How ‘Sound of Metal’ got in tune with deafness

Editor’s Note: “Sound of Metal” won Oscars for best sound and best editing at the 93rd Academy Awards on April 25. This story, published ahead of the awards, features interviews with sound designer Nicolas Becker and editor Mikkel Nielsen explaining their innovative approach to the film.

In a room in Paris, sound designer Nicolas Becker and director Darius Marder sat in silence. They were inside an anechoic chamber, a room designed to swallow noise. In the silence, their bodies awoke. Tendons and bones creaked, hearts thudded; blood found a voice as it coursed through veins. The sound of silence was anything but – a useful reminder for the project they were about to embark on.

The two were preparing for “Sound of Metal,” a film about Ruben, an American rock drummer and recovering addict who suddenly loses his hearing. Played by Riz Ahmed, Ruben must “learn to be deaf,” reluctantly joining a house for recovering addicts from the Deaf community in Missouri, run by Vietnam veteran Joe (Paul Raci). But despite the warm welcome, Ruben remains determined to get his hearing back, whatever the cost.

Over a decade in the making, Marder’s directorial debut is nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards on April 25. It is a rare cinematic beast, in that while its performances have been lauded and the writing praised (Ahmed, Raci and Marder are all nominated for Oscars), the film’s sound has taken equal billing.

Becker’s name has leapt into headlines thanks to his work in “Sound of Metal,” for which he has already won a BAFTA. So too editor Mikkel Nielsen, who shaped a film aiming to be inclusive for audiences hearing and Deaf. Both find themselves Oscar frontrunners.

Integral to the film is Ruben’s point of hearing (POH), in which hearing audiences are brought inside his perspective, building sensory empathy for a character shocked by then grown accustomed to his hearing loss.

Having crafted POH sound for “Gravity” and “127 Hours” Becker was hired to create an aural landscape for deafness. His first discussions with Marder took place over a year before the shoot, with sound taking higher-than-usual status in the hierarchy of the production, he says.

Key to the experience was recreating solidian sound, “which is everything you can hear through your body,” Becker explains. Examples include sound experienced underwater, or low bass frequencies at a concert: vibrations are felt not through the ears but resonate through tissue and bones and are reconstructed by the brain. These were sounds that Ruben would hear.

A still from the film, which employs closed captioning -- audio description beyond speech.

On set, Becker spent hours recording the sound of Ahmed’s body using a host of custom-made equipment. They included geophones (used to record earthquakes), hydrophones (used to record sounds underwater), stethoscopes and microphones many times more sensitive than human ears.

“We had a mic on the skull, we had a mic in the mouth and we had a mic on the chest,” he says, so during the film we’re literally hearing sounds from inside the actor.

Becker also aided Ahmed in what was a chronological and immersive shoot, providing the actor with earplugs that could be remotely triggered to transmit pink noise (similar to white noise) “to simulate different states of hearing loss.”

“For sound people, it’s very rare that we can actually interact with actors,” says Becker. “Riz, even if he’s a star, was super open, staying three or more hours to do the sound.”

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"Dune" (directed by Denis Villeneuve) -- Frank Herbert's novel has been called unfilmable, and many left unsatisfied by David Lynch's 1984 adaptation will agree. Hopefully Villeneuve will fare better with his big-budget, two-part blockbuster starring Timotheé Chalamet (pictured), Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Isaac. The first part of this slice of politically-minded science fiction has been pushed back to October (which means you have no excuse not to finish the book). Easily the most anticipated Warner Bros. title slated to debut on HBO Max this year (CNN shares a parent company), the decision to move to the streaming platform has been criticized by some -- including the director himself.

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"Petite Maman" (directed by Celine Sciamma) -- After wowing with 2019's "Portrait of a Lady on Fire," chalk Sciamma's fifth feature up as essential viewing. Details are few; we have this image, and the cast list suggests the film will focus on children. Last November it was reported that the shoot would end in December, and the film will debut at the Berlin Film Festival in March, indicating that Sciamma has been firing on all cylinders.

"The Green Knight" (directed by David Lowery) -- Dev Patel in an Arthurian legend for grown ups? Yes please. Playing King Arthur's nephew Sir Gawain on a quest to challenge the Green Knight of legend, Patel (pictured) looks like he'll only further burnish his superstar status. Originally slated for 2020, the film's distributor A24 now has it penciled in for July 30. Meanwhile, Lowery has already moved on to another, more family-friendly fantasy in Disney's "Peter Pan & Wendy."

