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Sylvain Bellemare: Arrival’s Oscar Winner Talks The Housewife · Gilbert. K Show

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Today on the Gilbert K Show, Oscar-winning sound designer Sylvan Bellamari, the talent who makes you feel movies through your ears, from his Oscar-winning sound editing on Denny Villeneuve's Arrival to Novocaine, Splitzville, and The Housewife, we're going behind the sounds of cinema.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give a big welcome to the one and only Sylvan Bellamaire.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Silva, pleasure to have you on the show.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: How are you today?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Gilbert, nice to meet you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to meet you, and thanks for doing this.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, so let's get into it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the person behind the sound.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, before the aliens and the Oscar, there was a kid growing up in Montreal.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: If we could hear 10 seconds of your childhood, what would we hear and what memory would it bring back?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um there will definitely two things.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um sort of ball game outdoor, uh, and the baller uh you know bouncing on the on the street, and surely uh a hockey stick slapping a puck somewhere.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that will be two sounds.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, what was the first movie song or everyday noise that made you stop and really listen?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, did you know then that sound could become your career?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think before movies, I think I was fascinating about a sort of cartoon on television that was uh uh broadcasting uh in Radzu, Canada, the the French uh broadcaster, the CBC French.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I I remember that that show was like starting with it was really weird and special, and these sounds were naturally music.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and something was really attracting my attention.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I really opened the opening credits, it was great.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I this is what I prefer from the show, and it was a show with so many varieties of different little cartoons, and they call it La Ribambelle, if I remember, which is very hard to translate.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: I should get the word, but it's like a melting pot of something.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and it's um it's a great memory.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the first films that are really coming to my mind, uh, I I I said at uh numerous time in interviews, I wish to say something else, but they were The Spaghetti Western from Sergio Leone, who was really famous from the to 65 to 73.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was born in 68, so those films were still really popular when I was really young.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: And my oldest brothers got the vinyl, they were buying the the film uh in vinyl.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So he had all the the music tracks in the vinyl, but they kept some scene, so you were able to listen to the film.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: You you can watch the film, uh, of course, in theater, but back in the days in 1973, 1974, my family, like every every all my friends, nobody had any kind of videotape or something.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was starting back in the days, and for some people, but in my family, it was absolutely non-existent.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't have the film at home.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: So the vinyl was the only way to have the film at home, if you can call it having a film.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I was able to listen to the film, to Stella Giuliani's movies more to the vinyl than theaters.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's so I get attracted.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: But Ennio Marricone, the composer, was became extremely famous, one of the top music composers of the history of filmmaking.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, there is a fantastic documentary about Ennio Marricone, the Have to Be Watch, that was done recently.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so as uh this is where I think he was the influence to me to embrace sound and music together.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that throughout my my childhood and still today, it's a big um, it's a massive influence for me to mix music and sound.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's like yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: So are you also a musician?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Did you play any instruments when you're working at no?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very and I'm I'm I'm a very bad instrumentist uh for various reasons.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh but I I'm I'm I do music editing, so some of my colleagues say I'm a musician because I'm able to do music editing.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I will say that okay on that part, but I don't consider myself a musician.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I have a balance of respect for music.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but oh no, I can I cannot consider myself a musician.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So anybody of in your family were and are in the film industry or uh entertainment?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have a cousin who has has actually done uh his name is Philippe Bergeron.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's established in Los Angeles in the past 30 years.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: He's doing some uh painscaping on building, and he he had a career.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Also, he'd been he had a career as an actor in Hollywood and plays in some movies.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh also he did animated movies back in the 80s.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: So and I and our grandfather was uh a musician, he was piano players, and he was also an organist uh at the church.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: He was playing on the Sundays at the Catholic church, uh and it was it was beautiful.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't he wasn't earning it, he wasn't doing that for a living, but uh yeah, he was he was really a musician playing also uh uh musical saw, which is a fantastic instrument that it's really trippy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: He was a crazy guy.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So uh my grandfather was uh important influence for me.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing, that's very inspiring.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when you were a kid, did you I don't know, did you record sounds of certain sounds or do you have a kid?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I didn't as a kid, no, but when I was a teenager, I my father bought a uh a tape deck that I still have in my studio right away on my just behind me.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, it's right there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: The camera can see it, but it's there.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: I kept that as a mental something, as a fictitious kind of thing or something.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's um and uh the this uh tape deck had two um uh um a micro micro line uh micro input, sorry, I'm still in the morning.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Micro microphone input.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I did a recording on this tape, and I did crazy stuff only on two tracks without anything else, but I had a good time to do that, and I something started there.