Designing and Mixing the Far Out Sound of ‘Nope’ – a film sound deep-dive with Johnnie Burn

Did you know that UFOs are now called UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena)? Thanks to Jordan Peele’s new film Nope, I am now cognizant of that fact.

Award-winning sound designer/re-recording mixer Johnnie Burn, known for his work on dir. Yorgos Lanthimos films like The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Favourite has teamed up with Oscar-winning writer/director Jordan Peele (Get Out, and Us) to create a sci-fi alien film that’s equal parts inventive, funny, and horrifying. Nope (in theaters now) follows two siblings who run a horse ranch in a remote gulch in California, but their peaceful existence is disturbed by a predatory alien they’ve named Jean Jacket.

Here, Burn (Founder/Owner/Chief Sound Designer of the international audio post-production company Wave Studios) discusses their extensive collaborative process — which started in the pre-viz phase of production — and how that helped to influence the VFX and strengthen the union of image and sound. He talks about creating the sounds for Jean Jacket (the alien), using custom-crafted, multi-layered reverbs and delays to help define the expansive ranch and surrounding canyon (and even to enhance the humor at times!), and capturing set props on-location to get imperfect recordings that lend a feeling of credibility to the scenes. We talk about his use of panning to create an immersive experience, how he dealt with perspective challenges in the mix, and so much more!

**SPOILER ALERT**: We dive into the sound of specific scenes, so it’s best to see the film (in a Dolby Atmos theater, if possible) before reading this story.

NOPE | Official Trailer

Can you talk about your collaboration with Director Jordan Peele? Was it mostly remote collaboration?

Sound supervisor/re-recording mixer Johnnie Burn

Johnnie Burn (JB): It was October 2020 when I got a call from Jordan’s team. They said that Jordan Peele would love to talk to me about his upcoming feature film.

And I was like, “Wow, no kidding. Is this a crank call?”

It was great! The next day, they sent me the script and I read it. It was extraordinary, I’ve always wanted to work on a sci-fi alien movie but, wow, what an opportunity for sound..

So I had a Zoom call with Jordan that October. That was when Zoom calls were still relatively novel, so that was quite interesting. We spoke for an hour about our previous works, and then this project and all its opportunities for sound.

Following that, I sent him some thoughts and 10 different ideas of how I imagine Jean Jacket would sound, with various kinds of winds and things. And, I sent him an audio version of the abduction scene near the beginning of the film when OJ goes into the gulch. OJ is hearing all those winds blowing around and then the horse gets sucked up.

The next draft of the script came on Christmas Eve and it had some of these extra sound ideas baked in, and that’s when I knew I’d got the job!

…it had some of these extra sound ideas baked in, and that’s when I knew I’d got the job!

For the first six months of my engagement with the project, I was still in London and Jordan was in Los Angeles. I was listening in on monster development Zoom calls, and working on sound ideas through the pre-viz stage; I would make up sounds and ideas and we’d discuss what kind of sounds Jean Jacket would make – all the big ticket sound design ideas. We were trying to envision the soundscape to some degree.

We had a good few months of weekly, hour-long catch-ups with Jordan as he was getting increasingly busy with the approaching shoot. At the office in Universal, they set up a little room for me to remote into. So they had a sofa with a shotgun mic set up and a camera pointing at Jordan so we wouldn’t have to mute/unmute the sound. He was listening to the mix I was sending in 5.1.

…before they went and shot the film, I’d pretty much done an entire sound mix of the entire film to the pre-viz.

So, basically, before they went and shot the film, I’d pretty much done an entire sound mix of the entire film to the pre-viz. That was really helpful because I am the supervising sound editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer, and even though I was on for an unusually long time, I knew that by the time it would come around to mixing the film, I’d have an awful lot on my plate just to get everything mix-wise sounding really well made. I wanted to make sure that, for the big sound design elements, we would have a really good idea of what we were going to do before Jordan actually went and shot it.

So, much of the sound design was done beforehand. Certainly, we had favorite versions of everything – and a library of different ways we might play it. It was like we did all the rehearsal before we did the shoot and then we did the live performance of the mix afterward, once the cut was being put together.

Did your sound design work help to influence the way the film was going to look?

JB: I think to an extent it did, yes. I went out to the shoot not long after it started. It was a very busy set and I said hello to a few people, like Hoyte Van Hoytema (director of photography). I said, “Hey, I’m Johnnie Burn, the sound designer.” He was like, “Oh man, we’ve been hearing all your sounds and you made us think about this, and we’ve done that.”

I asked how an IMAX camera works. It was a bit embarrassing because the film set stopped for five minutes while he kindly showed me the IMAX camera and all the moving bits, and the process that the camera has to have to drag that enormous bit of film through the film gate 24 times a second.