"The French Dispatch" (directed by Wes Anderson) -- Anderson assembles many of his long-term collaborators in this mid-20th century tale of an American magazine in a fictional French city. The ensemble cast includes Timotheé Chalamet, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright and plenty more big names. Adam Stockhausen is in charge of production design, Alexandre Desplat is on score duties and Robert Yeoman is behind the camera. Originally slated for Cannes in 2020 and held back by distributor Searchlight Pictures, it will now debut at the festival in July.

"Last Night in Soho" (directed by Edgar Wright) -- Where would Edgar Wright go after "Baby Driver," the director's toe-tapping heist movie? Wherever he wanted to. What he chose was a paranormal horror movie set in 1960s swinging London. Starring Thomasin McKenzie and actress du jour Anya Taylor Johnson (pictured right, with Wright) alongside veterans including Terence Stamp and the late Diana Rigg, plot details are few but expect the unexpected. Twice bumped back in the schedule due to the pandemic, this is now slated for release in October.

"Zola" (directed by Janicza Bravo) -- A film based on a viral Twitter thread, "Zola" tells the story of Detroit waitress Zola (Taylour Paige, pictured right) and customer Stefani (Riley Keough, pictured left) over a wild weekend in Florida. The internet was well acquainted with the duo's stranger-than-fiction story by the time it premiered at Sundance in 2020, but audiences are still holding out on a proper release -- now scheduled for June.

"Mission: Impossible 7" (directed by Christopher McQuarrie) -- One of the first productions hit by the pandemic (a shoot in Venice was canceled last February), Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie's subsequent march across the continent in their Covid-secure bubble has been the model for other films looking to resume production. After high-risk hijinks in "Fallout" -- including that jump (pictured) -- you'd think there would be no place left for Cruise to go, but set photos suggest we'll be seeing more insane stunts. Previously scheduled for 2021, studio Paramount Pictures have bumped it to May 2022.

"No Time To Die" (directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga) -- Daniel Craig's final outing as Bond has had a rocky time of it, from director Danny Boyle bowing out and Fukunaga coming in, to Craig injuring his ankle while filming, to an explosion at Pinewood and, at last count, five different release dates. Has this made us any less excited to see it? Of course not. Let's just hope we don't have to wait any longer than September 2021.

"The Beatles: Get Back" (directed by Peter Jackson) -- Somehow there were 60 hours of unseen Beatles video and 150 hours of unheard audio out in the world, and that's what Peter Jackson has tapped for this intimate account of the band preparing for their first live gig in two years in 1969. According to the makers it will feature the Fab Four's last performance together on the rooftop of Apple HQ on London's Savile Row -- and for the first time, the iconic concert will be shown in its entirety. Disney has said the film will be in cinemas in August.

"Triangle of Sadness" (directed by Ruben ?stlund) -- ?stlund completed filming his follow-up to the Cannes Palme d'Or-winner "The Square" in Greece in November 2020. The plot sounds like a jet-setting "Lord of the Flies," following the fate of models and billionaires aboard a yacht that sinks, dumping them on a deserted island. Starring Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean, we're expecting another biting satire from the Swedish director (pictured center, with cast).

"Ahed's Knee" (directed by Nadav Lapid) -- Lapid (pictured left on the set of 2019 Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear-winner "Synonyms") returns with what is reportedly a semi-autobiographical movie. Set in a remote desert village, it centers on an Israeli filmmaker caught in dual battles, "against the death of freedom" and "the death of a mother." Debuting at Cannes this summer.

"Memoria" (directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul) -- Weerasethakul, a Palme d'Or winner at Cannes for 2010's "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," returns with Tilda Swinton (pictured) as his star in a project that's as opaque as it is intriguing for fans of the Thai director's work. Swinton plays a Scottish orchid farmer in Colombia who is tormented by bangs in the night. It's the first feature the director has filmed outside of Thailand; we're excited to see what shape his unique brand of visual poetry finds abroad. In competition at Cannes this July.

