By Randi Altman
At this year’s Sundance, the Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan-directed The Headhunter’s Daughter won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize. The story follows Lynn, a girl on a journey of discovery. She leaves her family behind, traveling from the mountainous and desolate highlands in the Philippines to a nearby city to try her luck as a country singer.
Henry Hawks
Henry Hawks was the re-recording mixer and sound designer on The Headhunter’s Daughter. Hawks met Eblahan, a Filipino director based in the US, while they attended film school at DePaul University in Chicago.
Hawks was responsible for all aspects of post sound for this project, including dialogue editing, sound design, sound effects editing and mixing. He worked on the film in his spare time; his day job is as a central machine room operator at Hollywood’s Margarita Mix. “My job essentially revolves around asset management, archival work and setting up the rooms here for records. I’m only 24 years old and relatively new to the post-sound world in LA, but I have been doing freelance audio work for about five years. I’m still young and happy to learn more about the ins and outs of a post house while I wait for an opportunity to exclusively do sound work.”
Let’s find out about Hawks’ process on the film and collaborating, once again, with the director.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
How early did you start to work on the film?
I started my work on this project in November of 2021, but I was having conversations and brainstorming with the film’s director, Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan, since the spring. Don is a very savvy director when it comes to sound in his films, and that played a huge role in the way the film was first imagined. The edit is filled with sound cues that carry the pacing of the story, and he’s always granted a lot of trust in me in executing that plan. Once he delivered the edit to me a lot of that groundwork was already in place, but it was just up to me to elevate it.
In our initial conversations about the project, Don described wanting the sound to be very delicate and natural but also experimental and tactile. It was very clear to me from the beginning that the ambiences and natural sounds of the spaces were absolutely essential. I tried to approach it with care, as the land embodies a character of its own. Especially since the film is paying homage to a country’s culture that I’m not from and its indigenous land, I had to do research and ask Don lots of questions about what the world of this film should really sound like before I started.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
What did Don tell you in terms of how he wanted the film to sound?
In a general sense, Don wanted me to capture the essence of the spaces. He wanted the sound to feel somewhat spiritual and dreamlike. The land itself plays a huge role in the story, and I wanted to create a contrast between the meditative scenes in nature and the chaos of the city. The ambient sounds play a big role in the pacing and story beats. For example, the gusty wind sounds are present for a lot of the film. The wind intensifies with Lynn’s (the main character’s) internal struggle.
When I started the process, Don gave me a few ideas to explore and experiment with. He wanted the horse to sound very human or human-like. We wanted the audience to connect with the horse and give it more life and emotion. The sounds of the horse’s breath are human breathing sounds, chopped, mangled and layered to feel more like a fusion of a human and a horse. This scene was great to work on from a design perspective.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
Another thing Don and I went back and forth on was the club scene. In my first few versions of the mix, I experimented with using walla in the bar. It was tricky because we, as the audience, don’t see a lot of people. As we see the club, we see the cowboy hats hanging from the ceiling, and it feels like a very heavy energy is in the air. Don wanted the room tone to feel drafty and the space in general to be like a home for the ghosts of dead cowboys. I felt like less was more in this scenario, that it would feel more haunting and would give an opportunity for the music to be the focus.
You have worked together before. Did you have a shorthand? Can you talk about that?
I have known Don for six years. We met in our first few days in film school, and I think we both knew we would be collaborators straight away. Even before completing our first film together, I knew Don was extraordinarily talented. He had this kind of effortless way of making art that was very tasteful, thoughtful and unique. I knew when he had some backing and experience, he would have the instincts and demeanor to execute something like this film. Don and I would make music together a lot during college, mostly trying things out and experimenting. I think a lot of our compatibility as collaborators can be traced back to this, as we have very similar taste and ambitions.
Hilum
The first film we completed together was called Hilum. I was also the re-recording mixer, sound designer and composer on this film. The process for this project was a lot different because we had the ability to work together in person. I would try a lot of different things, and he would be able to give me feedback right away. With The Headhunter’s Daughter, it was different since we were in different places in the world. I would speak to Don on the phone or send him iterations of the mix for him to give me notes.