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was playing like I was I like to uh it was the one of the good things that like uh it was exciting for me is trying to be a DJ uh in my basement, but very simple with very simple technology.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: I never went to the DJ at all.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh uh but uh it was I started this way.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, it was the the beginning was there, clearly.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: So your work in sound design and an arrival, you were the supervising sound editor.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: For those of us who who see those titles and the credits and wonder who does what, how are the roles different?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: What were you responsible for on arrival, the film arrival for Denis Villeneuve?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh to say that uh I think it's interesting to establish the differences between sound supervising and sound designer.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the sound designer is really someone who put his hand on the material and created the sound uh itself.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, is like if he's part of an orchestra, it will be uh the sound designer will be part of the first violin kind of thing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you will have the sound editor, and then the sound designer will be on the top of the people who create the concept and uh surrounding uh the influence of the film with special sound, let's say.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the sound supervisor will be like the conductor of the orchestra, and he will be the person who will supervise the entire sound pose.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: That there's a part of it that is really much more organization and technical part, and a big part is, of course, the creativity of the film and the direction.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: But this title only exists really in the US, in the rest of the world, the sound supervisor and the sound designer is the same person.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's just in certain American movies, you have the scale is so big that you need to have a two-person, or sometimes it could be the same person, and then you're coming back like the rest of the world is doing.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I don't know, for instance, how they work in India, which is a massive cinematic scene in India.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: They produce like 2,000 films a year.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how they proceed this way.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: I wish to know.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh yes, that's a difference.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, uh I like I'm doing both all the time.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I have many colleagues that do the same.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you cannot be a sound supervisor if you were not before or at the same time a sound designer.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's impossible to be a sound supervisor if you're not a sound designer.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: They go hand in hand.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So when does when did this go from I love movies to this is my life?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh take us to an early moment when something went wrong and you had to find a way through it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh it was clearly something that was uh the entire art scene was really stays in my mind at a very young age.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, I was an actor from the age of 12 years old to 22 years old, an actor.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: I did play in about seven or eight shows at school, like uh high school, uh college.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: I did like uh I liked the scene, for instance.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: I do uh uh humorists also.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: I did a show, a little show to I wanted to be like a comic comedian for a moment.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I'd love to participate to organize the lights uh on shows on living uh I love this.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: The stage was very attractive for me.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: The sound for stage events, so uh for bands, uh and all this were mixed together.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, uh and little by little, uh uh when I when I hit college when I was uh 19, then uh filming started, and then serious school started with radio, filmmaking, uh advertising stuff, uh audio class and everything.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: I did a college in Montreal called uh Collège Brebeuf was very, very good at it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so uh everything was there literature, writing.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was even dancing, I never danced, but I was fascinated by the contemporary dance, uh theater.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: All these were really important for me, but cinema became the top of the top.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: In I I saw in every single art movement, all combined, then cinema appear.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, cinema was like the highest, the biggest, and the most important.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And all this was there, and I I really wanted a sound, and and the fascination with sound and music was there, and it's something really quickly appeared within film that I wanted to do that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the exact moment, definitely when I was 17, 18, 19, something was building.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: But the the big, big move when I finally jumped, I was uh 24 years old, but before in between that also, I had a part of myself that I wasn't sure about to all this.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to put some you know something more in my head.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to study anthropology at university.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted really to open my mind.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: I had this also this attraction for science, but I think I would have been a terrible scientist.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I was fascinating.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I I didn't start right away, and but I was doing a lot of things on set also in film, like uh lightning.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I do I did a lot of lightning on set, uh, you know, assistant of assistant.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: I never was like the big big chief.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I did various like uh video clip, for instance.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: I did a few video clips, uh a technician.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was and all those years were exciting, but had very little money.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was a tough time for money.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but finally, and I was doing some sound, and one day I kind of uh things were a bit not that slow, but uh yeah, so the the big, big step when I was 24, I said, okay, I really have to do something more, and then I went to the biggest post-sound uh facilities in Montreal.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then I started, and then I was lucky to work uh as an assistant of an assistant on uh Denis Arcan film.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Denis Arcan is this famous Quebec filmmaker that that won the Oscar for Best Farring Film in 2003 with barbarian invasion, barbaric invasion, and then uh it's it was um uh it's a film called Love and Human Remains from Denis Arcan that was released in 1994.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's amazing, that's very inspiring.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, Sylvain, we're gonna take our first break and we're gonna play a game, this or that, and it's a rapid-fire game for the audience to get to know you.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you ready, Sylvain?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, okay.