What were some challenges or opportunities to use sound here to tell this story? What went into the sound of the tanks?

MS: The soldiers notice the vibration that first seems like an earthquake but they don’t have an idea where it’s coming from. So they run out of the bunker and line up in the trenches, afraid of what is to come. Sound-wise, it was key to stay with the soldiers and keep the mystery and uncertainty going until the tanks get revealed. During the approach, you mostly only hear these strange phenomena, the shaking objects, the rumbling earth, the scared rats, etc. but you don’t hear what’s actually causing it. Until we finally see the tanks on the horizon, there is hardly any engine sound. Instead, you hear some rather ominous, hard-to-define rattling and clattering that comes and goes with the wind, as they stare into the mist. When the first tank appears, we added some mammoth-like metallic screaming in the distance. Our fantastic foley team created some great sounds for that moment, as well as various rhythmic elements for the chain clattering that we hear soon after.

Viktor had done some superb recordings of the prop tanks on set, which I could use as a foundation for the engines.

When the action escalates and the tanks pull up to roll over and through the trenches, it was all about having them appear as scary as possible, something against which the soldiers couldn’t stand a chance. Viktor had done some superb recordings of the prop tanks on set, which I could use as a foundation for the engines. I then ended up collecting lots of snippets of various heavy metal elements, bangs, hits, jackhammers, pile drivers, groans, screeches, etc. and tried to form some sort of unstoppable iron beast. On top, there is lots of earth movement in there followed by bursts of bullet impacts as they start using their machine guns.

I think Lars laughed a bit in the mixing stage when looking at the Pro Tools timeline of that scene as there was also dialogue and music waiting to be heard.

FK: We also asked Edward to add more fog and smoke over the first POV wide shot so you would hear these “iron monsters” first but not yet see them yet which made the reveal when they cut through the smoke much scarier.

LG: Yes, the session also looked scary and the biggest challenge really was to keep everything transparent and kind of audible. The score for the scene also was pretty big and dense so the challenge really was to make room for both the score and the effects to coexist, while all important dialogue had to get its place as well.

…the challenge really was to make room for both the score and the effects to coexist, while all important dialogue had to get its place as well.

I tried to find ways to very dynamically play with the effects and the score at the same time in order to give the impression that both are actually continuous, which in fact they are not throughout.

After our final screening, Volker also pointed out that the score was still lost a bit in some places, so we figured out that the rhythm was underrepresented and brought more of that back to just keep that clock ticking in a sense.

But there are moments when Edward wanted to have the guns or the ricochets off the tanks be the loudest thing, so it was, again, tricky to find those micro timings for when the rhythm was actually needed and when the effects could take over for a split second.
 

The Germans are retreating from the French who have flame throwers, planes, and they’re shooting at the Germans. Paul is nearly blown up, and he sits in the dirt watching this battle play out. The sound is subjective, from Paul’s perspective. Can you talk about your approach to sound here? Why was this an ideal moment to go into a subjective POV?

MS: The very close grenade detonation catapults Paul into the air. After hitting the ground, it almost feels as if he doesn’t know whether he is still alive or not. Being utterly in shock, the whole battle around him becomes completely irrelevant to Paul. We tried to support this comatose state by losing the battle sounds around him; we drift into a weird bubble of breaths, moves, and sand dancing in the air – all sounds in his very close radius. It’s a moment of peace contradicting the horrific mass carnage around him, as he is detached from reality and incapable of carrying on fighting.

…we drift into a weird bubble of breaths, moves, and sand dancing in the air – all sounds in his very close radius.

In his dizziness, Paul spots his friend Albert and has to witness him being killed by a flamethrower. That moment needed to stand out as it will sit with Paul as a trauma. So we stay in the subjective POV and only hear everything related to Albert even though he is further away and the whole battle continues around him.

FK: This is also a great example of how much freedom Edward gave us to experiment. The idea was to keep Paul’s bubble simple and peaceful, as Markus said. We let him and the audience hear everything in close proximity and also hear the voice of Albert as he sees him behind the tank. No reverberant weirdness or treatment was added to their breaths. It’s like placing a stethoscope on that moment regardless of the actual distance between the two, while the rest disappears.

We certainly wanted to avoid the usual cliches of subjective dreaminess drowned in a ton of reverb…

LG: We certainly wanted to avoid the usual cliches of subjective dreaminess drowned in a ton of reverb on everything. So the idea was that in such a situation all that Paul will hear would be his friend.

We wanted to be very simple and clear with it. It’s just Albert and the shots and flamethrowers. Though the rifles and flamethrowers did get some long reverb to make them seem more terrifying for Paul and also to emphasize the state of being detached from reality.