"Fire" (directed by Claire Denis) -- Denis (pictured) put her adaptation of "The Stars at Noon" (starring Robert Pattinson and Margaret Qualley) on the backburner due to the pandemic, and moved on to "Fire," starring Juliet Binoche and Vincent Lindon. The film is reportedly about a love triangle involving a woman caught between her partner and his best friend. Denis and Binoche worked together on "High Life" and "Let the Sunshine In," while Denis' protégé Mati Diop steps back in front of the camera after her 2019 Cannes winning directorial debut "Atlantics."

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"I'm a Virgo" (directed by Boots Riley) -- Boots Riley (pictured) directing Jharrel Jerome ("When They See Us," "Moonlight") sounds like a delightful combination, while the concept behind this Amazon series looks to be totally off the wall. A coming of age story about a 13-foot-tall Black man living in Oakland, California, "this show will either have me lauded or banned," Riley has joked. We know what a provocateur the director can be (see his debut "Sorry to Bother You"), so expect someone -- maybe everyone? -- will get skewered.

"Annette" (directed by Leos Carax) -- Carax hasn't made a feature since 2012's indefinable, unforgettable "Holy Motors," so whatever came next was always going to be hotly anticipated. Written by US cult band Sparks and playing out nearly entirely in song, "Annette" is reportedly set in Los Angeles and features Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver as star-crossed lovers. Acquired by Amazon Studios way back in 2017, it will open the Cannes Film Festival this July.

"The Northman" (directed by Robert Eggers) -- After sending Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson to watery hell in "The Lighthouse," Eggers (pictured right, with Pattinson on the set) has an epic on his hands with 10th century Icelandic thriller "The Northman." Eggers reunites with Dafoe and Anya Taylor-Joy ("The Witch"), and Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke and Bj?rk join the party, with Alexander Skarsgard leading as a prince out for revenge. Production wrapped last December, and soundbites from the cast suggest awe and terror -- so just another day at the office for Eggers then.

"How Do You Live?" (directed by Hayao Miyazaki) -- Studio Ghibli co-founder Miyazaki retired in 2013 but like a cuddly Michael Corleone, he was pulled back in. Reportedly Miyazaki's motivation was to make a film for his grandson. If "How Do You Live?" sticks to the source text, Yoshino Genzaburo's 1937 novel, it will follow the spiritual journey of a teenage boy who moves in with his uncle after his father's death. In 2020, the film's producer said he hoped it would be finished "in the next three years," so it's still a way off. Bring tissues; we're expecting tears.

"Titane" (directed by Julia Ducournau) -- French director Ducournau (pictured) spiked the coming of age formula with a dose of cannibalism in 2016's "Raw," and since then we've been waiting with bated breath. "Titane" is said to begin with a young man reappearing after 10 years -- much to the relief of his parents, but he arrives just as questions emerge about a string of murders. Neon bought US rights to Ducournau's second feature in 2019 and it now finds itself in the running for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Untitled Spike Lee Viagra musical -- Lee had a big 2020, with "Da 5 Bloods" and David Byrne concert film "American Utopia" proving critical hits. His next project will be a musical about Viagra and the true events surrounding its discovery. The film's hilarious premise has some serious talent behind it; Lee is working from a screenplay co-written with artistic director of the Young Vic theater Kwame Kwei-Armah, and songs and music are by Tony award-winner Stew Stewart and nominee Heidi Rodewald. If you're feeling a little blue, this is sure to perk you up.

"Madres paralelas" (directed by Pedro Almodóvar) -- Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz reunite after the director's semi-autobiographical hit "Pain and Glory." Almodóvar has said the story is set in Madrid and tracks the parallel lives of two mothers who give birth on the same day. Filming is reportedly scheduled to begin in March.

"Lingui" (directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) -- Chad's most celebrated director returns to the country of his birth after 2017's Paris-set "A Season in France." In "Lingui," single mother Amina must help her 15-year-old daughter when she is raped and becomes pregnant, but an abortion in Islamic Chad is fraught with peril. Playing in competition for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

"The Power of the Dog" (directed by Jane Campion) -- Jane Campion (pictured right) heads to Netflix for her adaptation of Thomas Savage's 1967 novel of the same name. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons, the US-set plot follows the fate of polar-opposite brothers Phil and George Burbank, and the fallout when George marries local widow Rose. Cumberbatch as sadistic brother Phil mounting a campaign against Dunst's Rose sounds like great casting for this pyschodrama. Filmed in New Zealand in 2020, it will be released by Netflix later this year.

