Behind the Scene with Sound Mixer Chris Howland - Two Days on 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'

it's really interesting to work with a director who has so much creative control so little oversight he was left to capture the story the way he wanted to capture it and everybody had everything they needed to make that happen and it was unlike any other movie or TV show that I've done hi I'm Kim Kyle and I'm here with Chris Howland and we're gonna break down a scene from a film that Chris worked on called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Chris Howland is a production sound mixer based in Los Angeles California he caught his first break while working an odd job on the set of the 2006 film Grandma's Boy when he struck up a conversation about music with legendary production sound mixer Marquis Llano soon after that mark became Chris's mentor since then chris has become one of the busiest sound mixers in cinema and television with some recent credits on productions like show times the l word CBS is SWAT and the space drama feature film add a straw in 2018 he was given an unlikely opportunity by his mentor to fill in for two days on one of the most elite crews in the industry working with director Quentin Tarantino [Music] this is a call I'd never expected to get but my my mentor has been his name is Mark Ilan oh he's been quentin tarantino's mixer since jackie brown and so has worked he's been in the Quinton camp for a long time and he's never missed a day on a movie so to get this call was pretty amazing he had a previous speaking engagement somewhere in Europe that he had to go to so he was gonna miss two days of shooting so I came in and covered him in those days and so that with that phone call began the process of integrating myself into not only how Mark was working but learning how the crew was working the sound crew is working and then learning just the the ecosystem of of Quinn and his merry band of of filmmakers that all work together all different crafts and and really amazing people to watch work and it's the first thing that stuck out to me was that it's really interesting to work with a director who has so much creative control so little oversight if he was he was left to capture the story the way he wanted to capture it and everybody had everything they needed to make that happen and it was it was the beginning of that process of just getting acclimated was that was an interesting one it was unlike any other movie or TV show that I've done and most of my last two years has been B units on episodic TV a lot of day playing a lot of sitting in for mixers who couldn't make it for whatever reason just babysitting their rigs and so they playing and integrating into different sets has become kind of a specialty over the past couple of years which I really enjoy but this one I knew is gonna be a little different and I think that says a lot about you that Marc trusts you you know you you kind of came up learning from him so I think he most likely had a level of trust placed in you or he knew he could count on you he knew you'd be that person I joked that he must have gotten pretty far down his list to get to me and then he was pretty brutally honest and he said yes I called this person first I called this person first and neither one of them were available so yes you know Marx never been one to spare my feelings yet so he made it clear but I was equal to the challenge I was I was glad to get the call and you know your heart starts racing a little bit and I had no idea why I would be covering what we would be shooting in those two days he had a general idea of where they were gonna be but we didn't know what the coverage wasn't really until a few days before and did you get time beforehand to set visit with mark before you were covering for him I did actually he it was a couple of things he said right at the beginning he said I want you to come in and watch you know spend some time on the set I want to introduce you to the players I want you to watch some setups he said but also I want you to use your own gear he said he said he thought about having me come in and use his rig his diva and that stuff which I could have done it would have been fine but he made it a point he said I think you will be more comfortable using the stuff you know yeah and my sound package will be there you can use whatever you have but bring your gear do it you know he wanted me to be comfortable with the tools I was using because that's that's really one of the big things I learned from him you set up the gear the way you want it that way you don't have to think about it you can concentrate on character development you can concentrate on capturing the performance and and dealing with the other department heads and and have you have your place in that in that spectrum rather than the gear yeah I think that says a lot about him as a sound mixer and as a storyteller through sound but he's not totally bogged down with you must use these mics he must use this recorder you you must integrate yourself into my gear that he he trusts that you know your tools and that's gonna get a better result in the end yes I think that's very fast I think in a way he practiced what he preaches a lot which was was he he talks about not bringing an ideology to the set about you always stay open to the possibilities you you it's not about what things are necessarily designed to do but it's about what they can do and you every