…I sent Guillaume a version of this beautiful, chord-based wind whistle that ended up being in the final scene of the film.

During the whole process, I also had a lot of conversations with Guillaume Rocheron, the VFX supervisor. For the most part, the VFX is a large ship that turned slowly. So I was making sure that I created sounds that could conceivably come out of the beautiful creations he had made.

But also, I sent Guillaume a version of this beautiful, chord-based wind whistle that ended up being in the final scene of the film. I think that made him understand that he could make more tendrils and flappiness, and give a kind of beauty to the way the thing was pictured.

It had to be credible, the sounds coming out of the VFX object. That was key. I think, for the most part, I was reacting to what they were doing, to be fair.

What went into the design of the alien/Jean Jacket’s sounds?

JB: At the beginning of the film, the alien sounds are all about how you hear it disturb the environment. Since it’s a stealth predator, it doesn’t want to be heard so you are hearing a tiny bit of wind that sounds slightly different. Jordan was always saying, “Can you give me 10 different ways that wind can sound wrong? So that it’s uncanny?”

I think he was thinking about that beautiful shot of OJ standing there at night next to his horse; they’re looking out into the valley and thinking that something funny was happening over there. We were always trying to make a slightly odd version of natural sounds. And yeah, it is about what you’re hearing that’s inside Jean Jacket (the alien), but for the most part, in the first act of the film, it’s the blowing of the trees or the grass or whatever – it’s a strange bit of wind sound.

We were always trying to make a slightly odd version of natural sounds.

Then at the end of the film, Jean Jacket really wants to be looked at and is very attention-seeking. There’s no reason for it to hide its nature anymore, or to disguise the sounds that it makes. We very clearly have a transformation in progress that’s going from the disc/hat-shaped cocoon thing into its big, full-blown beautiful self. We were trying to make large flapping sounds that somewhat explain the sounds that you were hearing throughout the film as you got closer. We used a lot of the wind flapping and the big, parachute cloth-type sounds to denote its presence in the middle of the film. We wanted to make sure that carried across in the end so that you get what that sound was that you were hearing.

…I’d boost the frequencies in certain areas so that it’d become tonal and almost melodic.

We were going with this idea that Jean Jacket has natural sounds from just flapping and unfolding. It has beautiful winds that I created from whistling winds – choosing ones that
had particular frequencies, or I’d boost the frequencies in certain areas so that it’d become tonal and almost melodic. The wind sounds I chose certainly had enough buried chord structure that could give us the suggestion that this animal could make a beautiful sound if it wanted to – similar to how it could look beautiful.

All the vocalizations are a mixture of my voice, speaking deeply into a microphone and also a peacock slowed down…

It also has vocalizations, and Jordan was asking, “Can you look into bird sounds?” We ended up with a peacock, which is the basis of all the vocal sounds that you hear – even the one in encounter six when OJ looks up through the truck window and there’s this big, honky blast. And at Jupiter’s Claim, in the encounter when Jean Jacket first approaches with the streamers hanging down. All the vocalizations are a mixture of my voice, speaking deeply into a microphone and also a peacock slowed down, which makes a really beautiful “look at me” kind of sound.

There’s also a sonar element. We were trying to figure out a way of making sure the audience understood that Jean Jacket was actively seeking prey. I read that someone thought we took the sonar sound off the new Twitter refresh sound, but it’s not. That it’s me going “ooph” and I re-pitch it. So yeah, that’s the full remit of the sounds that Jean Jacket makes.

To get the wind sounds to do what you needed them to do, were you using a sampler (like Konkatk) to play the sounds?

JB: I was not. It’s not taking a whistling wind and then playing different samples of that. Wind is like white noise; it’s a broad-spectrum sound with all frequencies. So within that is hidden lots of beautiful sound; you just have to access it, so I used really incredibly tight notch EQ.

We’re being very specific and only enhancing the exact musical frequency we want.

This could be done with waves or just me breathing. It’s very specifically thinking that we want C# so let’s dial that frequency in. Or, it’s listening to a recording of wind and hearing that it’s almost starting to make an interesting sound around those frequencies so let’s enhance that enormously. We’re being very specific and only enhancing the exact musical frequency we want. So if we’re doing a C#, then let’s also do a G and E# so that we get a chord to make it sound beautiful.

At one point, we did have Jean Jacket almost singing a song at the end through wind, but it became too much of a narrative juncture. So we dialed it back and made it more of an attempt at beautiful sounds and weirdness rather than, “here’s the song we all sing on my planet.”

When Jean Jacket flies over, there’s this terrible (awesome!!) scream that is a mix of people and horses being digested. But when you first hear it, you don’t know it’s that. It’s more ambiguous. What went into that sound? I love it!!

