Shortlisted for Best Sound at the upcoming Oscars, Michael Mann’s Ferrari features some of the best racing films ever set to screen with a truly kinetic energy as we follow the 1957 Mille Miglia race with incredible sound to transport you in the film. The film takes place in the summer of 1957 following Enzo Ferrari, played by Academy Award nominee Adam Driver, through his personal and professional struggles. The sound team, including Lee Orloff, Bernard Weiser, and Tony Lamberti, discussed their work on the film with our Artisans Editor, Jillian Chilingerian.

Jillian Chilingerian: I love this film. I’ve seen it twice now second time I saw it with my family on Christmas and it was one of the few films in which we all were actively engaged. I’m so glad that we have someone like Michael Mann making such an incredible film and having it in theaters. The sound is certainly something that really stood out to me, so I’m very excited to dive into all the different aspects because it was also one of those films where you watch and you’re like, ‘how did they do this?’
Lee Orloff: Where did you see it?

Jillian Chilingerian: I saw it in a screening room. I could start with racing but the scene that really sticks out in my mind is the opera scene. It’s such a pivotal point in the movie where we are watching this opera the way that it pans to the different characters in the way the sound is it’s almost like we are watching an opera of Ferrari and learning so much about who these people are. What was that like constructing this moment?

Lee Orloff: It started with seven little words, ‘we’re going to do it live,’ which basically set us on the path to how to construct the scene, because opera is challenging to do live in the sense that having done decades of work with Michael, I knew what the day was I knew what our schedule was. And so the idea of doing an orchestra and live vocal within the context of that scene, because there’s also the scene with Ferrari and one of the Maserati, the URC brothers so there’s that scene there. There are entrances. There’s POVs. There’s Lina, up in one of the boxes. So there’s a lot of coverage and all that was one day’s work. So that was part of the challenge was I knew that we were going to be able to shoot the vocalist, Soprano, and the tenor live. But the idea of being able to place microphones to do an orchestral recording, as well as the vocalist on stage, was something that I knew we would have to find another solution for. So we then started to brainstorm how to do it in pre-recorded orchestra. We used the orchestra that was in the film, and we got the actors, and the two performers ahead of time and did some pre-record knowing that we would use those for the wide shots and all the overs from them onto the audience. And then it really became a collaborative effort that involved everyone. Everyone had to be on board from editorial because we had a piece that was a flashback to Enzo, Laura, and Dino, so all that was already predetermined. So you know, it’s a, it’s a montage that without going into too much detail about the whole process. There’s more to it than just the opera. There. There’s a lot more to that scene. And as you know, as you said, it reveals so much about the characters in the film. It’s an it’s an opportunity for us to get to the backstory of the opera.

Bernard Weiser: Well, the importance of the scene is so it’s a very emotional scene, important to Michael and Pietro to the picture editor who put it together. I was embedded with them working on the dialogue in those tracks when it came up. And it’s one of those scenes where you know, Pietro was in my room I was in EnRoute his room as we’re tweaking because it was it was so important for the emotion to make a seamless scene that that just was its own feel. It’s there’s nothing else like it in the movie and it’s very important to it because it’s so internal. And that carried through the way when it went into Andy’s hands and he mixed it, but a lot of tension was there. That was from the get-go. Everybody was on the same page with how that was going to sound and Lee’s tracks allowed us to piece it together that way. It had its own challenges in that the performance lead. They lead the way in the orchestra and actually follow that performance, where oftentimes when, when music, it’s the other way around, you have the music and the vocalist are following the music. So that has its own set of challenges and authenticity was so important to Michael that we needed to capture that natural sound.

Andy Nelson: I think that thing is on the mixing of that, as is often the case when we’re mixing scenes in a film it’s not so much about what the scene wants. It’s what does and what doesn’t it want you to know, it’s about taking away as much as it is about adding, and then a scene like that the simpler and the roar we made it, the more powerful it became. And so in a way, it was about removing things that you might ordinarily add to that type of scene and just letting it play, literally on the actors. faces and the beauty of the singers. So it wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it was a massively complex scene. It was just about finding out how it played, and then mixing it the best way we could.