every every you know challenge that comes up to you you you find the solution for it and in with the you know that gets you closer to helping to tell the story yeah absolutely and what he calls maintaining the illusion yeah and so Tom and Patricia you mentioned have been with him a long time they were on that set from day one too so it must have been just so invaluable to have them there helping you this was probably day day eighty or something like that end of a shoot so the good thing about that is that I knew coming into it that petrushka would know what their protocols were for sure she would know she already had a rapport with the talent I didn't have to really make any decisions in that respect I'm like you know we would bounce ideas off of each other do we do this do we do that and we just talk through it but in the end I knew they they knew as far as practical applications with Mike placements Mike choices that kind of stuff right I knew they had that well in hand and so for me I managed the gain staging on my end I make sure that there's certain elements ready because Quentin's set and this is this is one of the things I learned from Mark is that you know you're not there to just capture the sound you're there to help enhance not only the storytelling process the interpretation of the characters but you're there to help foster the creative and environment for everybody else to work and for everybody else to - you know elevate their game sometimes it's as simple as you know playing music on set or something that really just puts a pep in people's step and and in a case like once upon a time in Hollywood he had he had playback ready with with music from that era yeah because Quentin like this sometimes hear that yeah and in one of the scenes we ended up shooting they actually talked about it's funny this part of the scene didn't make it in the final cut but they actually find at Tom Jones record and they start talking about Tom Jones so I had to have in these processed trailer rigs I had to have a speaker ready with not only the Tom Jones or or or you know he had these long recordings of the radio station they referred to in the story from 1969 where they could pretend they're listening to the radio and but anything any of those little elements to help put them in the mood to foster that creative environment that's the extra mile that he would go to help everybody everybody pull it together that's beautiful yeah yeah that's the that's the the above and beyond yeah part of it that's very cool that's it's so exciting that we're gonna go into the scene and talk a little bit about these tiny minutiae these details and yeah it's funny when I it wasn't until I saw the movie that I realized we mark and I covered part of the same scene he covered the first part of it and then I covered the second part of it and I was I was it was pretty amazing to see that because I didn't I mean you didn't know going in I didn't know cuz all I had were the sides for a second I was shooting that day Wow so I didn't read it wasn't privy to the whole script so but it was it was pretty interesting there's there's a scene where Brad Pitt sees Margaret quale he's driving his car it sees her on the sidewalk for the second time in the movie so at this point they recognize each other she thumbs a ride from him and he says okay and you know they wait for the light to change and she eventually jumps in the car and they have this nice little chat where they're driving on the city streets and then eventually there's a shot where they pull on to the 101 mm-hmm know what's supposed to be the one-on-one and all the dialogue after that is the stuff that I covered on the way I was there and it was it was on a freeway was the I believes the 91 freeway it's in Culver City yeah they had shut down the whole freeway on Sunday and it was processed trailer for the most part okay so the vehicle was on a trailer yeah single camera big 35 millimeter mag mm-hmm it was 35 no it was 70 I don't speak Cameron just white-haired guy Barbara and so I want to talk about the the trailer that you guys were on the talent being in the car we had Brad Pitt and Margaret quali and then where were you it was a processed trailer rig so there's a shot-maker a truck you know with all the rigging stuff on it that was pulling this trailer so I'm in the passenger side of this truck and I'm actually using my tabletop rig this rig right here right here yeah and I can pull this out and I could make it a little shorter I just had the the filled venue with the contact transmitters and but I put it right up there it was important to me to have faders under my hand I didn't want to yeah dial knobs in a bag I wanted to have my hands on fader so I could really I knew with being on the freeway we were going about 40 miles an hour or so when it was up or down down down yeah and big this is an old car with really big windows so the windows are down there down when blowing everything and there was 30 to 40 period picture cars with precision drivers in each one and they were actually organizing the way they the cars passed so there were times you know the thing about coin is he doesn't do ADR yeah so it has to be that performance on the day has to be there but he is savvy enough to know what's gonna work and what won't work does that add a level of stress or does that give you more of a level of freedom that like you know you're gonna get the take because this director won't quit until you have