JB: We loved doing that. There were a few times on the mix stage where we were looking at each other, going “that’s so cool!”

During the six months of development, Jordan and I had a lot of discussions where I was playing him some winds that were howling and moaning, making a “woooooooah” type of sound. Then I recorded my daughter screaming along in time with that. I was showing him that you could overlay those two and then choose between them.

We started really discovering that there was a lot of fun to be had in that gray area of similar-sounding elements.

Then I played a recording from a theme park of people on a rollercoaster; I’d edited various bits so they also sounded like the wind, making that “woooooooah” sound. We saw that there was really something in that, that you could attenuate the ingredients so that you hear a bit of wind and then the screams. You can misdirect the audience so that initially it sounds like fun and then it suddenly sounds painful, but then you recognize that so we revert it to being a normal bit of wind sound. We started really discovering that there was a lot of fun to be had in that gray area of similar-sounding elements.
That goes along with the idea that, in your ears, each cochlear only has about one hair that can hear each particular frequency – “masking” is the phenomenon.

For example, if there was a hum (a dirty electrical noise) and you play a violin note on top of it at the same pitch and a tiny bit louder, then you would wholly only hear the violin note and that would sound beautiful. It would get rid of the horrible, dirty noise behind it.

So we were using that human phenomenon to switch the audience’s impression of what they were hearing.

So we were using that human phenomenon to switch the audience’s impression of what they were hearing. There’s a bit at the very beginning of the film where they look up and see the clouds and you hear what you think is a scream but then you think that maybe it was just wind. It could have been just normal wind, but you wonder, “did something just happen there? I don’t know.”

And that’s great because later on, when they do cut to inside the alien and you are in the full horror of these people trapped inside screaming for their lives helplessly, then you suddenly realize that all those other times you’ve heard that sound there were people dying in there. That realization is such a penny drop of horror. That’s just fantastic because a true horror sound is a consequence of a realization in your head as well as a visceral response to a nasty sound. It’s a reckoning kind of thing.

I think everyone who’s worked on the project had to throw their screams in…

When they shot the interior digestive tract, there were some fantastic actors who were screaming in there and we used that on the shot when Emerald looks back and she hears the first scream as the thing comes over the house.

And we had plenty of other screams, too. I think everyone who’s worked on the project had to throw their screams in and they all had to be better than the skinny dipper from Jaws. Jordan said that was the one we had to beat.

Dhyana Carlton-Tims, our supervising dialogue and ADR editor, did a loop group session and recorded this brilliant track of them imagining they’re on a roller coaster, but then it turns into being scared and in pain. They mix it up. It starts off being a nice, friendly, “wooooooooah” that sounds fun, and then it evolves into the terror bit. It’s really effective and really transforms the interior Jean Jacket scene.

So when you’re inside there, it’s not just the proximal sounds of Jupe and Amber screaming at the end; you’re also hearing all those other people really quietly having an equally awful time. I think that’s one of the massively horrific things about that shot.
 

And there are horses screaming, too! Where did you get your horse screaming sounds?

JB: Terrified horse sounds do exist in sound effects libraries. I sampled, re-edited, and modified them all to make them sound different.

I just didn’t want to go to my sister, who is a horsewoman, and ask to torture her horse. However, we did record all the happy horse and talking horse sounds you hear, thanks to Annabel Burn. But no animals were harmed in the making of this movie!

However, we did record all the happy horse and talking horse sounds you hear…

And although the terrified horses were library sounds, they were mixed with other sounds like the scream of a terrified rabbit and things like that to take it to another level of awfulness. We used the Sound Particles software quite a lot to make the more backgroundey, blended sort of “what the hell is that?” type sounds – the bit where you’re not quite sure what you are hearing.

When they show Jupe, his wife Amber, and their audience inside the digestive tract of Jean Jacket, what did you do sound-wise to help that feel really claustrophobic?

JB: The claustrophobic sound of the interior of Jean Jacket’s digestive tract was partially the really close-mic rubbing sound that should be familiar to anyone who’s set up a microphone before. It’s the sound of handling a pop shield, really close and too loud. I was dragging my hand over a pop shield and recording that.

Then the rest of it is the really awfully-close claustrophobic reverb, the performance from the lead actress in that scene, and Dhyana’s fantastic loop group screams. Where we end up on the lead scream is one of the key, horrific takeaways of that thing, as well as those quiet bits of vomiting and other bodily functions that you’re basically not going to bother holding in when you’re in that final moment. There are a few things going on in that scene.

It’s the sound of handling a pop shield, really close and too loud.