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh build an alien voice or recreate 1964 New York.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: What is it, the the most difficult?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this or that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Which one, which one is you you you create an alien voice?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: An unoriginal alien voice is very difficult.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh make the audience laugh or make them hold their breath.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hold their breath.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh record a surprising sound outside, or discover one while experimenting in the studio.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's a good one.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I love both, but I say recording a special sound outside.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: But both fantastic question.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a huge spaceship rumble or one tiny and settling creek.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, you're good, Gilbert.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I think the creek.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I will go with the creek or the creek.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a tricky one: a director who gives you a clear plan, or one who says, surprise me.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, surprise me.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, a beautifully controlled sound or a happy accident.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's a good fantastic one.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: I want both, but I will say happy accident.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, sound that reveals a secret or sound that hides one.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, man.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Gilbert, just man, you should be uh a prophet or something.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we'll say uh the one that hides something.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: The hide, I think yeah, yeah, hides one.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, the awkward silence in a relationship comedy or the silence before danger.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the silence before danger.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: I I do way much more drama than comedy, so maybe I'm I'm yeah.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we visit uh revisit one arrival scene or try a completely new genre.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: I will say a pick uh new genre, new genre, and finally hear your finished work with a cinema audience or show it to one person whose opinion you trust.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, that's a tough one.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: My goodness.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: I will say cinema audience, but it's it's a tricky one.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: That was a very good question.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna move on to the next segment.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Arrival, the Oscar, and new creative challenges.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we talked a little bit about arrival.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: You were the supervising sound editor, uh, helping guide the sound team toward Denis Villeneuve's vision.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Aliens usually come with enough beeping to sound like uh microwave.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: How did you turn this idea of an organic sound world into a shared direction for the team?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how do I I mean it was very simple because what I proposed the idea to Denis was totally embrace the type of idea.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think Denis was a it's a guy who is he can be very critical with the sound, that he's not gonna like everything in a second.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And proposing the organic approach was really exciting for him and for all of us.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, uh the entire crew.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if I think about my my colleague Olivier Calvert, uh the sound designer was responsible for the ship.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: He completely built something with natural wind.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I uh it was, I think for him, it was more exciting for Olivier to do that uh than to try to bring a kind of electronic ship movement kind of thing.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: So it was it was really easy to uh bring that that ID of of organic sound, but it was of course it was more difficult because everything had to be from natural sound, so it's uh it was a big, big thing.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was a big challenge and very exciting.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So arrival, our arrival X asks us to listen before we understand.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: When Amy Adams' character first meets the heptopods, heptopods, how did you work with Denis and the sound team to balance fear with curiosity?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can you recall a discussion that helped shape the scene?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think it had to be the first time, it had to be uh remember, we had a lot of tracks pretending that the heptopods were really talky, and and we kind of diminished that quite a lot to make sure uh the approach need to, we had to feel that they were not dangerous, but at this at certain at the same time, the human feel them as dangerous, and of course they they came on her to bring a message, not to attack anyone.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: So uh it's more the fear comes from human, not from them.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, but of course, their their look was really special, and I think it's coming back also to how people can get fear about the look of someone.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's coming back to that conversation, which is still so present today.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, yes, I think it was the approach was to be very minimal.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Also, the music was very simple.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: They had a certain beat with one string that was doing a rhythm, if I remember correctly, from a cello, and it was really simple.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and to keep the pressure, we had the little birds singing at the same time, uh, thanks to Joe Walker, the editor.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, yes, I think it if I can remember correctly, that was about it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, when different people bring their ideas to a film like Arrival, how do you help those pieces feel like one believable world?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, tell us about the sound your team developed that surprised you and how you helped find its place in the story.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's uh the one of the things is always sometimes challenging because the director will give you not another information because for the director it remains a bit abstract.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it's something that needs to be uh uh you you need to pick up your info from the director in in in a few words because it's it's not like a big book that you will receive.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then it's really try to feel the vibe that the film has created.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's one of the most important things is to watch the film a few times to really get a sensation.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Do you really understand the vibe of the film, especially if there is a special vibe within it?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, some films are more traditional, then it's gonna be probably less creativity, let's say.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: But few filmmakers really want to bring a uh a vibe, they want to bring an atmosphere within the story they tell.