it yeah that's that's it's it's it's a throwback to old school filmmaking where they don't he doesn't he's not looking at the clock that's part of the the no oversight no producers looking over his shoulder yeah he gets to do as much as he wants if if he doesn't think he has it we're gonna keep right on shooting it until he feels like he does and honestly if they don't finish the scene that day that's okay we'll come back and finish it tomorrow that's the luxury that he has that actually it you know you're not you you still have stress and you're still concerned but it's not in the same way that it traditionally right it's not like we're only getting it two takes and we have to move on yeah yeah it just doesn't work that even with something as large though it was a freeway closure did that add a certain level of like oh we have to not really know I mean we were there for as long as we needed to be I don't know what the permit situation was yeah but I'm sure there's some producer pacing somewhere yeah sure there always is right that's honestly that's why they produce because they can let the filmmakers be the filmmakers and they take care of those logistics so with you know being on the processed trailer with the windows open I knew that I wasn't gonna get a completely clean recording of dialogue yeah so it becomes then your threshold has to be altered because I know I'm gonna see these cars out the windows and I know I'm gonna hear them exactly Oh am i necessarily hearing them because they're there yeah they're part of the wind it's part of the environment yeah so and the actors are savvy enough to talk either over or around that that was a good thing about about Brad you know most of his performance is directed right into the mic that I had up in the visor cuz he knew it was there he knew it was there to that yeah he was he was very aware of of where the lens was where how he was directing his performance and he played into that mic beautifully coming into a scene like this you haven't spent like you said what it was like day 80 perhaps you haven't spent 80 days with these actors getting to know their voices how they interact with each other so how did you approach gain staging in a situation where you knew there was gonna be windows down wind protection applied to the love mics I'm sure the actors once they start speaking to each other and getting more into the scene the volume level changes the energy changes so how did you approach that yeah it's it's tough I knew it would be loud with the windows open and the cars going by I was pretty conservative on the transmitter side because I knew I wanted to stay out we use electro Sonics I can't remember if we use the witch if they were the wideband transmitters or the I think maybe back then it might have been just the so the sPB's electro yeah electro I knew I wanted to stay well clear of the limiters in the transmitters as soon as you start hitting that their limiters are actually pretty smooth but as soon as you start hitting that it really takes away the expressiveness yeah so I made it a point to stay away from that and I really dialed in my gain staging that I had enough room to pull it up on my side yeah without having to make the adjustments they're processed trailers are always a harrowing situation on a good day because you really have to make your best guess before your first setup but knowing that once you pull out onto the street and it's take one that's really the first time you're gonna hear it yeah and so you just hope for the best on the first set up and if you know I suppose if if in the gain staging the wheels fall off you do have to stop that this is the problem you have to stop the trailer yeah that's not a good feeling you know make make the adjustments and so luckily we didn't have to do that but but it was it was good to have Tom there and petrushka there because they knew how these actors perform they worked with him day in and day out and so they they were the best source of information on on how they deliver and you know that was it was just respecting them letting them do their job and and I knew I knew they would not conch consciously let me fail yeah so that was that was the best I was I had a guy great I was relaxed that I mean that just sounds to me like not only do you have a great team but it just requires a lot of active listening in the moment it seems like you just have to go with what's happening and and maybe not get the cleanest take but the best take for the story true depending on the elements around you so that's yeah that's really cool I really want to watch the scene should we watch it yeah let's get into it cool then we're turning on - no they turn on the freeway that was all Marx coverage now this is the day that I worked and this was the stuff we shot that's the 101 well when they cut here this is the 91 yeah so this is the coverage he really should have hung across this trailer I can't believe that was the first line hell of a line to start with yeah I love how the scene reveals helps Brad reveal that his character is actually good yeah decent yeah she's a little taken aback there yeah sure now are both actors loved Elena's say they have a body mic on mark we started with with just see there's the hood I didn't notice that til you pointed it out just that little bit of fuzz I don't know if that is the DPA or petering on either one petrushka though right I think traduced go Tom they're the ones that put it there hopefully