It’s also about volume; it’s very loud. Anyone watching that gets quite a visceral response of it being overwhelming. And it also goes on way longer than you’d think it would. As a director, I’d think we’d only need seven seconds of that because it’s horrible. Whereas Jordan decided to have 40-seconds or whatever it is. I read reviews of people saying they needed to leave the theater for a moment because it triggered them. They had a panic attack from watching that scene, which is obviously awful and not intentional, but it’s a horrific moment in the film. It’s true horror.

During the mix, we played it back a lot of times, and that was always one of the moments when, in the mixing room, we would all look around at each other, and say, “We got that bit right.”
 

The first thing that gets sucked up is Ghost the horse. You created such cool reverb/delay on the horse sounds bouncing around in the valley and off the hills. This is such a big, open space to fill up. Can you talk about your design, processing, and panning for this scene?

JB: That was great fun to do. Originally, that scene was a lot busier but once you get into the final mixing phase, you end up taking loads of things out. So, it was a lot windier initially.

In that scene, OJ gets down to the gulch and walks through the gate and the cicadas stop singing. You then hear this one gust of wind that comes from the rear and blows past you, and that grabs your attention. Then it all goes deadly quiet, and you hear a horse whinny. You see the lights on in the distance at Jupiter’s Claim and you hear the distant sound of Jupe doing the rehearsal of his speech, but then the lights go out. Right from the beginning of the film, hopefully, we’ve established how very remote they are – almost like being on an alien planet. They’re tucked away, far from the city.

I spent a lot of time down there recording myself shouting, wanting to get the geography right – the acoustics and the reverb.

Emerald shouts out the window and asks where Ghost is going. We went to great lengths to get the reverb on that right. I spent a lot of time down there recording myself shouting, wanting to get the geography right – the acoustics and the reverb. I’d like to think we created an environment that’s really credible so that you buy the geography and then we can use all that for a really decent surround sound immersion.

The surround sound placement of that is what’s telling you all the imperative information about where that horse is.

When we’re with OJ in the gulch, you don’t see the horse at all – you don’t really see much at all. So we stripped out much of the sound and left it to being just the horse sound; you hear it whinnying and panicking, and then it gets abducted. But you’re not seeing much at all. The surround sound placement of that is what’s telling you all the imperative information about where that horse is.

On top of that, we did have big vortex sucky sounds. At one point, Jean Jacket was growling and the horse was screaming, but at that point in the film certainly, it became too revealing. It let us into the nature of the beast too much.

It was fun to describe the whole narrative just with sound…

It was fun to describe the whole narrative just with sound. Then as the camera pans back around with Emerald’s look back towards the house, we slam back in with the really cool music. I had to pinch myself a few times during that scene. I hoped that would be the final way we did the scene because it was just really working so well.

It’s funny, you do all these things for years and still, when you start a job like this as a sound designer, you want to throw loads of sound in there. It’s so easy to think that that’s necessary, but it’s pretty much always the case that less is more, isn’t it? Let people fill those gaps in their imagination with their own thoughts.
 

I loved all the reverbs and delays you made for that canyon. It was perfect. For instance, there was that shouted conversation between Emerald and Ricky (Jupe), where he’s on the road by his truck and she’s standing with OJ and Angel in the pasture. Can you talk about your approach to this scene?

JB: The first time I saw that scene, I was on the floor laughing. Keke [Palmer, as Emerald]’s performance is incredible. It’s just so good.

That scene took a hell of a lot of little clips of reverb that have been rendered down and positioned.

In terms of reverbs, it always strikes me that the real world is more complex than what a reverb box normally does. That scene took a hell of a lot of little clips of reverb that have been rendered down and positioned. I thought, well, there’s probably a bit of sound bouncing off of the horse, so I’ll stick a bit there. And then there’ll be a bit coming off that valley over there, but it will have less bottom end and less top end because it’s further away and it’ll be delayed another second. And so there are probably 10 different little reverbs all based on these thoughts in my head.

I think what’s working there is the real-world complexity of reality, and me having the time and the spare tracks to throw a load of rendered bits of reverb that abstract what a single reverb live plugin unit might have delivered. Also, we have built up to that point in the movie where we understand it’s an echoey valley!

Johnnie Burn on the set of ‘Nope’

So you crafted all those reflections and put them in and panned them….

JB: I decided that Jupe was going to have a metallic bounce off his truck, and a higher ring off the gate, and then there’s going to be a dull bit off the ground. And then we’re going to have a bit coming off the closer hill, which will be bigger and sooner than the one coming off the farther hills, which will be longer and more delayed. In Atmos, we put some over the top of our heads as well. So yeah, a lot of the reverbs are multiple rendered clips each with its own pan trajectory.

