93rd Oscars Backstage Interview Transcript: FILM EDITING

SPEECH BY: Mikkel E. G. Nielsen

FILM: "SOUND OF METAL"

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Q. Hello, guys.  How are you?  How's everything?  Congratulations for the award. 
A. Thank you so much.


Q. How was it for you guys to do a movie about the ‑‑ a drummer that is like ‑‑ he is lost in his year, and how is for you to win this award between ‑‑ in the middle of a crazy pandemic? 
A. It's ‑‑ I don't know what to say.  I'm extremely grateful and honored.  It's ‑‑ we never expected anything like this at all.  This is a pure love and passion project.  We did it before the pandemic.  We finished.  We went into the pandemic ourself.  We struggled in my country, in Denmark, as well.  But then we came out, and it resonates because it's something about me being at home and suddenly seeing a film about someone losing a sense and going into acceptance of something that resonates.  And that whole feeling of not being able just to do what you want to do, be able to travel, be able to go to work, you have to be home or all these things.  It just ‑‑ I don't know.  It was very powerful suddenly, to see the film during these times.


Q. Hi there, Mikkel.  I have one question.  Because this is such an audiovisual film, like, specific audio based, hence the sound in the SOUND OF METAL, how did you approach the editing considering ‑‑ considering that fact? 
A. So when I was approached, the director told me that he wanted to give a deaf person the feeling of the whole, to be able to see the movie as a whole and I, as a hearing person, would feel like a minority.  I absolutely loved that idea.  He brought in the whole aspect of using the sound as storytelling, meaning that you can go into the internal and the external world of Ruben, the main character, from a first perspective.  And that goes for the whole idea of never be ahead of your main character.  Always be with your main character.  Be with Ruben.  And then play around with the feeling of information, how much information does Ruben know, and how much information do we know?  And as long as you stick with that.  That's an editorial choice.  That's the power of storytelling and sound because sound is that physical feeling, that suddenly you may feel it in your stomach, and it was just mind‑blowing to be able to work on such an amazing project for me. 


Q. Thank you.  Congratulations to our winner.  Thank you so much.

 

 


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