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And someone the story doesn't have a link with the vibe they created, so which is very interesting.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's just a sensation of type of sound, it's really difficult to explain, but once you hit it, you got it.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's my job is to to find the the the perfect sound for the film, if is because I'm able to really understand the vibe of the film.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it's um it's uh it takes times to you can you need to watch the film a few times, you need to really embrace the movie, and the script will help also sometimes to get the vibe because sometimes the script gives details that the film doesn't show anymore.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it's important.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: The script is important to read.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Even when the your film is finished, you can read the script still because it's a kind of um there's of course that's the you know they shot the film with the script.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's the blueprint, I guess, and then yeah, yeah, you work from it.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, perfect.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So your work as a supervising uh supervising sound editor on arrival earned you the 2017 Oscar for best sound editing.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when they called your name, what went through your head?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when you look at the Oscar today, which memory of the team's work comes back first?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when they they say your name uh for one second, you are totally afraid.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want to stand up, and you want to stay in your in your seat and you hope that the the night will be over.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the let's say the two first second, and then you need to react and you need to go through the alley, and it's like super far.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I was completely uh nervous, uh, a lot of anxiety, but uh I have to say that Ryan Gosling saved my life, and he know he don't know it, by the way.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's the first time that I said it on the mic.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was walking down the alley and I was completely nervous, and people were watching the this the stage, so nobody was watching me except one hand into the alley that was waiting for high five, and it was like this, or something, I don't, I forget the way, and it was gosling in the first row, and of course, gosling is Canadian.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: He was there that evening for an for La Laland, and of course, he was shooting Blade Runner with Denny, so it was a big Canadian uh connection that I I never met him, and I walked through the stage and he was waiting for shaking my hands.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: So before going to the stage, I did have a handshake with Ryan Gosling, and he completely calmed down my anxiety, and I never ever met Gosling since that moment.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: So one day, for sure, I'm gonna buy him a bottle of champagne if I see him.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm sure you will remember that moment because I was, you know, you know, French Canadian going to get us an Oscar, and he's there on the first one.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna be with you guys for a moment as Canadian.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: I that's that's my my interpretation of Gosling reaction.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh so that and and then uh then then it was okay, but really gossing saved my life because I was able to go on stage and not to not look too much awkward, even if I was I completely forgot my speech.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: And during my speech, I said a word in French.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: I say, what did I say in French?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: I say uh uh Montreal, something.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: What was my statement?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I said a phrase in French, yeah, yeah.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then the friend, my French friends in the theater start to yell when I say that line.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody react because nobody understood, except for 10 people, but their scream was so loud that it completely uh you know was difficult for my concentration.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Then I my my speech was completely uh messed up, and I I I end up with the shortest, the shortest speech of the evening.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: I could have talked 30 seconds more.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I I have many thanks that I didn't say.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: So um I it took me a while to oh my god, I forgot to say thanks and everything.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: So that that's but then after you, you know, that the crew the night was crazy, and and it's it's uh impossible to forget.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's amazing.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so uh we're gonna talk about Splitzville.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh takes you from alien communication to people who could really use better communication with Michelangelo Covino's relationship comedy.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: How did you use sound to make an uncomfortable moment funny without stepping on the actor's timing?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the comedy part.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, especially like the big battle, like Mike and Kyle, the two actors, two friends, and the two characters have because they Kyle's wife, uh Mike's wife's uh Dakota Johnson have slept with Kyle uh the night before they were say that they were open couple, which wasn't at all.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was very funny.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um the comedy is like to you need also to sometimes there is a sound just before the joke or just after the joke that make those kind of things funny.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's very subtle, but it has to exist.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes they're not always part of the script.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's uh that's the tricky part of comedy, which is uh also uh, but it's so exciting.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's I don't I don't there's not a special recipe, it just clearly there's a recipe in a sense that it has to be uh uh put in a way that it's it's it's very subtle.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: So in in uh the one of the challenges in Mike's in Splitzville is that there's a lot of dialogue.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: So once you have a dialogue, you need to protect the sound of the dialogue from too much stuff.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: And but Mike was really adventurous.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: I really was impressed, especially at there is a scene when you at the end of when they they they joined for the big, big party at uh uh it was Kyle's house, I think so, where when she lived with uh is uh the Arona, the the his new girlfriend.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I anyway, that's um I think I've kind of forgot I mixed up the characters, but that's the big house scene.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So Kyle is walking around and there is he hears sound uh no for Dakota, he lives with Dakota at that moment, and then he hears sound from people.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: So Mike put some lines with crazy lines that in between dialogues from other characters, but it was difficult to hear.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: But if you watch the film a few times, you will hear those funny jokes, but they were they were really in between the dialogues.