…it’s about the distance between them and how absurd it is to have that conversation at that distance. The reverb really amps that…

That’s the main thing that’s going on in that scene – it’s about the distance between them and how absurd it is to have that conversation at that distance. The reverb really amps that and it just makes more of a mockery of it. It’s brilliant. Again, the sound designer in me was like, “Turn it up. It’ll be better the louder these funny things get.” But the mixer in me thought, “No, no. Play it cool.”
 

Let’s talk about the Gordy attack, because here is a great moment for your sound designer side. This chimpanzee attack is told wholly through sound. At one point, it’s a black screen and you just hear the attack. Can you talk about your sound work on that?

JB: That was one of the first scenes they shot; it was in late June last year. By the time I came out to the set, Nicholas Monsour (picture editor) had already sent me the rough cut. That looked very similar to how it does now.

Jordan has this enormous capacity…to be thinking so wholly about post-production during the production process.

Jordan and Ian [Cooper, producer] came down to the mix stage at Universal and I played them a version of that scene. (This was almost a year before we ended up mixing it). I just had some rough ideas in and it was so exciting for him, in the middle of the shoot, to hear it.

Jordan has this enormous capacity – unlike any director I’ve ever known – to be thinking so wholly about post-production during the production process. So he wanted to hear any ideas I had. He was like, “Yeah, show me your work in progress.” Some directors don’t want to see any playback until they’re finished shooting – until they’ve got something in the can.

For the Gordy attack, I probably initially made the mistake of thinking it was all about having big, visceral, loud bone-crunching sounds continuously. But, ultimately, what we ended up with is something much more paired back.

When you’re making sounds for something off-camera, it’s great to start the thought of the suggested idea…and then allow you to continue with it.

For all the off-camera stuff, it seemed like the really clever thing to do would be to snap the odd carrot for a broken bone sound or whatever. My fantastic team thought that was the right thing to do, but to hold back as well. When you’re making sounds for something off-camera, it’s great to start the thought of the suggested idea because the fear process in someone’s head is never going to be as awful as something that I can give to them. So I start your imagination going and then allow you to continue with it. That is going to be more personally horrific to you than for me to continue the sounds and make it more obvious. I’ve read reviews where people have said the sound in that scene did more than it actually did in reality, because they’ve filled in the blank spaces in their head.

The Gordy attack is about the careful placement of a few really horrific sounds that suggest an awful lot of gory things are happening, but only going up to that line and not going past it. To do more would be a bit of a turnoff.
 

In the title sequence, there were interesting panned sounds in the music. Was that in the music, or was that additional sound design?

JB: We had a lot of the tinklier sounds – the bells and those kinds of things – panned into a quad bus in the roof on the Atmos mix. We had great fun with Nuendo‘s rotational panner (it’s like Spanner but built into Nuendo).

On occasions, while waiting for Jordan to turn up, I’d tweak those a little bit. I’m really pleased you noticed. It’s funny, for the most part you think, “Yeah, no one’s ever going to spot anything like that.” But yeah, the whole film is a spectacle so why can’t the mix be so too?!

It sounded amazing! There was so much great panning in the film. For instance, when OJ was in the barn at night and the sprinklers come on and the horses are whinnying…

JB: In that scene, we started with score initially. That was the plan. The offline edit had score and some sprinkler sounds because the sprinklers are visually turned on. So, I tried a version where Brendan [Feeney, sound effects editor] had used just the sprinklers and all the ambient sound to provide the tension that you need. And Jordan said, “Wow, this is so damn immersive!”

Composer Michael Abels’s score is extraordinary; it’s just fantastic. But, there are times when you are so in the moment that I’d rather be directly experiencing the emotions alongside the actor than being told them by the music. Although, that scene does really benefit when the score kicks in at the end.

That was fun, cutting the sprinklers and making them all go in time with each other and speeding them up a little bit to dictate the tension.

That was fun, cutting the sprinklers and making them all go in time with each other and speeding them up a little bit to dictate the tension. And then we had the alien sounds that the kids in the film were making. My daughter was doing this sound about a year and a half ago, something from this TikTok meme called “Save the Turtles.” It sounded like “ksk-ksk-ksk-ksk.” She said the sprinklers sounded a bit like that. So she made that “ksk-ksk-ksk” sound and I recorded her, so that went in.

And we had all the horses, the ambient sounds of the generator, and the banging in there. That’s a cool scene.

…I went back and re-timed the alien roar to allow space for people to laugh and then recover before he said, ‘Nope.’

It was great to watch the first test screening we did in Long Beach and seeing everyone react to that. Literally, everyone in the cinema was going, “wooooo!” They were laughing in fear, and on the edge of their seats. I had no idea how they’d react because when you’re working on something you’re so used to it. You don’t know how people are going to read any of it.