Bernard Weiser: Yeah, yeah, it’s so much the detail on this whole movie. In fact, I just thought that this is what you just said. Oftentimes, it’s that simplicity that allows the detail to shine through to allow the natural performance to happen to allow the emotion to come out. And it’s yeah, it’s less about the complexity of a scene. It’s more about finding that essence that’s in the scene and just letting it in letting that happen. And sometimes that’s more complicated both editorially and mixing, to have that light touch to know if you’re on it and make that come out.
Andy Nelson: You often don’t discover that until you’ve virtually finished the movie and run it as we did a number of times because then you can see how each scene impacts the next scene. And, you know, as I say, it’s often about reducing and, and getting down to the more basic sort of sense of what the scene is all about.

Lee Orloff: The interesting thing is it’s kind of a hallmark, you know, Andy and I, we’ve worked with Michael for decades, and it’s kind of a hallmark of Michael’s work that within this large canvas that he works. It’s very intimate. The thing that’s at the core of his movies is a very intimate drama.

Bernard Weiser: It’s very internal, Michael is very internal.

Lee Orloff: And in you know, the relationship that he has with his actors. I mean, Michael is so respectful of the actors is just someone who comes in for a day that’s got a few lines, he is the same with them as he is with number one through, you know, through through our principles. So, you know, that’s just the way my mind makes his movies.

Bernard Weiser: Yeah, I got to see that as well in ADR, the respect he has for those actors. The collaboration he has with the actors is really through the roof. It’s really something to see you really see Michaels’s talent with the way he deals with them. It’s really cool.

Jillian Chilingerian: I definitely picked up from this film. It’s like you have that epic scale of, you know, 1950s auto racing, but at the end of the day, this film at the core is really this story about this man, who is you know, kind of imprisoned by his masculinity and also just like his marriage, it’s really a story of marriage story. And I kind of love that there’s that juxtaposition where nothing is really outshining the other and I feel like that’s really evident in the sound. Another scene I want to bring up is in the beginning when we got cut from the church to the Maserati time truck drivers and like, I think, just how much of the sound is almost it feels very melody and like almost like its own soundtrack and how these different cuts are. So I’m also curious about constructing that scene because I feel like it’s very representative of like that idea of juxtaposing intimacy with you know, epic.

Tony Lamberti: Absolutely. Well, you know, that, that seems, you know, my code, I’d already had the whole church, part of it scoped out and they recorded that choir live. So that so the choir is seeing that and then, you know, intercutting with the Maserati time trial, you know, we didn’t have the sound of the real Maserati until kind of later in the game. And once we did, you know, we realized that the power of the sound of that Maserati it was like you were saying, you know, very, very, had a kind of musical essence to it, you know, it’s a kind of mechanical music. And so, you know, took us a bit of time to kind of work through and figure out the best way to balance it and we realized we didn’t need to play it so loud. There was so much power in those recordings, that we got that most variety that, you know, we’re able to kind of blend that nicely with the choir and then and then, you know, as we were thinking about it, working in the stopwatches and it really made it a beautiful piece.

Andy Nelson: I think Tony one of the things that it’s probably worth explaining is why you didn’t get the sound of the Maserati till later. I think everyone will understand that that wasn’t the sound of the real car.

Bernard Weiser: The story behind that is that you know, that is actually the only real car that’s been raised in the movie, and that is owned by Nick Leeson, who was the drummer of Pink Floyd, who has an amazing car collection and the family collection was very instrumental in helping us procure the principal cars to be recorded for the movie. And so it took a long process to get to that point and those recordings didn’t come in until after Andy and I had just already started pre-mixing the show, and we’d already done a pass of the movie and in our premix time, and before the recordings of the cars started showing up and so you know, that’s, you know, it’s late in the game as I’ve ever gone, you know, in terms of getting the final sounds in but, but they, you know, they, the recordings, you know, sure a lot of prep time, sitting you know, with Michael spotting the movie, in terms of the exact performances we were going for, and then sitting with the Recordist in the UK, having a lot of zoom meetings with him and you know, talking about exactly what we were going to record, the mic setups with the placement, the shot lists and everything. And finally, they got to us, and, boy, were we ever thrilled.