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: You had other lines from loop group people that were not uh seen on the on the screen, they were you know off-frame, on the frame.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, they were off-frame.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: So and but it was very subtle.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Mike was really crazy about playing with the surround, too.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was I really like his style.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: He was really it was really pushing the boundaries, and it's really rare for a director that is really ready to play around his dialogue.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't happen very often.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that's amazing.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so can you take us through a moment in Splitville where changing a sound or removing one changed the joke?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I just want to know how much of a laugh can happen in our ears.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think you already talked about that.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: You you added some sound before and after.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything you want to add, Silva?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: About Splitzville that I there's many sounds that occur that were not there uh uh necessarily on the set.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, on the the beginning, for instance, there there's this car accident when the a lady died, which is very like it's supposed to be it's tragic, but it's not the way they shot.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we had some sound with with the zipper from Kyle Zipper because he's naked.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, he they had they started a sex scene in the car, and so they had the car accident, and he realized that he's talked to a policeman, but he's halfway naked.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, and it's you had this sound of the zipper.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: This sound was put in editing by by Mike, but we had we wasn't there necessarily on the set.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: So these kind of sounds are so funny because it brings uh a moment and the any, you know, so it it's there is that type.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things like that in in in Splitzville.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh funny, funny, funny little sound uh we had once and there.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're very, they're very very tiny little sound, but they're great.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um in Novo Kane, uh Jack Quaid plays a man who cannot feel pain.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: He might not feel an injury, but we definitely can.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: How did you and the team use sound to make the audience react while keeping the action funny?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um in that in that film, it's great because the fact that he cannot feel pain makes the film funny.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, of course, you have uh uh you can have the big sound very violent on a character that does not react.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Especially there is the this big fight in the kitchen at the big when he is he's fighting with the villain and he will finally end up to kill the villain.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: But he's uh he's uh there's crazy sound there, various for boiling water, you know, uh uh a thing with a knife, uh throwing of vegetables, uh the frying, and it's it's all these sounds.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, all these sounds making them they have to be put in here very well in between the dialogues and with the music, that it's super fast.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's uh it's the the thing there is to make sure we especially uh the big fight with the tattoo guy.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: There is a big fight with the tattoo artist later on.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it there the sound is very there's a lot of slow motion moment of Jack Quaid fighting with the guy, and so all these sounds are really in phase with the action and the moment.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it has to be bold.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in a film like Novokane, it's the time that the sound is bold and and it's attraction with action movies, and that's the funny part of uh it's like the best way to do action movie because there is a comedy in it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: The fact that the main character is not a fighter, he's not a hero more, but I mean he's a hero, of course, but he's not he's especially not the big guy, like muscle and stuff, so it's funny.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So when Novo Kane, how do you find the line between that hurt and I need to leave the room?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a sound you had to pull back because it pushed the moment too far?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I remember, yes.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: We had an arrow.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: The guy, like when he's fighting to uh with another villain, he's fighting to a house, and he put there is an arrow in his leg, and uh and and he he put the the heads of the villain between his head and pushed the arrow till the arrow goes through his knee, both knees, and to the skulls of the villain, and the sound was really gross there, and he kind of was put it down a bit because it was too heavy, too gross.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those things happened.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the housewife, directed by Ben Shirinyan, takes us to 1964 New York, yeah, and a journalist investigating a suspected Nazi officer.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Without spoilers, can you give us an example how he used an ordery sound or a quiet moment to suggest that something beneath the surface was wrong?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: But that that's a sort of classic movies.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: I it's gonna be released soon.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very good movie.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to uh tell more because the I don't want to spoil because there is a big thing uh regarding the script.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: But um there's a lot of memory concept in this film.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: There is moments of nightmares that are go-through characters, and those sounds are very important.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: They were really still subtle, but uh bringing back memories with sounds that are a bit abstract but are coming back from nightmares to nightmares.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: We had a lot of scenes like that.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it was really good to play with how and Ben was we we wound up to find certain sounds that Ben was really attractive to because it it's still but it's coming back to this concept of abstraction because I had a lot of tracks, and Ben really picked up some some of them as okay, that's gonna be the scene.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I it's it really on his shoulders.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very proud about how Ben was able to build his own sound design with the choice he had received from us.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I I think it that's also how you should direct a movie is how you you're able to pick up the sound of your sound design and make your own sound design.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because at the end of the day, the film is directed by the director.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: So the the best performance is because the director has choose that performance from an actor and etc.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: etc.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: So um in the in uh in the sense of housewife, I have to say also the the beautiful mix from my colleague Maxime Vermette, how he was delicacy about his reverb and everything.