Can you describe the film’s soundtrack and your process?
The film’s music played a huge role in my mixing process. There was tons of music recorded both on and off set that was used diegetically and non-diegetically. Thankfully for me, the production sound was recorded very well for the singing parts. It was very tricky because the music was recorded and manifested in different ways. My biggest aim while mixing the music was to elevate it and make it feel more impactful while not going overboard. With the exception of the club scene, I barely processed the performances of Ammin Acha-ur (Lynn). My goal was just to make it sound clean, minimal and subtle.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
The director also recorded original music for the film. The music played on the radio when the father is revealed; the music in the club and the ending music were all performed and recorded by Don himself. It was a fun experiment on my side to implement these tracks diegetically. When the father is revealed in the beginning, it is a lens into his world. He’s relaxed and in his element, watching a Western movie and listening to country music.
The final song is my favorite. It represents all the emotion in the film for me, crafted into a moment of catharsis. I wanted the audience to feel deeply immersed and connected with the characters in the scene, building a crescendo, surrounded by the weight of the situation until feeling drowned and longing for answers. As the song crescendos and the sounds of rain and thunder fade into the background, I embellished the music with effects to try to create this cathartic feeling.
Can you provide an example of a note Don gave you?
A note for one scene was to thematically implement the father’s character “with a soft, subtle violence.” It was my objective to make the music and Western sound like they were coming from different devices in his space, like a CRT television or an antique radio.
Henry Hawks
Where did you work on the film?
I did all of my work for this film in two places: my home studio, which unfortunately is only equipped for stereo mixing, and at the home studio of a friend and co-worker, James Moore. His studio allowed me to work in surround. Unfortunately, Sundance was canceled for in-person viewing, but hopefully people who want to listen to the film in surround will get a chance.
Can you talk about the tools you used in your process?
While preparing for the film, I tried to acquire a sort of war chest of plugins and sound effects libraries to work with. I wanted the spaces to be dynamic, breathe and have life. Some of the plugins I used, and always use, were all the FabFilter plugins, the Soundtoys bundle and iZotope RX, just to name a few.
Was there a particularly challenging scene that you worked on?
The most challenging part of this film was the club bathroom scene. I attempted to somewhat emulate Michael Semanick’s mix of the music in the club scene in The Social Network by creating some distortion in the lower frequencies. A real club’s sound system will sound very loud, compressed and boomy. It was tricky to find the perfect balance of distortion while not being in the foreground of the mix. I was excited to automate the part when the bathroom door opens; the audience will hear more frequencies as the door opens, and it goes back to sounding muffled as the door closes.
The Headhunter’s Daughter
Since I created the majority of the scene’s soundscape from scratch, it was important to keep the nuances of Ammin’s performance as well. For example, on set, Lynn leaves the water faucet running after she leaves the sink. It’s a small, minute detail but important to showcase how her mind was in another place.
The film won the Short Film Grand Jury prize at Sundance. Do you expect a feature-length version in the future?
I would be surprised if this was made to be a feature. Don is always inspired by new, fresh ideas. However, from the feedback I’ve read, people want to learn more about Lynn and her father; their past and their future. I think the beauty of this film is about what is left to the viewer’s imagination. The film leaves a lot to interpret symbolically, whether that be metaphysical and spiritual or historical and political. I just hope whoever sees the film will feel attached to Lynn as a character or maybe see themselves in her story.
Your day job is as a machine room operator, but your first love is audio post?
Yes, my goal is to eventually do sound design and post audio work full-time. I am very passionate about sound in general. Audio post is such a niche, technical field, and sometimes it’s hard to find information out there. The more I learn and understand, the more inspired I feel by the deliberate techniques used by sound designers.
Sometimes audio is the best when it goes completely unnoticed, but to me it’s almost like the gem of the whole experience that not everyone can understand. I don’t mean that in a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual way. It’s more that if you care enough to study the field, the more interesting it becomes.
Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.