Andy Nelson: Yeah, I think one thing is that the, I mean, apart from the Maserati, that’s pretty much the only one that was everything else was a replica car, correct?

Lee Orloff: Yes, that was it. That was the only car that was real. Everything else was built ground up specifically. For the rigors of the production. We have museum quality pieces that we would roll into the set, but they would just sit there you know as set pieces, but in terms of a car that was authentic period and that was running that was it.

Tony Lamberti: That was it. And then you know, those, you know, the building of the replica cars goes back a long time, you know that. When I first was introduced to this project, I was working with Michael back in 2014 on Blackhat and he started showing me the build sheets for these replica cars. And they were you know, probably an inch and a half thick in terms of you know, the detail that they were putting into these replica cars so that they could mount cameras on them, run them hard, and do everything they needed to do to be able to stage these races that were throughout the movie and you know, then going back and having to replace all the engines that were associated with that which because at the time, you know, for these replica cars, they were using four cylinder turbo engines that they could just run and run and run and run for hours and hours and hours on end. You could never do that with the real thing. So you know, we knew we were gonna have to have the big task of going back after the fact and replacing out all those engines and building the track up from scratch.

Lee Orloff: Except for the dialogue. That was the challenge from the set was that we knew we were going to have inappropriate nonperiod cards that we were going to be interacting with dialogue because of the way Michael was going to stage scenes in the pit where you got cars coming and going and Enzo was speaking to different drivers. Then there are numerous situations like that where that was another thing where the collaboration of all the people involved in the film we got together and said how can we best do this so we can, you know, be able to to keep the original production dialogue, which is what Michael always wants to do. And as far back as when we first started working on heat I knew that that was that was the command basically is that he’s going to work the actors and get the performance that he wants and he doesn’t want to go back again and do it.

Bernard Weiser: Now Michael is about that story and the performance within the dialogue. And he is definitely on top of all of us on every little bit every syllable to a word he’s involved in it. But that’s working with Michael too. It’s his passion to bring out that performance as best possible and continue to tell his story through that original performance and the authenticity of this to extend into the group and the dialog from the pit crews, for example. And make sure it’s correct Italian and correct for the time period. What would be different from other crews but an Italian crew at that time period? What’s their protocol for discussions it’s just a layer that’s in the background that’s very authentic because he put me in touch with many of the people who he did the research with to get that right. The people person I was in contact with was a pit crew guy himself understood the time period and we sent him script clips of those areas and he actually would script out what they would be saying. And I relayed that to them the casting of the group which was all northern Italians had to be absolutely northern Italians, not Italian Americans, but northern Italians, two of whom were from actually from Modena. So to make sure the accent was correct in the field was correct. We had the help of Dina Maroney in town here who was very in touch with the Italian community to help with that authenticity. So and that’s Michael’s authenticity up and down from the cars all the way through the dialogue.

Jillian Chilingerian: Yeah, no, I love that you bring that up because I think as an Audience member I definitely have really felt that with what Michael was able to do. I love to read interviews. So like I read a bunch of his interviews where he talked about like, a lot of the people in the film and I got to talk to [Production Designer] Maria [Djurkovic] and [Cinematographer] Erik [Messerschmidt] about all the research that he had because he’s been working on this movie for quite a long time. So I’m wondering for each of you, from your perspective of getting that research that he’s been working on, and like how do you approach that for like, specifically, your roles of like diving into it? I think it’s really fascinating how he was able to recreate the authenticity of what the 1950s auto racing industry would look like, you know, in these scenes with the racing from like, even just the speed how that’s captured on camera and even like, how that sound feels like so I’m curious for each of you of when you’re getting someone’s research and you’re like, oh my gosh, how do I tackle this? And where do you go from there?

