How Nomadland’s beautiful sound was sculpted

Oscar buzz is building for director Chloé Zhao's beautiful, devastating film Nomadland — starring Frances McDormand. The film's world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September earned the top prize of the Golden Lion. Additionally, it screened the same day at the Toronto International Film Festival and won TIFF's People's Choice Award! Here, sound supervisor/sound designer Sergio Diaz and sound supervisor/re-recording mixer Zach Seivers talk about their cinema vérité approach to the sound.

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

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Visitors to Sound designer Sergio Diaz’s website are greeted with the words, “The harmony of sound evokes emotion.” The truth of that is exemplified in director Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma film, for which Diaz’s design work earned a 2019 ‘Best Sound Editing’ Oscar nom. The carefully constructed, uncluttered sound got right to the emotional heart of the family’s complicated dynamic and matched the slice-of-life style of Cuarón’s Roma — a film that Cuarón wrote, directed, lensed, and co-edited.

For the 2021 Oscar race, don’t be surprised to see a ‘Best Sound’ nom for director/writer/editor Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland , which — like Roma — tells a beautiful-sad story of complex human relationships, self-discovery, hopelessness, and joy. Fern (played by Frances McDormand) strives to find her footing in the Great Recession. After losing her job and suffering the death of her husband, Fern decides to uproot her life and joins a band of modern-day nomads who live and travel through the American south-west in RVs and vans.

Here again, the film’s vérité-style is bolstered by Diaz’s naturalistic approach: exuding natural harmony in the open soundscapes of the American West, furnishing specific sonic details using Foley recorded in real-world spaces, and distilling the essential emotions of each scene through carefully selected and crafted sounds.

Diaz’s co-sound supervisor and re-recording mixer Zach Seivers was an apposite choice for mixing Nomadland. Seivers brings years of documentary experience to the table, having helped to design and mix the History Channel’s Gettysburg series (which won both an Emmy and MPSE award for sound editing), popular Netflix docu-series like Flint Town, The Keepers, and QB1: Beyond the Lights, and City of Gold (which earned a Grand Jury Prize nom at the Sundance Film Fest, and a Gamechanger Award nom at SXSW).

Here, Diaz and Seivers talk about creating a documentary-feel using natural sounds, using the production track as the soundtrack’s foundation, and finding the best sonic details to enhance the emotion of Zhao’s story.

NOMADLAND | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures

I have a bunch of questions for you both, but first I have to say that I absolutely love this film. It is one of my absolute favorite films in terms of sound for 2020. Your work on Nomadland has just blown me away…

SSound Designer Sergio Diaz
Photo by: Juan Carlos Reyes Garcia 2019

Sergio Diaz (SD): Beautiful. Thank you so much.

Let’s talk about your collaboration with director Chloé Zhao. What were her goals for sound on Nomadland?

SD: That’s a really good question because our goal was to convey the audience into the real perspective of Fern’s fragility. My role was to bring in specific layers for the sound design and soundscapes, because we knew that we are walking a thin line between fiction and nonfiction. So we tried to preserve that direction.

The idea was very clear because she knew exactly what she wanted and the sound design was built around the image. So that was my first goal.

There’s such little dialogue. Fern’s story is really told through her experience of what’s happening around her in the world through sound, like the unrelenting noise of the Amazon facility and the quiet open spaces of the American West.

First, can you talk about your approach to designing the ambiences? What were some of the things that guided your choices for what to include in the sound of the places that Fern passes through?

SD: In the treatment of the universal soundscape, we should be aware of the fragility. Meaning, there was a thin line between fiction and nonfiction. So we did our sound design around the image. I worked with a specific density of the ambiences for each region — in winter, in spring, in summer, and in autumn. The production sounds guided me to be more accurate with the layers I contributed to the story, to be more authentic.

…there was a thin line between fiction and nonfiction.

So, I went deep into my library, my own recordings over many years, and I brought these to the film because during this pandemic it was very difficult to go and record specific sounds.

It was very remarkable to have these sounds on hand. So that’s what I used for treatment of the backgrounds because I had a lot of sounds with me, and obviously, so do all of my colleagues here and my sound editors in Mexico.

Did you have a favorite location in the film for which you designed the sound? Did you prefer designing the big open expanses of the West or did you prefer the interior locations that Fern passes through?

SD: For me, every single location offered a good challenge. In my mind, I built three stages of sound design: prominent, serenity, and using silence. An example of prominent would be all the atmospheres inside the van. Fern is always exposed to the real world with extreme weather. So for those moments, our idea was to put the audience in her real perspective — to share the feeling of her fragility.

…I built three stages of sound design: prominent, serenity, and using silence.

Another example, but in this case with serenity, is when Fern is walking through the camp within this warm and welcoming community. There are a lot of gentle details of sound surrounding us, like a conversation in the left side, in the right side, and behind us. So the idea is to harmoniously go through the film and not cross that line between fiction and nonfiction. Everything should be very, very specific.

In every single sequence, I loved what I did to ensure this experience, and I loved working with Zach [Seivers], who contributed to the dialogue editing as co-supervisor and the final mix. I think we did a great, great job together.

And for the conversations happening around Fern as she’s walking through the RV camp, was there production dialogue? Did you build these with loop group?

Mike Wolf, the production sound mixer, captured great recordings for the entire film.

SD: Honestly, thanks to the quality of the production sound, we were able to use all their sound for those moments. Mike Wolf, the production sound mixer, captured great recordings for the entire film. We were just adding layers of Foley ambiences and specific effects to make it more realistic and more deep for the cinema version.

