Interview: Alan Deans
An Oscar award has been the ultimate accolade for a sound expert
It goes without saying that when a movie director, especially George Miller, calls “action” or “cut”, that is exactly what he expects to happen. But what if the actors can’t hear or see him?
Picture a scene from Miller’s latest action flick, Mad Max: Fury Road.
The War Rig is speeding across the Wasteland. The Doof Warrior, aka rock musician iOTA, has the volume cranked up on his flame-throwing guitar and the drummers are in full flight – part of their war ritual. How do they hear the foldback so they can keep rhythm and tempo? How can the actors, engulfed by noise in the vehicles, hear their cues and have their lines recorded? And, how can a communications network cope in the furore of speed, heat, dust and landscape of a remote Namibian desert so that Miller can hear the actors and give them orders?
That’s just a few of the outsized problems Ben Osmo had as sound recordist on
Fury Road. He clearly did an outstanding job because he and two other sound techs on the film last year won Oscars for their work. The movie itself scored six Academy Awards, more than any other that year. Actors who win Oscars always snatch the limelight but, without the specialist skills of Osmo and the sound team, there simply could have been no movie.
“Communication was important on that film. We were so remote and we travelled so far away from the towers they erected for the walkie-talkies, they didn’t work,” explains Osmo. “If we went around a corner into a canyon, for example, they couldn’t get reception. But I had reception and put microphones on quite a few people who weren’t in front of the camera – principally George and the camera operators – so they could talk to each other and hear the actors’ dialogue.
“At the end of that six months’ filming, George said to me, ‘Ben, I couldn’t have done it without you’. Even though he knew he was going to replace a lot of the dialogue, my work was to facilitate him communicating with the actors, with the cinematographer, with the first assistant director and keep the film going.”
It helped enormously that Osmo had his Osmotron, an outdoor broadcasting vehicle initially intended to be parked in one spot to collect sound data within a 4km radius. But it soon became an action vehicle in its own right. On the first day of a run-through, the War Rig drove for 7.5km – well beyond range of the communication towers. So the Osmotron was rigged with antennas so it could roar across the desert too, always keeping within 500m of the action. “It was four-wheel drive. It never got bogged. And, we had a fantastic driver,” says Osmo. Even so, there were troubles. The constant jarring in the truck meant his computer kept crashing, and iOTA and the drummers couldn’t get their foldback. A switch was made to a simple, tiny, solid-state iPod. Problem solved.
Osmo prizes his gold-plated Oscar, which seems heavier to lift than its 3.9kg. “George said to me as I was going up to the stage at the awards, ‘Ben, it’s not just for this film. It’s for the last 40 years’. I had tears in my eyes. That is what it is. It is your peers acknowledging that you have done a good job.”
Just for the record, Oscars are worth zip. The statuette is gold plated, so in theory the precious metal has value, as does its novelty and rarity. But they can’t be bought or sold. Every winner since 1950 has been banned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from selling their statuettes without first offering it back to them for $US1. Before then, Oscars sold for up to six-figure sums. Now unless a winner agrees to the academy’s terms, they simply aren’t given a statuette.
Osmo says that he hasn’t stopped working since Oscar became a part of his family. “Funnily enough, you sometimes get what they call the Oscar jinx. People think you will be too expensive and, particularly in Australia, it could be the tall poppy syndrome. Fortunately, the Ridley Scott film Alien: Cov
enant was already slated for me. Now, however, I still send emails with my CV particularly for Australian films. Not everyone knows who you are even though
I’ve been doing it for 40 years.
But I have always had TV commercials to fall back on. I enjoy that. It gives me a good lifestyle because it allows me to take a breath between films and have a balance in life.”
Osmo’s parents emigrated to Australia from Greece, and his father had a strong work ethic. He urged his son to take jobs in his holidays, which he did – digging trenches, hefting wine boxes onto trucks and working in an iron foundry in Sydney’s western suburbs. Why? His father figured that his son would realise he needed an education so he wasn’t forced to do work he didn’t like.
When he left school, Osmo started as a mail boy in an advertising agency. He thought he would be a graphic artist, like others in his family. He did a layout and design course at the University of Technology Sydney. Half way through, the agency promoted him to the screening room where clients came to see their commercials and where screen tests were done. He learned to thread a projector. When a video operation was started, he became an assistant and was in charge of sound. “I didn’t have much of an idea but I was a musician and had an idea of what I wanted to hear. I was taught there. Based on that experience, I joined a film production house. There I was threading the projector and dubbers and helping sync rushes with the editors.” When the sound mixer went freelance, he was handed the job.
Osmo took a TAFE course for sound recordists and passed the exams but he was failed for missing too many classes because of work. “Now film school or a TAFE course is crucial. There are so many people who want to get in. You have to have the will to work in the film industry. It can be hard work. It’s not glamorous.”
His first real career break came in 1975 when he joined the ABC. That gave him broad experience in different production types such as news, current affairs, documentaries, dramas, light entertainment and music, both indoors and outdoors. “I loved drama, and that is what challenged me the most. It was more to do with the psychology of things. It was like reading a book, and then seeing the book come to life. It also involved more teamwork. In documentaries, you are capturing what is there. In drama, you create the willing suspension of disbelief.”
Osmo became a freelancer in 1985. He has worked on plenty of movies since – The Sapphires, Charlotte’s Web, The Man Who Sued God, Babe: Pig in the City, The Phantom, Strictly Ballroom and Dead Calm to name a few. He has also recorded episodes of TV shows such as Beyond 2000 and
60 Minutes. But there have been times when there was no work. He puts money away for them.
“I had a personal loan for my band and a mortgage for the house. I did everything I could to be mortgage free, which we are now. A few years ago, my wife said we needed to do some forced saving. We invested in an apartment in the city, and fortunately that is mortgage free now and provides an income for us.” Osmo has bought plenty of sound equipment over the years, which he has always paid for upfront. When he started his business, it was good secondhand gear. But technology changes, and he has to keep up. Now his mixer is bespoke, made in Switzerland.
He protects his income via super and insurance, thanks in part to advice from his accountant. Insurance for his gear is critical. Without that, he couldn’t work. “It is a big deal when I go overseas. I might be working in a sandstorm, in snow. In the last month, we have been filming in the rain.”
Two attributes that are critical for any award-winning sound recordist are planning and flexibility. On one recent job, filming was taking place on an English country garden set but it was under a flight path. Osmo knew aircraft noise would frequently interrupt filming but it was too late to make a change. It was a comedy, so there was plenty of improvised dialogue that the director didn’t want to interrupt. The solution? He found a flight app with real-time information. Dialogue was halted when an incoming flight was detected but the cameras kept rolling. That way, cameras could roll again within just 30 seconds and the crew could make the best of a bad situation.
“The film industry can be hard work. It’s not glamorous”