Bernard Weiser: I know for all of us, you know, Michael is he’s in touch with all of us. For me day one. I was embedded with the picture department and on day one, he’s talking about his biggest concerns where it’s at follows through Tony and I spotting the film. All that is immediately discussed up front is his passion. So oftentimes it’s not a lot of chitchat. It’s getting right to business right away. And his research just exudes through it. You know, he shares where he’s coming from, so that we all know it. We all know Michael for over a year and years and years. Tony and this is the third project with him. And that works wonders working with Michael you got to understand that process and connecting and I gotta say that’s the collaboration of the entire crew from the get-go. And he was in very early on to take a look at the film and hear where he’s coming from with it and what can be added and what should be done. And we’re all communicating Lee and I talked early in the process of the post. So everybody was talking to each other. It’s with that vision from Michael and his research all just exudes to us that take it and challenge us to step up to that level of detail.

Tony Lamberti: For me, having been exposed to kind of some of that research back in 2014. You know, I remember going into his office we were finishing up at Blackhat at the time, and he had around me the build sheets for all the replica cars that he had location scouting, he had all kinds of materials, you know, spread out for Ferrari all over the place. And, you know, so I knew back then it was like, Okay, we’re going to be on this thing. It’s going to be you know, we’re gonna we’re gonna be taking the ride down the down the, you know, the research whole rabbit hole and in really doing a deep dive with Michael in terms of all this authenticity that was going to be needed to bring this to life.

Andy Nelson: Yeah, I think so I’m always mostly the last person to come on to the crew. As I’m just the re-recording mixer. I’m not supervising. I’m not sound designing. I’m certainly not reporting as Lee’s doing upfront. I’m coming on right at the end. The benefit for me has always been even though I read the script, I often don’t even read the script. Honestly, I hate to see the finished film because, for me, it’s the interesting thing that Tony just said about going down rabbit holes. I have to be kind of the one to almost say we’ve gone too far down the rabbit hole because I am now the audience. I’m the first audience effectively for this film in many ways. So my aesthetic is to make sure that you know everything is being told in a way that the audience will get it and understand it and that’s obviously clarity. It’s emotion. It’s everything all thrown in together. Music, of course, is a big component. Daniel Pemberton’s score was terrific to work with on this and I get that usually at the final stage when we’re when Tony and I are sitting mixing the last thing that comes in the door even later than the courage in this was actually music. That was how it was how do we fit all this in? Where’s it needed? Where’s it not? How can we move one piece to another if Michael feels it can be improved in various ways? I mean, we’re playing with all these things. But I mean, I literally come into it without the benefit in some ways, all this research and just look at it as a first audience. So that’s my goal is to make sure that it comes out. Crystal clear.

Bernard Weiser: Yeah. And then you bring up a good point, you know for Tony and I, we come into it. Both of us that first viewing we’re very aware that that’s such special viewing of the film. We both take detailed notes of our impression of that first viewing because there’s only one time you have that first viewing which is going to be closest to the audience. And then especially for Michael, we get into all these details we saw I start hearing from Lee and those details and we’re breaking it apart, putting it back together in the hopes of enhancing and and achieving all these challenges. But that perspective starts to drift so we’re referring to our original notes, and that’s why it’s so important by the time Andy it goes to Andy’s hand hands, it’s already yours. You know, did we go down the wrong way? Are we in that rabbit hole that’s on another continent or are we on track and Andy is vital to guide us on? are we achieving it or not?

Tony Lamberti: And I think that I think I totally agree with you. And I think one of the huge things is I think that Michael almost lies to me for that perspective. Because we’ve all you know, the whole everybody up to that point has been living with it for so long that I think that, you know, that’s why Andy and Michael have worked so great together for so long is because Michael really needs that perspective that he gets from AMD and you trust AMD in his, in his taste and is, you know, you know, what he’s bringing to the table in terms of keeping everybody like is this going to land with the audience, you know, and, and especially with the music, you know, is it emotional enough is it you know, for early on, you could flag that end, but you know, Hey, are we hitting the right emotional beats? You know, those kinds of things? I think it’s so vital.

Andy Nelson: Yeah, Michael said himself. I’ve sat with him on panels as you guys have and I’ve heard him say that the film is made three times, you know, in its original concept in filming and editing, and then finally on the mixed stage, he really feels that’s where it brings it all home. And so to be part of that process with him is very special, I think.