"The Matrix 4" (directed by Lana Wachowski) -- One of cinema's most influential sci-fi franchises returns after an 18-year hiatus with Lana Wachowski writing and directing. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Jada Pinkett Smith are back, with newcomers Priyanka Chopra, Jonathan Groff and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II joining the fray. Scheduled for December, the trailer hadn't been released at the time of writing and the plot details are a closely-guarded secret.

"Gagarine" (directed by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh) -- Sixteen-year-old Yuri lives on the outskirts of Paris and dreams of outer space. When his home, Gagarin Towers, named after the Soviet cosmonaut, is threatened with demolition he joins the resistance, intent on saving the building and community that raised him. Social commentary abounds: the very real Cité Gagrine was demolished in 2019. Selected for Cannes 2020, "Gagarine" missed out on a grand debut when the festival was cancelled, but the film has fared well at other festivals.

"Nine Days" (directed by Edson Oda) -- We love high concept sci-fi that takes a swing, and Edson Oda takes a big one with his existential feature debut. Winston Duke stars as Will, a mystical being who must interview candidates for the vacancy of a new life on Earth. These unborn souls are tested, and face oblivion should they fail, but one candidate, Emma (Zazie Beetz), presents a test for Will himself. After delays the movie will be released this summer.

"The Batman" (directed by Matt Reeves) -- By our count Robert Pattinson (pictured) is the 11th actor to play the superhero on the big screen, and from what we've seen so far, his Bruce Wayne is giving off strong goth vibes. One of the most interesting actors of his generation will be aided by a stacked supporting cast including Zo? Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as The Riddler and Colin Farrell as The Penguin. Covid-related interruptions to Reeves' film -- including Pattinson contracting the virus -- mean we'll have to wait until March 2022 for its release, but a spin-off series on HBO Max is already in the works.

"Old" (directed by M. Night Shyamalan) -- The mercurial director returns with what looks like another tantalizing thriller. Gael García Bernal (pictured), Vicky Krieps and Rufus Sewell star as victims of a mysterious tropical beach that causes the tourists who land on it to rapidly age. Get ready for the holiday of a lifetime -- literally.

"'83" (directed by Kabir Khan) -- The '83 in the title of Khan's highly-anticipated Bollywood movie refers to 1983, the year India's cricket team made history by clinching the Cricket World Cup for the first time. That team was captained by an imperious Kapil Dev, played here by Ranveer Singh (pictured), who spearheads a cast that includes Tahir Raj Bhasin as legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar and Deepika Padukone as Dev's wife Romi. Scheduled for release in India in June, sporting biopics don't come much bigger.

"House of Gucci" (directed by Ridley Scott) -- Based on the novel "The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed," Scott's movie stars Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci and Lady Gaga as his wife Patrizia Reggiani in a real-life tale of crime and couture. The fashion boss was shot outside his office in Milan in 1995, with Reggiani sentenced to 29 years in prison for orchestrating the assassination. Scott, now in his eighties, is prolific as ever, with historical action flick "The Last Duel" (also starring Driver) already wrapped. This one is released in November.

"Irma Vep" (directed by Olivier Assayas) -- Assayas' much-loved 90s movie starring Maggie Cheung (pictured) is getting a TV reboot from the French director, with backing from HBO and A24. His lead this time around is Alicia Vikander, playing Mira, a disillusioned American movie star who moves to France to remake the classic silent film "Les Vampires." When Mira loses herself in her character, fiction and reality blur.

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" (created by and starring Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) -- Two of TV's brightest stars team up for this Amazon series, based on the 2005 film about married assassins commissioned to kill each other. We can only assume the creators of "Atlanta" and "Fleabag" will star as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Expect fireworks and plenty of wit -- Glover and Waller-Bridge appeared together in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and their banter was one of the film's highlights.

"Lord of the Rings" (J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay showrunners) -- Peter Jackson's trilogy (pictured) was a box office titan and critical hit, so it makes sense that Amazon is going all-out with its TV series (which, it should be noted, has nothing to do with Jackson). It's set thousands of years before "The Lord of the Rings," with writers mining J.R.R. Tolkien's prequel novel "The Silmarillion" for material. While the cast is new to Middle-earth, the setting will look familiar to audiences -- filming took place in New Zealand.

"Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" (directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson) -- If you're missing live music, this electric documentary is sure to scratch that itch. Thompson has recovered lost footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, when a veritable who's who of Black musical excellence -- from Nina Simone to Stevie Wonder to Hugh Masekela -- graced the stage in Mount Morris Park, New York. A winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, this celebration of an event dubbed the "Black Woodstock" was bought by Searchlight Pictures and Hulu and is set for a July 2 release in the US.

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The nuances of inclusive filmmaking

Everything heard in “Sound of Metal,” from a heavy metal concert to Ahmed’s eyelids closing, is an original recording. There are no sounds from commercially available libraries. “I absolutely love that,” says Nielsen. “I even started as a sound designer before editing, so it was super interesting to work with.”

Marder had pitched Nielsen an idea to make a movie “where Deaf people see the film as a whole,” while “a hearing person (feels) like the minority,” says the editor. “He was just raising the bar on so many levels, I thought I have to sign up for this.”

The intention was to mirror Ruben’s experiences through omissions – and not just omission of sound. For example, before Ruben learns American Sign Language (ASL) it is left uncaptioned, shutting out audiences without knowledge of ASL.

“It was so critical that you’re never ahead of him; you can never know more than your main character,” says Nielsen. “It’s easy to say but it’s difficult to do, because there’s information in everything.”

At the same time, he needed to construct scenes with dialogue in a way that created an inclusive experience for Deaf audiences, while highlighting the complexities of communication. In editing the first conversation between Ruben and Joe, Nielsen needed to factor in Joe’s lipreading skills, Ruben’s deafness and the real-time transcribing machine Ruben uses to understand Joe – all before he could consider the content of the conversation and its emotional impact. “It demands so much,” says the editor.

Paul Raci as Joe and Riz Ahmed as Ruben, and the transcription machine used for Ruben to communicate with Joe before he learns American Sign Language.

Despite the crew’s efforts to make the film inclusive, there are still moments where it falls short, according to Deaf writer Sara Novic. In some scenes from Ruben’s POH, the film’s captions lack detail, closing off Deaf audiences from part of his experience, she argues.

“Reading (the words) ‘distorted sound’ over and over again doesn’t demonstrate concretely the gaps in what Ruben is understanding, nor does it carry the emotional weight of what the hearing viewer is experiencing,” she explained in an email.

Novic is more positive about the film’s depiction of cochlear implants – devices that turn sounds into electronic signals that stimulate the cochlea in the inner ear, which the brain recognizes as sound.

After assimilating into the Deaf community, Ruben opts to have implants fitted out of a belief they will give him his old life back. But with metallic distortion and an unfamiliar depth of sound, they prove a disappointment.

“We knew it needed to be a very strong experience,” says Becker, who provided Nielsen with an experimental piece of software that processed sound the same way a cochlear implant would.

Ruben (Riz Ahmed) is fitted with cochlear implants in "Sound of Metal" -- devices that turn sounds into electronic signals that stimulate the cochlea in the inner ear, which the brain recognizes as sound.

In one of the film’s most overwhelming scenes, Ruben struggles to navigate a Parisian garden party. We hear snatches of conversations, background noises brought into the foreground and a lack of three-dimensionality. “You have a feeling of complete loneliness, and you being so disoriented because all the sound sources come from everywhere,” says Nielsen. “It’s almost like a horror movie for me as a hearing person.”

The simulation in “Sound of Metal” is in contrast to how the technology is often presented in the media – sometimes as a silver bullet or a miracle cure for deafness.

“Deaf people have spoken extensively about how cochlear implants are not cures or quick fixes,” says Novic, but she feels hearing people often struggle to understand that. “If that experience clarifies [for a hearing viewer] what cochlear implants can and cannot do … I think that’s a good thing.”

“We can still find ways to give you a new experience”

Whether it wins Oscars or not on April 25, the film is a showcase for the power sound can have in cinema. For those involved, there’s a sense of validation, also.

“For many years, we (Becker and Nielsen) had the feeling that we were keeping some stuff (back), because people were thinking it would be too experimental or too different,” says Becker. “This film was a magnificent way to show that it’s totally possible to work in that way.”

And though the journey may not be complete for Deaf representation on screen, the film has undoubtedly resonated with hearing audiences.

“It’s extremely interesting that after 130 years in cinema, we can still find ways to give you a new experience,” says Nielsen.

“It’s almost like a piano,” he adds. “You have the sound, you have the image, but it’s the way you play with them, and suddenly you create a whole new way to see it.”