It’s revealing to see the reaction of the test audience. For instance, we had a different timing for when OJ is in the truck and he locks the door and says, “Nope.” After watching it at a test screening, I went back and re-timed the alien roar to allow space for people to laugh and then recover before he said, “Nope.” So, it’s really helpful to be able to do that.
 

I loved the way you handled the power-down sounds. What went into that?

JB: The music editor was a talented guy named Brett Pierce, but Quincy Jones calls him Snacky, so that is his name. We ended up calling that “the Snacky silence.” He was a big proponent of making the power-downs a definite moment before we suck out all the sound. They’re really effective and put you on the edge of your seat.

The slowed and reverbed version of the “Sunglasses at Night” song, did you handle the processing on that track, or was that something the composer (or music editor) did?

JB: That was something I did.

In February last year, Jordan sent me a link to Annie Lennox’s “Why” slowed down. It was one of those YouTube clips showing how different a song sounds when you have it played at quarter-speed.

Technically, it’s not just slow down. They’ve re-pitched it and they’ve added reverb. I explained that process to Jordan and we played around with quite a few different tracks to see what was getting activated in pieces of music – what was making them more interesting with that type of processing.

…we played around with quite a few different tracks to see what was getting activated in pieces of music…

So I slowed down “Sunglasses at Night” and put a tiny bit of reverb on it. I noticed that the kick drum wasn’t coming through enough and so Snacky (music editor) made a brilliant track of just the beat so that we could really hit that hard on the nail every time because the clarity of that low-frequency sound was getting lost on the slow-down version.

It’s brilliant; it just works so well and becomes such a horrible, ambient thing. It’s cool.

There’s a scene with Emerald and Angel in the house, and it’s raining but then it’s not rain anymore; it’s Jean Jacket’s drool/digestive juices or vomit. You hear coins, keys, and other items falling onto the house and the porch. How did you create that scene, to help the audience realize that it’s not rain but alien drool?

JB: Silence is the key there. When it first comes over the house, you realize that the silence represents the fact that the rain that was naturally happening has now ended because there’s a big umbrella-type thing above.

But then you hear the drool coming down and you wonder, “what’s that?” That’s another example of Jordan Peele cleverly leading his audience into making the connection where they have a penny drop moment of “oh my God, it’s not rain. It’s blood or goop stuff that’s coming out of Jean Jacket.”

I spent a fair bit of time in that actual house while the film crew was shooting at Jupiter’s Claim.

I spent a fair bit of time in that actual house while the film crew was shooting at Jupiter’s Claim. I’d set up my recording equipment in the rooms that the actors were in and poured stuff on the roof on the porch, and on the windows.

I think one of the reasons why the junk hitting the house (the physical objects being expelled from Jean Jacket) worked so well is because I was literally picking up chairs and throwing them on the floor on the second floor and recording that from the first floor. I was up there jumping around. They’re real recordings captured with a nice stereo mic, so they sound correct for that space. There’s a lot of that.

They’re real recordings captured with a nice stereo mic, so they sound correct for that space.

There are recordings I did sitting in my car outside my house here in England with kids throwing stuff at the car. This worked well for when OJ is in the car, and there’s banging on the windows. The kids used hose pipes and buckets of water and increasingly heavier things.

And we had recordings of fire hoses as well for the more intense moments of it.

In the opening of the film, the first time we encounter this rain of personal items – like the key sticking out of the horse and OJ’s father dying from a nickel going through his eye – I had the foley team at Cobblestone Foley cover that. They were fantastic. Much of those details came in the VFX later on, and foley would give us wild tracks for that.

…that’s what makes the immersion really good – when you end up using a recording that you’ve made and it has imperfections in it.

But for me, recording on the set is key – recording things in the actual space – because you don’t know what you’re going to get in those recordings. Real life is filled with nonclinical sounds and I think that’s what makes the immersion really good – when you end up using a recording that you’ve made and it has imperfections in it. That’s what actually makes the viewer genuinely think, “oh, that really happened” because you hear all the other crappy sounds in there. There’s something in that. It feels natural.

I was lucky to spend an awful lot of time outside the house after they filmed the blood rain sequence. All the metal objects were lying around the house where they’d been dumped during the actual filming of it. So I spent a good day recording there. I’d get every single object and throw it down, drop it, move it around, kick it, and do everything to it that I could record.

There was so much sound in that scene; that reel had 1,600 tracks.

We had all those coins falling; there was tons of that. I spent a lot of time throwing them up in the air and recording them landing. I spent about six hours with all the actual props (which were not plastic, they were genuinely metal objects), throwing them around and taking some of them into the house.