Lee Orloff: And I can say that we were all I can speak for myself, but I know having, you know done panels with all of us here. We were all very excited about the project because the script had such great opportunities for us to tell the story with sound. It’s such a dynamic script, the way that it’s structured, going from these very intimate, you know, tight, almost claustrophobic interiors. And then opening it up to this grand scale. And it’s there right on the page. It’s not as if this was done in editing this was exactly the way the film on the page was when we first read it. So it was a very, you know, I could see why this passion project for Michael has been in his head for decades is that when you read it, you just want this film to be made. And he never gave up.

Jillian Chilingerian: I remember I had read the script and I was like, well I can’t wait to see how this comes out visually and I love that you mentioned like the sound because I am so when I watch movies, I feel like sound can be it’s just such a major indicator on characters journey and especially this film is so character driven by Enzo and I love as the dialogue moments of Andy mentioned earlier about like taking away things that you wouldn’t expect to be there and so I feel like that really adds kind of fascinated with the dialogue and how it kind of embodies this idea of that suffocation with this character like not that he’s like a bad guy but we’re he’s trapped like he’s trying to figure out, you know, how does he get out of his personal and in his professional issues? Like, obviously he has a lot of grief going on. And he’s very hyper-focused on this one goal. So I’m curious about, you know, using those dialogue moments because I feel like they definitely, with that juxtaposition we’re talking about they definitely helped guide the story in that intimacy.

Bernard Weiser: It was very much the challenge from the get-go and you know, communication amongst ourselves. For myself. It was hiring veteran editors that understood that could bring this a game because you have a thinner dialogue track no place to hide it had to be clean. So these tracks that he provided for us were really, really good and allowed veteran editors that we brought on Paul Carden, Robert Troy, and Cameron Steenhagen just to mention their names, and Ryan Juggler, our assistant slash editor as well, and their taste to bring that clean track that doesn’t clean up so much that you’ve taken away the performance from the actors, you know, you don’t want to lose that. That’s certainly Michael’s all over that. So having veteran people who collaborate we like each other. I mean, that’s what our crew was. And as you can see, in these interviews, we truly like each other and respect our work. And well boy, when that happens, it’s a good it’s a great thing. It’s Pietro, the picture editor who’s right on board with us and understands what we’re doing what we bring, and why good things happen when there’s good chemistry.

Andy Nelson: Yeah, I think I agree. I mean, I think it’s about you know, you look at Michael’s techniques, and I’ve certainly got familiar with them over the years, but you know, he’ll put the camera up so close to someone’s chin, or someone’s cheek, and you’re, you’re under the skin of that person. And I think what we have to do at that point is, is realize that it’s not anything to do with the background. There may be some things happening in soft focus on stage, visually, but you’re not going to necessarily acknowledge them with sound, because right now, he’s clearly inside his head. And when he walks over to talk to the reporters is an instance of that where everything just goes away. And you know, he’s forming an idea. He’s figuring out his strategy, and we have to kind of imply that by again, as I said earlier, it’s about taking away things really, in a sense, and letting this thing be very naked and exposed. And that’s the way you can get so connected to a character

Lee Orloff: Yeah, that scene that we did with the mom and Enzo, the breakfast scene, where he’s talking about the driver that just died. And he’s got that great line. You know, where he tells his mom that well, you know, the reason he died was because his mom got in the way. And when he does that, it reminds me of Back to the Insider because Enzo was right up against that window and we’re right in his face, just like we were with Russell Crowe Insider where you literally are half-focused, going over but it’s just it’s so much you know, Michael style that you want to be there for that you know, incredible intimacy because that moment just explodes. Like, did he really just, you know, it’s just it’s beautiful, beautiful Michael moment.

Bernard Weiser: And the subtlety of the sound that brings that out is you know, the mom puts down the newspaper with some extra oomph and they’re bringing out the foley and that’s Michael all over it saying like you need to bring that out to counterpoint the line.
Tony Lamberti: That’s all very specific. It’s all very, very specific, very purposeful, mapped out by Michael. We have discussions, going into all that about those things.

Jillian Chilingerian: Back into the dialogue, we have American actors who are taking on Italian accents, and so I’m always kind of curious about like, how is that with, you know, I don’t know just like making sure that certain points are either emphasize or like that, again, it falls in line with the authenticity of like, how these people would actually speak and not only the period, but like the region.

