Ford v Ferrari’s supervising sound editor Don Sylvester, sound designer and rerecording mixer David Giammarco and rerecording mixer Paul Massey are the guests on a new episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Behind the Screen series.
Fox Searchlight’s racing drama is based on the true story of American car designer Carroll Shelby, played by Matt Damon, and driver Ken Miles, played by Christian Bale. In the James Mangold-directed film, they team up to build a new race car for the Ford Motor Company and take on Ferrari.
This involved an extensive search for several classic cars — in particular the Ford GT40 — to record authentic sounds. “We had hours and hours of recording,” says Sylvester.
The team then crafted the climatic 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France in 1966, which is a roughly 25-minute sequence. “You couldn’t have driving with music the whole way, and you couldn’t have driving with effects the entire way,” says Massey. “We had to pick and choose the moments [to give the race] a feeling of emotion.”
Massey won an Oscar last season for Bohemian Rapsody and has earned six additional Academy Award nominations. Giammarco was twice nominated, for Moneyball and 3:10 to Yuma. And Sylvester previously won a BAFTA for Walk the Line.