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: On the housewife was super well because we all also very often within the house in Queens when the housewife is living and you see all those uh high heels walking down on a wooden floor.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: I really like you feel the sensation of home really well, but in a special way.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that's amazing.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Sylvia, we're gonna take a final break and we're gonna play a game, true or false.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's time to test some facts about your life and career.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, true or false, you sometimes hear an everyday noise and immediately imagine using it in a movie.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that's true.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh true or false, a quiet scene can take as much work as a loud action scene.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's fake.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not true.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: False.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh true or false, a perfectly realistic sound can be the wrong sound for the story.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, uh yes, true.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: It could be the wrong sound.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: True or false in a comedy, in comedy, moving a sound by a fraction of a second can change the laugh.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh true or false on arrival, making the aliens mysterious mattered more than making them loud.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Mysterious, so true.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh true or false, an injury sound can make an audience wince even when the character feels no pain.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and true or false, a friendly room can feel threatening before anyone says anything.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: True, true.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: True or false, you have fought to keep in tiny sound that you thought nobody else would notice.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh true, true.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And true or false, winning an Oscar made you stop doubting your creative choices.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um true, true, I can say, and finally, the best the best thing an inspiring sound designer can learn is how to listen.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, true, true.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna move on to our final segment: Perspective, encouragement, and future.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've worked on alien encounters, messy relationships, a hero who feels no pain, and hidden secrets.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: What do those feel what do those very different films teach you about people?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: And has that changed how you listen in your own life?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's interesting.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I said completely because this is my school of life.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I spend more time to do it movie to do something else.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have a family, but unfortunately, I've spent more time, or fortunately, in that in that certain cases.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, but I spend more time to doing films than anything else, and it's my best school of life.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I in my entire understanding of the world, there's a lot of understanding that coming from that.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's a complete way of life.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I uh everything on every level.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh all those things teach you uh and everything about life in a way.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: And fortunately, all the rest of my reading and I other things that I do, of course, not only filmmaking, of course, but it's I think the entire world is a way to teach us, and uh at the end of the days, how can we be better with others?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think in the time we live in now, which is such a tension time, uh, so much anxiety, I think it's it's how can we just be good with others?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think uh all this is I I've I have received so many lessons from filmmaking, from films in general.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this one of the messages that many directors want to share.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: How can we live together?
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um imagine a young person in Montreal is watching us and wondering whether a career in film is possible.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: What would you tell them to do this week?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what would you tell the younger Sylvain who had not yet found his way?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for sure.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think if your passion if your passion is cinema, uh I think that one of the most important things I think is to get um uh try to do your own stuff yourself.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or um I I did it on going to school, and I think it's school are still very important to follow.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but also how uh take your time to watch film, to go to film festivals, especially, because film festivals show you a type of films that is gonna be difficult to watch.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and platforms are very limited.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh Netflix are very limited.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: There are great stuff in Netflix, there's great content, but it's very limited.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little amount of film there that are in fact exists.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we need to to what to, but it's difficult today.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: In my time, we had video clubs, and I was looking in Montreal to have a video club who has a pack of great films, but still it it wasn't always easy to found a video club with a lot of film.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: So really take time to watch as much film you you're capable to watch and and just also meet people that want to do films.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have to meet people that want to do that too, and and are embraced with the same passion.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's an important thing.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and finally, Sylvain, what's next for you?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Are there any projects you can talk about?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, yes.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I will uh later on this year, I will uh work uh work on a fantastic uh movie called Tamina from an Afghan director, uh Abu Zara Mini, who is a fantastic guy, and I'm very, very happy to do that.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's gonna be such a privilege.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he's a great filmmaker and talking uh about an Afghanistan reality, which is we don't have the chance to do that.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very excited and proud to do that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also uh I'm very excited to do international film, it's another way to to still to learn to how to live together.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Sylvain, we're nearing the end of the show.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's all, folks.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for watching.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sylvain Bellamar, everyone.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Sylvain.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was an interview.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for your great question, Gilbert.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.