Donald Sylvester Discusses Best Sound Editing Win For 'Ford v Ferrari' Backstage at Oscars 2020

Hollywood Journal

Sylvester spoke to press about his win backstage at the 2020 Academy Awards.

Transcript

00:00Hello there. Congratulations.

00:03We were just talking the other night.

00:05Everybody was speculating who would win.

00:07We were speculating, exactly.

00:09How does it feel to have this kind of recognition?

00:11Well, it's pretty overwhelming.

00:12If you look at the Oscars for year after year on television

00:17and you wonder if you'll ever be there,

00:20and you think, probably not.

00:21My daughter, when she was in third grade, said,

00:23Dad, why don't you ever win Oscars?

00:24And I go, honey, I just did a Garfield movie.

00:29But things are different now, so I'm very happy.

00:34Am I supposed to, am I in charge?

00:37Am I supposed to do that?

00:3929 is next here.

00:41Oh, 29 needs a microphone.

00:43I know that because I am in sound.

00:47Hi there, this is Marietta Melrose from Bulgaria.

00:50My husband and I loved the movie.

00:52He decided he should race right after we watched it.

00:56Yeah, I've heard that.

00:58I mean, obviously, sound is a massive part of it.

01:01So what was a challenge?

01:03I read in an article that finding that specific car sound was one of it.

01:07But can you expand on that?

01:09Well, there was a real challenge of finding a very, very...

01:11I wanted to have the cars be as loud as they really are in real life.

01:16If you're standing next to a 747, for example, it's like standing next to a GT40.

01:21But there was the problem that you can't blow people away in the theater.

01:24So there was this give and take about having loud cars, having loud races, and then not blowing people away.

01:32I mean, we've got a 25-minute race at the end of the film.

01:36So that was pretty much a challenge.

01:38But I give all that to my mixers who did not win tonight, but they should have.

01:43Because they balanced it in a way that it was completely palatable.

01:49You didn't get your head blown off.

01:51There were even people sitting in the front row.

01:53I saw some Q&A and they are like, how's your head?

01:56They go like, that's okay.

01:59So that was the challenge.

02:01Number 292.

02:04Congratulations, Don.

02:06Hi, 292.

02:07How are you?

02:09Could you elaborate on your collaboration with the team?

02:11Because that's something you've been talking about all season.

02:14The gym and the sound mixers and the whole team.

02:18Well, the funny thing is that when we got Dave Giamarco on the editing side,

02:22he's also a mixer.

02:24So it was my clever plan to get a mixer involved early,

02:28so that when we moved forward,

02:30we would always have something that's been pre-mixed already.

02:33As she said, how do you keep the sound from blowing you away?

02:37By having a mixer on the editing team.

02:39And also I've worked with James Mangold and the picture editors,

02:44Michael McCusker.

02:45I've worked with them for 15 years.

02:47And so we work in the same building right next to each other.

02:51And it's like every day we're sharing ideas and notes and things like that.

02:57And things don't happen like in a regular way.

03:00Jim will say like, oh, I have an idea.

03:01Boom.

03:02And we'll get the idea.

03:03And then Mike will say, I have an idea.

03:05Boom.

03:06And I'm right there.

03:07So if I were like across the street or down the block,

03:09it wouldn't have been that great.

03:10And I have a notebook that thick of my notes.

03:12So that's our collaboration.

03:14I mean, we always try to anticipate what each other wants.

03:18And that's good because we know each other pretty well after all these years.

03:22That's the end of that, 292.

03:25Okay.

03:26166.

03:27Thank you very much.

03:28I think we're...

03:29Oh, there we go.

03:31166.

03:32166 is right there.

03:33Hi.

03:34Congratulations.

03:35Karen Peterson from Award Circuit.

03:37Thank you, Karen.

03:38You talked about some of the challenges.

03:41But what was one of the most exciting sequences for you?

03:44Well, when, you know, we don't really know how it's going to be

03:47until we've put all the elements together.

03:49And I think the Daytona race was a real thrill to me.

03:55And a big surprise because Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders wrote music

04:02in the key of the engine, which I discussed with them.

04:05I didn't think they were going to do it, but they did.

04:07And there's points in the race where the music hits, like it's sound effects,

04:12and vice versa.

04:13So there's actually a moment in the end of the Daytona race where you actually

04:19can hear a chord of music and engine playing together.

04:24And for me, when I discovered that, that was a big thrill.

04:26Okay.

04:27Thank you very much.

04:28Congratulations.

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