Paul stabs the French typographer, and as he’s dying, Paul has a change of heart once it sets in that he’s just killed this guy. How did you use sound to help support Paul’s emotions here – from brutally stabbing this guy and stuffing dirt in his mouth so he can’t breathe to trying to clean him up and bandage his wounds?

FK: I think this was really about making this moment quiet and lonely and almost isolated from the battle that was ongoing. It had to happen in a way that wasn’t obvious in a technical way, reducing all the backgrounds to make this moment claustrophobic and focus on Paul’s desperation. Edward came up with the idea of having a moment of peace with birds chirping contrasting that horrific moment.

Because we are in this crater, we had a bit of freedom to try and push the background battle sounds further and further away…

LG: In that scene, we are coming from a full-on battle sequence with planes and explosions. But the story is also that French soldiers are retreating. So the story does help establish a reason why the battle calms down. But for the drama, everything has to happen way quicker than what would be realistic and the challenge really was to try and make it unnoticeable. When we come to the end of the sequence, people should start to realize that it’s been quiet for a while already, but it should not be absolutely obvious yet while the French soldier is still struggling.

Because we are in this crater, we had a bit of freedom to try and push the background battle sounds further and further away into the distance and thus help to make it feel natural. But the key is certainly the stunning performance by both actors, which captivates the audience so much that it does not take long to be completely focused on just the two of them.

Also, much of the struggle is in the production sound that got enhanced with some more gulps and stertorous breathing. But the main layer really was production. Alex Buck did a great job saving all those original breaths and the horrific throat sounds.

Paul makes his way back to the German camp that night. The soldiers know that a truce is being negotiated. Can you talk about creating the atmosphere of the camp, for the exterior and interior (where the men are yelling for food)?

MS: The atmosphere is built from all sorts of elements for the cheering crowd — laughter, shouts, gunshots in the air, stumbling people, bottles, fireplaces, etc. Alex and Benjamin added lots of specific walla and bawling, stuff they had shot in a crowd recording session, so there was lots of stuff to play with in the mix.

The interior atmosphere of the field kitchen is a good example of how music can shift the emotional energy.

Even though the negotiations are great news for everybody, Paul can’t find much joy in it. He is traumatized from what happened on the battlefield and is only focused on getting to the field hospital. Therefore, we tried to set him apart from the rather wild celebration by keeping the whole background activity in an acoustic cocoon. It gets very obvious a little later just before he enters the field kitchen. Paul is tying a scarf around his neck, a memory of another friend he has just lost in the battle. Meters away you can see soldiers at the fireplace joking around. Both, the fire and the voices appear far more distant in the mix than what would be real. In contrast, all of Paul’s movement is very clear and precise in the foreground. This is obviously a very simple shift but it’s always fascinating to me how effective that sort of acoustical focus pulling can work. I think Lars found just the perfect balance in the mix.

The interior atmosphere of the field kitchen is a good example of how music can shift the emotional energy. When Paul enters the place, there is lots of rather aggressive yelling and shouting going on. Yet there is a warm-hearted touch to all the noise, thanks to the music. It is a very gentle organ track that helps create a rather peaceful mood.

The most heartwrenching battle is 15 mins before the 11 am cease-fire that signals the end of the war. How did the sound of this battle compare to the other battles earlier in the film?

FK: This one was really about reflecting Paul’s transformation from complete exhaustion and resignation having lost all his friends to turning into complete rage. The battle starts very quietly with German soldiers running in a quite subdued manner with zero voices or screams. We cut into the French trenches where the soldiers are already celebrating and then we hear what only the commander hears: the approaching stampede of the Germans. Only then does the distant screaming start. Immediately after that, all hell breaks loose and we’re straight into full-on fighting with Paul, the camera behind him like in a documentary. It’s just raw rage from Paul’s POV – the human becoming the “machine.”

…we hear what only the commander hears: the approaching stampede of the Germans.

Also, the score in this scene contains a lot of metallic percussive elements that lead the action. Even the siren that goes off on the French side continues as a musical element after that. In some of the other battles, there’s much less music. In this one, music is the driving force until we’re thrown into silence just before they fall into the bunker.

LG: It was clear that we could not repeat the same balance and dynamics of the first two battles here. It is just too exhausting for the audience. So the idea was to be way more radical in focusing on just what’s happening on-screen with the effects and we have a lot less off-screen background fighting. And then the music could clearly take the lead, as Frank already said. The relentless hammering rhythm is stepping in to emphasize the battle this time.
It was really important to make the audience feel that this won’t be a repetition of the battles we had seen before.
 

In terms of sound editorial and design, what was the most challenging or rewarding sequence for you? Why? What went into it?

FK: OMG, you mean apart from getting this all done in 8-9 weeks?! There’s very little that wasn’t a challenge working on this film – besides the 2-pops, for sure.

