Interview: ‘The Creator’ Sound Team Discusses Making a Science Fiction World Come Alive

The Creator is a technical achievement, that much goes without saying. Among the places that the film was recently cited by the Academy Awards was the sound. A Best Sound nominee at the Oscars, I recently spoke to the team, consisting of Erik Aadahl (Sound: Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer), Ethan Van der Ryn (Sound: Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer), and Dean Zupancic (Re-Recording Mixer), about the work. I previously spoke to filmmaker Gareth Edwards here, as well as cinematographers Greig Fraser and Oren Soffer here. Today, the sound team chats about the sci-fi epic, with the visual effects guys coming later on this week, too.

My review of The Creator (here), has the following to say about the technical filmmaking on display:

Filmmaker Gareth Edwards, co-writing here with Chris Weitz, treats this closer to his work with Monsters than with Godzilla or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I mean that in terms of the guerrilla style nature of the work. Edwards has some incredible talent behind the camera, with Greig Fraser sharing co-cinematographer duties with Oren Soffer, while the editing triumvirate is Hank Corwin, Scott Morris, and Joe Walker. Throw in a score by Hans Zimmer and everyone below the line is doing terrific work. Fraser and Soffer especially help Edwards to take your breath away. His direction is vibrant and mostly well paced. If there’s a flaw, it’s in the final act, which feels a bit rushed, compared to everything else. For a film that feels so unique up until that, Edwards and Weitz get a little bit standard issue as things wrap up. It’s not a huge issue, but it felt noticeable.

Below, you can hear my conversation with Aadahl, Van der Ryn, and Zupancic. They each are prior nominees and come from different backgrounds, so it speaks to the very specific creativity on display that the merged so well. It’s all in service of Edwards’ vision, as they detail, but they also get into how the tactile nature of the filmmaking really set this apart. It’s a fascinating conversation, which should make you eager to revisit The Creator, or finally check it out, if you haven’t already…

Here now is my interview with the sound team of The Creator. Enjoy:

The Creator is available to own now!