Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Sundance Institute; Matt Drake
In US Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2024 is Directors Sam and Andy Zuchero’s film Love Me. In this love story that spans billions of years, a buoy and a satellite meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love.
Love Me uses a bevy of filmmaking techniques from live-action, practical animatronics, classic animation, and game engines in combination with the skillful performances of Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun. The film was one recipient of the Dolby Institute Fellowship, providing for a final mix in Atmos.
Award-winning supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Matt Drake talks about finding inspiration from Studio Ghibli films for the sound of the animated scenes of Love Me, using contact mics to record the sounds of large industrial printers for use in the design of the character “Me,” using the Dolby Atmos surround field to full advantage – especially for mixing the film’s music, and much more!
How did Directors Sam and Andy Zuchero want to use sound as a storytelling tool for Love Me ? What were some of their initial ideas for sound? What were some creative sound ideas that you wanted to contribute to the film?
Sound supervisor/re-recording mixer Matt Drake
Matt Drake (MD): Sam and Andy had such a rich vision for the sound of this film. They had been writing and working on it for about three or four years before production started and they had this full animatic done up of the first act with a lot of sound design ideas already implemented. In essence, they wanted to create a soundscape that was Wall-E meets a Miyazaki film.
So, I went and re-watched just about every Studio Ghibli film I could for inspiration and then we started talking about ideas. We wanted to create unique sonic experiences for each act of the film since they are so different in style.
They wanted the sounds of the technology to be rudimentary and unsophisticated and to stray away from sounds that were too sci-fi.
For the animated sequences, they asked me to watch it first through the lens of a Sound Designer, and then again as a fan of Looney Tunes. We tried to bring these different stylistic choices to the table when it was appropriate but always kept a naturalistic throughline between the different acts.
We set up a bunch of contact mics on an industrial CNC router and recorded hours of different movements, tones, and sounds…
One thing we discussed at length was the sounds of the Buoy; it needed to sound cute, likable, and have a lot of character to it. I knew this would be something we would need to search for and record, and one of my team suggested we go to a printshop he used to work at to explore the sounds of large industrial printers. We set up a bunch of contact mics on an industrial CNC router and recorded hours of different movements, tones, and sounds that eventually became the sound of “Me.”
It’s easy for audiences to recognize overt sounds – magic spells or superpowers – but subtle sounds can be just as effective for supporting and/or telling the story. What advice would you share on using subtle sounds as effective tools of storytelling? Can you share examples of that in your work on Love Me?
MD: Dramatic storytelling using sound in a subtle way is some of my favourite work to do. It’s not just about what sounds right with what you see on screen but every sound you place is an opportunity to tell a story to help convey what your characters are feeling, from the way a door opens to the sound and intricacies of the foley.
We aimed to use a lot of different winds and air as a way to convey the loneliness that Me and Iam are feeling at any given time.
In a world where all life is now extinct, we were limited to what we could use to evoke certain feelings. We aimed to use a lot of different winds and air as a way to convey the loneliness that Me and Iam are feeling at any given time. When they are alone, it’s more traditional, but when they are together, it’s less active and stale.
Another example is when they connect for the first time, we really bring the environment sounds in the mix right down, only leaving the subtle rain drips falling on the Buoy’s surface to create that sense of anticipation for them to begin speaking to each other.
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Love Me was one of the Dolby Institute Fellowship Recipients this year, which provides for the film to be mixed in Atmos. How did mixing in Atmos make an impactful difference for Love Me? Can you share some specifics/scenes where Atmos made the biggest difference?
MD: It was such an incredible experience to mix this film in Atmos. As a format, it is quite special and opens the possibilities with what you can do in a mix.
…we took advantage of the surround field…to give the Satellite voice height and movement throughout space.
There’s a lot of voice design in the film so we took advantage of the surround field for these moments as well as being able to give the Satellite voice height and movement throughout space.
We used it for some of the more typical uses one would expect, like rain pattering on the roof, thunder clapping, and general panning, but we took advantage of the technical benefits as well. For music, we created object beds for our 7.1 stems to route through which allowed us to bring the music off the screen and clear it up for the dialogue and other effects. It was particularly useful when mixing stereo needle drop cues as it allowed these to become totally immersive in a way that up-mixing just doesn’t give you.
The mixing stage of post sound can be as creative as sound editorial. What were some creative decisions you made on the dub stage? What were some different options you tried and how did they change the experience of the film?
MD: I always tend to mix as I work through an edit on a film, but Love Me was a bit of a different experience in this regard. We had been working remotely from different cities and with such a condensed post process Sam, Andy, and I didn’t get as much time together as we would have liked to before the mix.
‘Love Me’ Directors Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero
Once we got on the stage, I had an advanced pre-mix of all the materials, and the first thing we’d do was play back a scene and figure out what we wanted to cut out or change. We’d often rework scenes a little right on the stage if necessary, so in a lot of ways it ended up being a bit of a hybrid.
We really aimed to use silence as a narrative storytelling device, so we stripped back a lot of elements as we mixed to simplify and to give the right feeling to each scene. I think some of the choices we made in this respect really impacted the weight of how certain sequences are experienced.
We also worked a lot with the music and score, treating cues with different reverbs and EQs to help convey Me’s emotional state throughout the film.
What makes the sound of Love Me unique, or what was unique about your experience of working on this film?
MD: One unique element that stands out to me is the way we captured dialogue. Where animation dialogue is typically recorded in a studio, the animated sequences for Love Me were all shot and recorded on a sound stage using motion capture suits with the intent to keep as much of those performances as possible.
…the animated sequences for ‘Love Me’ were all shot and recorded on a sound stage using motion capture suits…
I feel like we were able to capture more raw and natural performances from Kristen and Steven this way without the confines of a booth. On the other hand, having the flexibility to pick up and re-record lines on an ADR stage to further craft a performance or story was an essential part of the process, so we were really left with the best of both worlds.
A big thanks to Matt Drake for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Love Me and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!