I couldn’t get on the roof of the house, so I put the microphones on the ground floor and went to the room above it and took the big metal boxes and other objects, and threw those on the floor to get the correct acoustic for that.

And then I’d have to refer back to my photos for continuity, to put everything back in the right place.

For the key impact – where the key is sticking out of the horse – that was a big old thigh slap as well as a metal element. There was so much sound in that scene; that reel had 1,600 tracks.

There’s a scene with a TMZ reporter zipping along at 60 mph on an electric motorcycle and then he slams into the anti-electric field and goes flying through the air. Did you use the Wilhelm scream?

JB: We did have the Wilhelm scream on that. But then someone from Dhyana’s loop group gang did such a funnier one. It just makes you laugh when you hear it. So we went with that instead.

The Wilhelm scream is however in there on the more distant shot when he is lying there in pain after the fall.

Holst, the cinematographer in the film, gets sucked up into Jean Jacket, and then we’re in his POV for a while. How did you handle the sound for that scene?

JB: I’ve got this great video of his ADR session for that scene. So the actor, Michael Wincott, did an ADR session for us, and right at the end, I asked if he could have a go at when he’s being sucked up because we needed some blood-cuddling screams. (That’s not something you’d ever ask an actor to do at the beginning of an ADR session because then they wouldn’t be able to do their lines properly.) He was really happy to try it.

I spend a bit of time using the Sound Particles software to blend various wind sounds that had a pitch tonality to them.

It was fantastic watching him on this split-screen Zoom call – one side was the actual scene of him being sucked up and the other side was Michael Wincott in a voice booth in Los Angeles. He was going absolutely nuts. He had veins sticking out on his neck and everything. It was actually way more interesting to watch him than the POV shot. He’s really funny. He’s such a brilliant character.

I remember looking at the beginning of The Wizard of Oz with the twister and thinking, “What is it that’s really interesting about that sound?” It had to do with the tonality of the twister moving. And Jordan pointed out that one of the things that people find really fascinating about twisters is how they almost silently move.

As the audience, you’re in the middle of the vortex.

But in this moment of the film, we’re in the eye of the storm. I spend a bit of time using the Sound Particles software to blend various wind sounds that had a pitch tonality to them. They have a specific sound that, when you bend it, your ear catches it.

The whole thing with screams and winds is a big theme in this film, so I was just finding a way of basing Holst accurately in that vortex so you completely get his POV. So that shot starts off with the sound very upfront and by the end of it, it’s completely all around you and immersive. As the audience, you’re in the middle of the vortex.
 

Jean Jacket eats the helium balloon mascot from Jupiter’s claim and it explodes. This is so great! Can you talk about the sound of that scene?

JB: That’s the end of the film and it needs to be poignant and strong. We want to keep the energy going but it could easily have become squeaky, rubbery sounds, and silly. And you’re looking at this inflatable Jupe character as Jean Jacket is trying to consume it; it’s absurd.

We want to keep the energy going but it could easily have become squeaky, rubbery sounds, and silly.

It was important to get across the idea of the physics of what was happening – that Jean Jacket was taking on something perhaps larger than it had ever tried to eat before, and this would certainly cause a malfunction in its bodily processes. A lot of it was about teeing up to that moment, making sure that the epicness and huge scale of the spectacle were delivered in a big way, but treating with caution the fact that it’s a big old rubbery, funny-looking thing that’s about to go pop.

We used lots of balloons, and all kinds of weird foley items were destroyed in the process of designing the end scene.

Emerald is lying down by the wishing well, and the scenes of her are intercut with the spectacle of Jean Jacket trying to swallow the Jupe inflatable. The wishing well takes pictures, and you have all these close-up light bulb crackles and pops when she cranks the handle. Was that a challenge in terms of getting the perspective right? In keeping the Jean Jacket/Jupe inflatable situation sounding epic, but also having these close-up light crackles that also sound big?

JB: Yeah, totally. And, you have her Oprah line – her dialogue – that needed to be heard as well. I think if you get that perspective right (which is obviously a mix issue) then you know it’s working because the energy of the film has been maintained.

That was a challenge throughout the film, to mix in those soft voices and…subtle sound effects that were doing a huge part in telling the narrative story.

There was a similar bit when the motorcyclist gets abducted. You’ve got all this enormous stuff going on around you – Jean Jacket is approaching with enormous, loud volumes of sound and Michael [Abels]’s fantastic score is at full volume – and then the motorcyclist says the line, “Scorpion King, make a name for yourself” as he’s lying there on the ground. He’s wearing a helmet, and his delivery was not the loudest. And we thought that was going to be quite a challenge to stop the whole flow of energy of everything we’ve got going on to dive into this enormously close perspective of him saying that line, and then come straight back out into him being abducted with this enormous wind vortex going on.

