by Lily Wheeler USA | 2019 | 95m | 12 Director: Midge Costin Starring: Barbra Streisand, Sofia Coppola, Steven

Spielberg, Ryan Coogler

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

Veteran Hollywood sound editor Midge Costin her argument. The film ‘does its damndest to makes her directorial debut with this stimulating prove that we experience movies with our ears as documentary, which explores the underlying much as we do with our eyes,’ writes David Ehrlich importance of sound to enhance our visual for IndieWire. ‘This is a simple but righteous work experience of cinema. The film is a comprehensive of score-settling, made by someone with real skin look at the detailed workings of the aural elements in the game.’ within Hollywood movies, revealing critical insights from celebrated directors and sound designers to More than just an exploration of the techniques provide a thorough exploration of this generally used to provide the immersive experience of overlooked artistry. cinematic sound, Making Waves seeks to celebrate the history of sound in cinema and the Costin’s expertise stems from her work on major people behind it. It features interviews with both Hollywood films, with career highlights including renowned directors, like David Lynch and Steven cult favourite Hocus Pocus (1993) and action thriller Spielberg, and respected award-winning sound The Rock (1996). ‘I fell into it by mistake, because I designers, such as Ben Burtt and Lora Hirschberg. needed the money,’ she told The Guardian. ‘I took Speaking to Deadline, Costin revealed she ‘actually the sound job, and then went, “Oh, crap. I’m did 90 interviews, because I wanted to capture responsible for tone and mood.” ... I realized that everybody, because when we started to look in the sound wasn’t just technical. It adds so much to the archives ... there’s nothing there.’ story.’ Costin’s film seeks to give audiences a similar revelation. Costin explained the inspiration for the film’s title was filmmakers like Also a university lecturer on the subject, she Francis Ford Coppola, utilises her extensive experience to help highlight George Lucas, and Walter the creative geniuses working behind the scenes, Murch: ‘they had to and uses iconic film scenes and clips to evidence innovate, and I think that’s

Making Waves

what making waves was, that they were making importance of women’s presence in the industry. waves in Hollywood.’ As Steven Spielberg says in the film, ‘our ears lead Costin also emphasises the importance of women our eyes to where the story lives’, and Making to the development of sound in cinema, featuring Waves is centred around an awareness that, key figures such as Barbra Streisand, Anna although we as an audience may not fully

Behlmer, Cece Hall, and Pat Jackson. With a core recognise it, sound is crucial to the atmosphere, team of three female producers (Costin, writer production, and impact of film. Focusing on the Bobette Buster, and Karen Johnson) there is a people and production behind the scenes, there reminder that, whilst aural elements of film may is the sense that we as an audience may think we be overlooked, the women involved fall even have been immersing ourselves in experiencing further under the radar. IMDb describes Costin as entire films, yet we were only appreciating half ‘launching her career at a time when very few the story. ‘Part of the pleasure of this film is the women were cutting FX in Hollywood’, and now sense of discovery of something that was there she utilises her directorial debut to stress the all along’ – Wendy Ide, Screen Daily.

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