Bernard Weiser: There were the backgrounds there, the group that was really good, obviously, the really speaking Italian proper accents and everything. That’s much easier, actually, as long as you do your research towards it, then the challenge of our principal actors is not speaking Italian, they’re speaking English, but you want to feel you need to believe that they’re Italian. And yeah, that was the number one concern when I certainly started and each actor is individual the way they’re bringing that but you know, Adam [Driver] did a lot of research himself. And I’m sure he knew coming off of House of Gucci, there were a lot of comments about the accent being all over the place and such. So he brought out the accent more in timing because you know, you have the sounds that one is going to make for the Italian accent, but she also has Italian pacing. So sometimes there are a few scenes there where you just take it out of context and listen to it. He is definitely sounding American, but he paces that with an Italian feel. And it’s a question of what the audience is believing by that point when we’re into the film. So we already bought into the way he speaks and being Italian. So each actor is a little bit different with that and enhancing it sometimes when we rerecord we pick out lines to make more Italian and rerecord that and ADR, which Michael tries to minimize but we went through some of the characters line by line trying to figure out what can we do can we do it to enhance it with mixing or do we need to go into it? You know, the character of Lina, and she had a voice coach there. And you know the dynamics of it too is the voice coach has his point of view. Michael has his point of view. And then when can the actor bring without sounding fake? So it’s balancing all that. So it’s an interesting challenge. You have the flip side of that as the Italian actors, some of them had such a heavy Italian accent. They were very difficult to understand. So could we fix that editorially do we need to rerecord that and then when you get a recording with somebody who has a heavy accent ADR recording has issues as well? So I do the best I can with it. We move it through and then Andy has added another layer to bring it about and also what he thinks about achieving it. And matching. So it’s quite a process. It’s a process.

Andy Nelson: but I think also with something like that you’ve got the combination of making sure the clarity of each of those words is there but you’ve also got Michael’s approach to things which is the dramatic intent of the line and so we combine all those things together and often you know, Benard you would be moving a syllable, you know, the tiniest millisecond either direction, inside of a word which allows for clarity to improve we found that on the Italian actors that would talk English where you would have to help a little bit here and there or, or we would manipulate with volume a certain syllable to come through and a Miko is very into doing that. Knowing that dramatically it can also shape the line and you know, he can often he’ll feel that there’s a dramatic improvement in something by doing that. He’s not afraid of doing that within actors’ lines if he thinks that the dramatic content can be enhanced in any way. So we did a lot of that.

Bernard Weiser: At one point he suddenly goes I don’t want him to say it that way. I want you to invert some of the words and make it work that way. Which is like you got to be kidding me at first because you you know we’re all focused on what I call dialogue, literacy that there’s a flow a natural flow. So that one now is disrupting that flow. How can I bring it back? And still, achieve a fluid moment? And it’s what I achieved and I noticed and thanks to Andy If Andy gives me the nod that working I know it is because it’s so detailed. As an audience, it works, it’s fine, nothing to it, right? But sometimes a lot goes into it and I always appreciate it and he’s his approval and if it was working because you get so into it, I don’t know what’s going on and people are but it’s fun with that. These types of things really make what we do a lot of fun and working with good people again is love the challenge

Jillian Chilingerian: Well this has been such an insightful conversation as I said, I really love this film and I think like it just felt like such a game changer I think for when we think of like, I don’t know racing or car films, but it’s so intimate and it’s so it’s so Michael and like hearing all these I don’t know just how it came together as such a technical achievement and itself that I was like very blown away. So I love being able to have these conversations because it just really hit me so emotionally and I feel like there’s just so much nuance and richness and like specifically with all of your work with the sound just I don’t know it’s just such a marvel of a film where I’m like telling again telling everyone else like you have to go watch this. So thank you all for just the time and congratulations on the shortlist I am rooting for Ferrari and like everywhere that it can be and yeah, thank you for answering all my questions and depth I really like I love learning about sound and all of this. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Ferrari is exclusively in theaters now.
You can read our review of Ferrari here.