Veteran sound designer Scott Gershin has been working in the industry for over three decades, with a resume that includes Star Trek, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Green Lantern and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, among many others.
In December he took home his first Children’s & Family Emmy Award for Netflix’s Maya and the Three, and his latest work on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio has earned him a spot on the Oscar shortlist for “Best Sound.” Gershin has a history with del Toro, previously collaborating with the director on Pacific Rim and Blade II.
Scott Gershin
This stop-motion version of Pinocchio (which recently won a Golden Globe) reimagines the classic Carlo Collodi tale of the fabled wooden boy and sends Pinocchio on an adventure that transcends worlds and reveals the life-giving power of love. The characters are voiced by Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Finn Wolfhard and Christoph Waltz.
We recently spoke with Gershin about working with del Toro on and off for 30 years, their work on Pinocchio and his love of sound design.
Did Pinocchio differ from some of your other collaborations with del Toro?
I always wanted to work on some of Guillermo’s quieter movies. When we started discussing Pinocchio, we both realized this movie had to be very different than the other ones we had done together. It had to be much more subtle and tasty and really support the nuances of the story and the art…to create lots of detail using a fine brush. It was much more of a detailed audio sculpture rather than just putting sound anywhere.
Were there any sounds you created in the beginning stages of the film that changed a lot as you dove further into the project?
For Pinocchio, I started very early on during the storyboard portion. As I was coming up with different concepts, the sound evolved as the picture evolved. We kept iterating, and as the picture matured, so did the audio.
What are some of the sounds you created, especially for the characters?
The sonic artistry of the show involves when and how a certain sound was used and how the sounds help propel emotion. A lot of the organic sounds, such as wood, initially don’t contain a lot of emotion or ways of supporting the character. What little piece of sound we choose to use in any given moment, how we manipulated those the sounds and how we combined them really helped support all the different kinds of characters within the show. Each character had a number of signature sounds, and each character was made up of a lot of sounds rather than just one.
Pinocchio is made up of different types of woods that we moved and hit together. Wood creaks, metal squeaks and even sounds that weren’t actually wood all combined to create a single sound. Then we used different elements throughout the show to amplify and support certain emotions.
Volpe has pockets full of coins, and occasionally you’ll hear tap shoes as he becomes very dramatic. Podesta and the priest have opposite sound from each other — one aggressive and the other passive.
All the townspeople and kids are speaking Italian. And the weapons that the kids fire don’t sound like guns, but something else. We tried to make them spring-loaded to confuse what happens in the following scene. Like the art in the show, the sounds are stylized and have their own take on what reality is.
But all those sounds evolved throughout the whole show. The goal is for listeners never to concentrate on the sound design because if they do, that means we are distracting them from connecting with the character. Our job is to create the perfect illusion, which means you fall in love with the different characters, especially Pinocchio.
Creating sound is hard to describe. It’s like carving into wood or stone — it’s all about the nuances and how you do it. It’s difficult to pinpoint a specific sound. It’s much more an expression of detail than it is of big sounds. Big sounds would just take away from the meaning and goal of the show.
Did the fact that the characters were created with stop-motion and not necessarily based on reality give you more leeway in the sounds you were able to create?
A small fact is that creating a film using stop motion is actually similar to filming live action, except it’s being shot frame by frame. They shot with real cameras, lighting, costume and a makeup department. Sets were built, and they used CG to enhance things like water.
That being said, the show definitely had a stylistic feel. It was strongly based on architectural and clothing styles of the era. Obviously, the characters themselves had a unique creative style. I tried to stay organic to the look and feel of the visuals. While enhancing the sound to have a stylistic flair, I wanted to remain anchored in what you saw. The goal was that the sound had to transcend what you saw and heard… become a new reality.
It was important for the audience to see and feel that Pinocchio was a real character and not a wooden prop. So the goal of all the sounds was to support the emotional arcs that exist throughout each scene and the movie. A major plus was that our dialogue tracks were clean and without production noise. This allowed for more articulation and precision between the dialogue, music and sound effects.
All the frequencies were available, but the only challenge was that there was no place for sounds to hide. Every single sound is heard — every squeak, creak, cloth movement and weight shift by the characters — from Pinocchio to the godly sounds of the spirits and the inside of the dogfish to each bubble pop, dog scratch and distant line of Italian dialogue. It’s all heard.
It was all about making the correct choices for each shot and scene and the overall story arc. Because the show starts with simplicity — mono, like the birth of innocence — and evolves through the spatial complexities of life going full circle, ending life with simplicity and back to mono. All of this was thought out beforehand.
What is the best advice Guillermo has given you?
Not to f**k up. Because Guillermo and I have worked together for such a long time, we have a certain amount of shorthand. Our communication is always with sound and using creativity to help enhance the story. He likes to say we talk the vocabulary of sound and not words.
You have said that even the most minute of noises sometimes took up to three weeks of trial and error to find. Which noises were you referring to?
What makes this show unique is the detail. I love to put detail in my shows, but because this one was built so that there was no way to hide behind other sounds or music, you heard every sound you chose. As the picture, animation and movements evolved, so did the audio to best capture the essence of the scene and of the character. Many times we kept working, like with a sculpture, where you build the face and it looks like a face, but then you start going for every little detail. We added every little bit of sound that we could put in, which had to be balanced with what was happening on-screen, what was happening with music and what was happening with the story. We had to make specific decisions on what exact details we wanted at any given moment.
What scene in Pinocchio was your favorite, soundwise? Why?
I don’t have a favorite scene, but as you look at the film as a whole, it has a very specific sonic arc. One of the things I’m proud of is that there is not one scene that makes the show. The whole show evolves with the characters. It’s about the full story. It’s like asking, “What’s your favorite part of a score?” It’s the beginning, middle and end. It’s a sonic journey that has to be appreciated as a whole rather than living or dying on one scene. It really needs to be played as a full sonic piece because so much changes, and the evolution of sound is an integral part of the design.
Can you talk about the tools you use?
I used so much technology in this show; it’s hard to pick just one. Before I do anything, it has to start with great recording and the right sound. Then I can enhance it and manipulate it and make it into something different.
I can put the sound into Pro Tools, Reaper or Soundminer and use my favorite plugins or plugin chains to enhance, mutilate, mangle and combine it with other sounds, and that turns it into a new sound that better fits into the scene. Like music, it’s about volume, pitch, rhythm, presence, spatiality and/or mangling the harmonic and envelope structure to turn it into something else. Or simply grabbing a mic and using your voice, which I did a lot for Dogfish.
What advice do you have for sound designers just getting started?
Relearn to listen. As we grow, we stop listening. Become an audio photographer and start listening to all the sounds that you are exposed to, whether they be movies, games or just the environments around you. Start getting a mental vocabulary so that if you need to draw upon an experience, you will know what it sounds like.
For example, what does a realistic punch sound like? What does the “Hollywood” version of a punch sound like? Same goes with weapons such as guns. It’s too loud to record and then play back at the same volume, so how do you capture the essence of the weapon that can be played back at a reasonable volume?
Same thing with animals. How do you give animals an emotional sonic vocabulary similar to humans when, in fact, they don’t communicate or make sound in the same way. You have to invent it, and the audience has to be able to believe it. The same concepts apply to vehicles, aircraft and pretty much everything. Learning to listen is essential because you have to hear it in your head first. If you can’t hear it in your head, you are never going to be able to create it, no matter what tools you have available.
Second, learn your tools and instruments so that when you have a creative idea, your brain will automatically know how to use the tools. And then it’s all about what you hear and how you bring it to life.