That was a challenge throughout the film, to mix in those soft voices and intimate lines and carefully detailed, crucial, subtle sound effects that were doing a huge part in telling the narrative story. By design of the whole film, there are a lot of subtle things going on, and so the challenge was how to get those punchy enough to continue the energy of the mix of the film, especially in its final 20 minutes, which needs to be going hell for leather.
 

Did you have a mix partner for the film?

JB: I did not. All the prep time afforded me not to need that.

…my mix process is one of sculpting the mix on scenes from the beginning as a continuous process throughout editorial.

Also, my mix process is one of sculpting the mix on scenes from the beginning as a continuous process throughout editorial. During the picture edit, I was working on scenes alongside Nick, the picture editor. I would always have my mixed version of a scene.

I work with a really fantastic team, so between us, we achieve all the different sound design, sound effects, and (to some extent) mix issues as we are going through the process leading up to the final mix. That means that when I begin the final mix, I’ve got a pretty well-formed mix going on already. What I brought to Jordan for the first day of the final mix was something that many people might think of as done already.

…when I begin the final mix, I’ve got a pretty well-formed mix going on already.

From there, it’s about sculpting and changing bits and improving it. It wasn’t a situation where we just got the dialogue and music together for the first time and now we need to figure out what to do with it. It wasn’t like that. It’s more considered over a longer period of time.

So, for the most part, I don’t really need a mix partner if I am working in that long-engagement sort of way. Although, we did spend three months on the mix stage!
 

And Jordan, of course, is hearing all of these premixes that you’re doing along the way, because it’s just part and parcel with all of the editing work that you’re doing…

JB: Yeah. So, I came out in February, but long before that he was hearing mixes in 5.1 at the picture editorial facility. One room there was the “Johnnie Burn” room. Although I wasn’t physically there, I’d remote into it.

He can just react much more instinctively to what he’s not liking about what he’s hearing.

It had an enormous TV with a pro audio 5.1 setup, and acoustic treatment, and twice a week, I’d sit with Jordan for an hour (with me in London and him in Los Angeles) and I’d play him things in 5.1. He’d be hearing the mix, basically. He really liked that because he didn’t have to just focus on the sound design. He could comment on the mix, too. He can just react much more instinctively to what he’s not liking about what he’s hearing. So if he wants to talk about a mix issue before they’ve finished a picture edit, that’s fine by me.
 

So we talked about all of my favorite scenes. What was your favorite scene for sound?

JB: I just really love that first bit when OJ is standing there at night with the horse and when he walks out into the gulch. Jordan was always saying to me, “You know Johnnie when he comes out at night, I want to feel like I’m a kid and I’ve stepped outside my house, and maybe my parents aren’t there. You suddenly feel the enormity of nature and the world around you.”

Hopefully, to some extent, we achieved that. A large part of that is obviously the cinematography – how you are able to see so far deep down into the details of that valley at night. It is just extraordinary.

I like those types of ambient bits more than the punchy sound design moments.

For me, maybe the cinematography is the thing I like about it the most. I just love that you are out there and you are 20 minutes into the film, and you’re really being shown an immersion into a really wonderful space. You totally believe that you’re there. I like those types of ambient bits more than the punchy sound design moments.

Although, I do like when you first hear a blast from Jean Jacket – when Jean Jacket abducts the plastic horse and then it goes to Jupe standing there giving his speech and it cuts to the POV shot from the alien and you hear its incredibly loud roar.

…about a week before we finished, Jordan goes, ‘Can you throw a kazoo in there as well?’

And we spent months working on that and we got it just right. It’s a really careful blend of different musical instruments and sci-fi sounds and my voice and various different things. We lived with it and it was brilliant, and then about a week before we finished, Jordan goes, “Can you throw a kazoo in there as well?”

So we did. And it sounds brilliant. It’s a great addition.

I like all those bits too, but for me, the nighttime scene and being out there in the emptiness of the valley and how that was achieved I think is what stands out the most.
 

The reverbs and delays you created for that moment really help to sell the vastness and magnitude of that gulch! Sound played a huge role in expressing that as well as the image!

JB: It does, doesn’t it? That’s great. It’s really cool.
 

How was working on Nope a unique experience for you?

JB: Personally, the most significant thing that happened was that I was away from home for almost five months, which was a bit unfair to my wife and kids. But the family came out for a month during the middle of that. So it wasn’t all bad.

I got to work at Universal Studios, on the big mix stage there. That’s a lifetime achievement for me. That was just fantastic. I felt like I’d made it. I was mixing a film in Hollywood. What’s bad about that?
 

A big thanks to Johnnie Burn for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Nope and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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