Joking aside, for me personally, the most rewarding thing was really Edward’s enthusiasm for what we brought to the table and the fact that he went with all the more drastic suggestions we made and presented to him before the mix so we could mix them with a clear concept in mind.

…Paul’s footsteps carry on across the wide shot of the sky as he carries Kat.

Even though we prepared the more experimental sequences – like the bubble moment in the tank battle – so they would be easy to undo for Lars in terms of extreme EQ and reverbs, etc. it never happened. All this stuff made it into the film and got even better in Lars’ hands.

I also like some of the quiet moments that might be less obvious, the moments when we cut to the nature — like the sound of the snow when Kat waits outside the farm and there’s this short moment of peace with a few birds. The fact that Paul’s footsteps carry on across the wide shot of the sky as he carries Kat.

And one of the scenes we re-visited many times is the short moment when Kat is in the little forest by the tree and we hear the breeze of wind through leaves and he looks up to the bare branches. There’s neither wind nor leaves to see but I just love that abstract mini-dream sequence for Kat and the way Sven Budelmann cut those shots that inspired the sounds. It’s not spectacular by any means but I like that moment a lot.

MS: There is a sequence during the long battle where we cut back and forth between the soldiers on the frontline and the authorities back in their safe places, who cannot or are not willing to imagine what the men are experiencing on the battlefield. We tried to support this aspect in sound by enhancing the contrast between these two worlds.

There is an almost vulgar peacefulness in the courtyard, only very faint explosions on the horizon and some birds chirping in the trees…

The moment when two soldiers get hit by a grenade we cut back to the German General Friedrich, who is watching the battle from his balcony. There is an almost vulgar peacefulness in the courtyard, only very faint explosions on the horizon and some birds chirping in the trees – an analogy for the General not giving a damn about the horror his troops are going through.

Soon after we are on the train with Erzberger who’s trying to convince his hesitating staff to surrender and make peace. There is a brief moment of silence before some heavy grenade hits take us back to the battlefield. The explosions are literally ripping apart Erzberger’s efforts in that moment. I think the way they edited this sequence is just brilliant and I’m quite happy about the intensity we could reach by going for these extreme dynamic shifts in the sound.
 

In terms of the mix, what was the most challenging or rewarding sequence for you? Why? What went into it?

…my biggest challenge was getting the overall dynamics right…trying to make the battle sequences not be just one loud mess but rather a transparent cacophony of horror.

LG: In retrospect, almost everything feels challenging, but while working, it just felt like what needed to be done, I think. And that’s mainly due to the fact of being lucky enough to work with a director like Edward, who’s always been open to ideas and also encouraging and pushing for more. The same can be said of working with a crew helmed by Frank and Markus, who have all given their best to make this what it is. I guess what I’m trying to say is that even something difficult and challenging can be a joy if you are doing it with people you like and trust.

On a more technical level, I feel like my biggest challenge was getting the overall dynamics right, especially in trying to make the battle sequences not be just one loud mess but rather a transparent cacophony of horror. And I can only hope we succeeded.

Physically, it really is a challenge to mix these loud sequences and not loose track of what you are actually doing. And I was certainly happy to take a break after we finished.

How was working on All Quiet on the Western Front a unique experience for you?

FK: This film was unique in every way. I had never done a war film. I learned a lot about the era in preparing for and working on this film. Working on the adaptation of such an important book about our past was a big privilege and Edward’s positivity, enthusiasm, and open-minded way of working with his team kept us going. I have known Edward for many years and I’ve known Sven Budelmann since film school times but we had never really worked together (aside from one short film). I’m really glad it was this film where everything worked out in combination with a dream sound team.

…Edward’s positivity, enthusiasm, and open-minded way of working with his team kept us going.

LG: To bring a project of this scope to the level of refinement that I hope we were able to achieve, it is important to have everyone involved aim for the same goal. Apart from Edward being a wonderful person to hang out with, having Edward on the stage from the effects premix until the end of the final was such a big advantage, because we could start discussions very early on and also try out things that would otherwise have slowed us down in the final.

Stemler tests out a gas mask

And being the adaptation of the very important book that this film is, it is really interesting to see the reactions of audiences all around the globe. If it helps to get more people to realise there’s nothing heroic about war, I’d be very pleased.

MS: As mentioned before, Edward is such an enthusiastic director with a great ability to motivate people. The working atmosphere was incredibly pleasant and productive at the same time, from the start to the finish line. The level of freedom we had during the editing process was amazing considering our timeframe, as everything had to fall into place on the first attempt more or less. Never having worked with Edward before, I’m really excited and grateful for how everything panned out.
 
 
 

A big thanks to Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, and Lars Ginzel for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of All Quiet on the Western Front and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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