Patricia will comment on this video but we had a lab on on Margaret we actually had another we had another visor mic for her mm-hmm for a while when we were shooting the other direction but it really didn't play much yeah and what about this position here this we actually shot on the biskits it's a whole different rig different car different car different car altogether and they they rigged it a biscuit is like a process trailer that is self propelled so they had the camera this huge can be mounted on a rig looking straight down no we were on the freeway driving for that shot even though you don't see it but yeah but but that with that biscuit rig and the camera mounted up top were looking straight down at her you know it was she had her lab on but yes had his lab and right and it just project her mouth right into yeah yeah so we did we had allow on him oddly enough on the coverage of Brad and our girth to cross coverage we had a mic on Brad but then it got moved at some point so I was yeah when I was listening to it he would look away from it every time you talked it felt like so I ended up not really playing that for the dialogue that the the visor Mike was was the one money yeah but that still probably provided some sort of ambient noise or it's always good to have any me another Indian source in the car for that evening because that can get you in and out of certain was wind a problem at all in this shoot with all four of those windows down I mean it certainly could have been I didn't have any issues specific issues that weren't already taken care of before the first shot great to know yeah yeah I was listening for it waiting for it yeah and just it never happened that's amazing yeah so even with with petrushka did such an amazing job on Margaret qualities rig I mean because there's a lot of open space there how much her entire back is okay but you know but that that's just constant diligence to the camera angle and it's a and and she had a rig on her that was open sounding and it we had wind protection and it was still hidden I mean she you know there's something marquees to talk about and dancing between the raindrops it's like you have all these things to deal with but yeah and that's what she did she look at the second scene that you you shot also I mean we're here why not so the interesting thing was the camera time could wise the projector was pushing the film camera so they we were outside of the room the first shot we did was following margot robbie into the theater just following her behind her so they had to start the movie inside the theater before the camera would start rolling yes so the cameras start rolling it then they could walk in and it was it was interesting too because the as we were working through the post edit section they they noticed a little bit of drift in in some of the playback stuff and it turned out that maybe the the clock in the projector was not as solid yeah because I I when we were talking about it I had to tell him you know what it's a good thing I had a monitor because you know it's supposed to spool up to 24 frames when it starts rolling but I noticed that there was a few takes where it took longer to get up to 24 frames then there was a couple other takes where I would get up to 24 frames and then go to 25 yeah and then it would glide at 25 and then slow back down to 24 so I noticed that irregularity and I knew that it should have said 24 the whole time so when when the stuff was getting digested and post you know I we we got in contact and I was just like yeah this you know this you know yeah so um so that was a thing we said they did have to work through some of that fortunately it was you know with an on dialogue scene like that little easier pretty easy for them to you know it was the it was not only the track of the movie which you know I think I only had a mono track of the movie and then I was playing some of that through a speaker in the house so people could hear it yeah at certain times but then I had to back off the speaker so that I could record their you know tears the laughter and reactions and stuff and I had Tom and petrushka both in the theatre kind of roving you know find out yeah even though they were off camera they were still there for Margo's performance and for looking at the screen and so they just pick different fans people we got different masses of them laughing and it's all elements that the dialogue editor can use so was all of that scene boom were there any body might say go max on there I ended up putting a mic on Margo just so we had a track of her for her laughs for her intimate stuff yeah it was just something that felt right it's kind of strange when you laugh somebody for nan a nan dialogue yeah exactly it's not about the dialogue at that point it's about her you know it's that emotional connection to her character yes said it's not always words yeah it's so that that provided a really good heightened emotional experience yeah that's great thank you Chris for sure that was the thing about that scene as is having to do I'll play back elements as well as you know allowing the projector you know there's different bowls and ties because the projectors controlling the timecode of the camera or the speed of the camera because they you know without without the the those cameras sunk the cameras sunk to the projector you'd have all this crazy stuff going on so that was part of the camera test the first day I was there was they were they were making sure that sync was fine yeah yeah finding that same point and and me making sure that the audio outputs were clean and maybe whether they were mic or line level yeah that kind of stuff so cool yeah when it came to things like sound reports I wanted to match what Mark was already doing so he had he's using movie slate on the iPad and so I've had it and I've used it before and so I set it up to look approximately Oh a lot like his the goal being that yeah I didn't want post to seeing anything different you know if they see something different than chance so I don't you know I wanted to match him as closely as possible the other thing I did we getting ready for this was you're not allowed to have a phone on it on a Quentin set and I knew there was a lot of playback or I had to be ready for playback yeah so Mark had this blue iPod it looks like a phone but it's not and he actually has a really bit he took the label maker made two really big labels that says this is not a phone and put that on there and and but he has that and that's what he used for playback and so he I didn't know if that was gonna be available so I went out I bought an iPod exactly like that account to the detail except my was red because I like red but but I did the same thing I put this is not an iPhone I put the same stickers on there because I wanted it to be you know I just didn't want there to be any confusion yeah you know and so I had that on hand and I even had it actually when we were shooting this stuff on the freeway Tom had it in his possession cuz he could bluetooth it to the speaker and play whatever needed could be played because I had all the stuff on the iPod so that was all standing by so that stuff you know we had ready in case it was needed and when Mark came back we had we had wrapped the processed trailer stuff we were back at base camp Mark had just landed at LAX came by and we debriefed a little bit on the coverage and I you know I was sending sound reports to him to send into production and yeah it was it was it worked out really well so it was a nice to have a little debrief there and yeah he gave me a big hug and he was just like you know he said something like I'm just so glad you were able to step in on this and I was like I'm glad I was too it was a you know amazing experience and then you know then I went back to the real world well I'm sure we'll get to Quentin world again sometime you know who knows ah you know those are they stopping making films I don't know I don't know well you know I've never been concerned with actually getting you know being on Quinn's movies I think for me it's it's I want to learn I want to meet and work with the film makers of my generation that have those sensibilities about storytelling and appreciate what we bring to the storytelling effort you know what garage you know I wish I could have worked with Spielberg sure but he's a generation ahead of me and as is Mark and you know mark has worked you know he works with the peers and his I work with appears in my generation so all those are upcoming filmmakers and it you know right now I work with a bunch of them and you know most of them are really good you know but there's you never know it's like it's all like popcorn waiting to pop absolutely and but that's having worked with with a filmmaker like him with these sensibilities it is it is made it that much more clear what I look for in my relationship to the filmmakers I work with because I really you know I want to have that same level of not only support but being able to contribute and be part of the process early the way that the relationship mark has with Quentin it's very special it's awesome and that's that's what I want with the filmmakers that I work with so and it's every project is a very is varying degrees some less some more but yeah I'll take it whenever it happens well thank you so much for sitting down with us this was incredibly fun for me as a sound mixer and I'm sure for all the people who are gonna watch this just getting to hear these behind the scenes details and your process and workflows thank you no that's cool I was very fortunate to learn from Mark and one of the best in and yeah it's it's it's stuff that continues to spark and inspire me every day thank you thanks for watching this is your host Kim Kyle and I'm a composer and sound mixer based in Los Angeles California and one half of the production team called bird murmur who made the video you just watched I am working with Ursa straps as their brand ambassador in the United States and with the support of Ursa we plan to release many more guest interviews scene breakdowns and behind the scenes video content over the coming months so stay tuned and subscribe to our YouTube page for notifications when new videos go live we also filmed a video with Chris Howland talking about the equipment he uses which will be released very soon have a great holiday and Happy New Year you

Channel: URSA Straps

Views: 21,752

Keywords: Ursa straps, Bird Murmur, Chris Howland, Kim Kylland, Mark Ulano, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Richardson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margaret Qualley, Margot Robbie, Production Sound, Behind the Scenes, Sound Devices, Lectrosonics, DPA, Sound Recordist, Sound Mixer, production sound mixer, once upon a time in hollywood, quentin tarentino

Id: UyIH_GWC0pw

Length: 28min 19sec (1699 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019