We did do a lot of loop group, but for other scenes. Maybe Zach can tell you more precisely.

Watch this in-depth SBIFF Cinema Society Q&A on Nomadland, featuring Sergio Diaz and Zach Seivers, as well as Chloe Zhao, Joshua James Richards, and Peter Spears

Are you referring to the live performance scenes, like when they’re in the bar and they’re listening to the band play and you hear all of that walla?

SD: Exactly. For example, for the live music in different sequences, we used the production sound and the tracks that were recorded on the day and I just added some specific Foley effects, and backgrounds, and some nightlife if it were necessary. Everything was really, really good from production sound.

And we did loop group as well, but just to add some specific depth to the scene. You know, maybe some conversation behind us or off on the right or something like that.

When they’re having that really lovely sing-along around the campfire (their version of “On the Road Again” at the RV show), was that mainly production sound? Or did you have to record any loop for that scene?

Zach Seivers(ZS): It’s almost entirely production sound.

SD: Exactly.

Re-recording mixer Zach Seivers

Fantastic! That was such a fun scene…

ZS: I don’t think that we ever use loop group for anything other than very specific things, very discrete voices that were specific call-outs, or for the radio commentators and advertisements, and things like that. That was the main mission for the loop.

Otherwise, we were really building predominantly from the real production sound. We never did any sort of general beds — having dozens of people talking all at the same time. That was either the real sound or would have been specific textures that Sergio had in his design that he contributed.

The live performances — like the guy and his guitar at the Quartzsite Yacht Club, and the older man singing at the piano — were those miked as a typical live performance? Did the production sound mixer capture the feed from the board as it would be on a live show?

ZS: Yes. And I think in the case of the older gentleman playing the piano, that was traditional boom overhead.

…as Fern dances with Dave, that’s the sound that’s happening as the camera captures it.

And in the case of the live performance, that’s a mixture of close, direct sound when we see the man playing. Then when it cuts away as Fern dances with Dave, that’s the sound that’s happening as the camera captures it. It’s hard to understand what the two of them are saying to each other. You can’t quite make it out, but you get the feeling of it. And I think that’s what is so beautiful about that scene — that it couldn’t be more real. That guy in the background is definitely playing the song. They’re dancing to it, and it just feels so beautiful and real.

I love that it’s an in-the-moment performance. I wonder if that was tricky for picture editing, to make that performance match all the way through. Did you have to help smooth out those music edits?

ZS: Not so much because Chloé edited the film and she clearly knew as she was capturing it how she wanted to edit it. It just feels like she shot every single take in this movie with a very specific idea of how she imagined it would be constructed. And I think if she didn’t get it in the first take, then she would get it again.

Chloé…clearly knew as she was capturing it how she wanted to edit it.

But generally, she captured very few takes and knew exactly what she wanted. Then she was able to work very efficiently in post-production to edit the film together very quickly. And I think that’s a part of the reason why the film feels so dense, but also very quick. It moves at a pace that goes by so quickly, but it’s also so epic in terms of how many places Fern goes and how many people she interacts with. And I think that’s a product of Chloé’s style of filmmaking.

Sergio, we talked about building the ambiences, but I wanted to go back and talk about your approach to adding these little sonic details that pull you into Fern’s immediate experience and comment on how she’s feeling or where she’s at in the present moment.

That was one of my favorite little sonic moments. Were there any that stood out for you?

SD: Yeah, there are a lot of moments, honestly, in every sequence where I bring very gentle details to surround us with, specifically winds and atmospheres and with Foley as well.

…the soundscape and the sound design should be merged with the image…

We tried to preserve this serenity and this harmony during the whole journey. I tried to preserve the authenticity of the film, so the soundscape and the sound design should be merged with the image, the beautiful landscapes, or inside the van, or whatever location that we were in. For every single moment, I talked with all my crew and my team, just to bring ideas and be more realistic in every single sequence.

But at the same time, the treatment should be very minimalistic because (for me, in my mind) in this film particularly, less is more. So that’s what I tried to preserve, but with really good quality and specific sound layers to tell the story hand-in-hand with the original idea.

Another example I thought of are the plate rattles. Fern’s dad gave her this whole collection of plates. You hear them clatter and rattle as she’s talking about them and carefully moving them around. You gave the plates a voice. So when Dave accidentally breaks the plates, it feels so much more crushing…

SD: It was like another character in that sequence. And honestly, there’s a lot of production sound. I added some sweeteners there and in other specific scenes.

…honestly, there’s a lot of production sound.

I did the Foley in a traditional room, and, in other ones, I did the Foley in my home — in a real space to be more realistic. In my truck, I did a lot of sounds and sweeteners for the movements inside Fern’s van and different sounds to contribute to the story.

Yes! Another big character in this film is Fern’s van that she named ‘Vanguard.’ It’s kind of her safe cocoon, and it’s also her means of escape and her means of inclusion because it’s what brings her into this van culture. So for Fern’s van did you record a van like hers? Or just your own van? Or how did you come up with its sounds and choose the ones that would best reflect the state of this van and what it means to Fern?

SD: We did a lot of sounds in my car and with the Foley team and with effects just to bring in more ideas.

The idea was to have…this emotional connection with the audience as human beings.

My approach was like, “she lives in a tin can.” She was exposed to the extreme weather all the time. So every single sound should be more prominent to put the audience in the real perspective of her fragility as a human being. The idea was to have everything be very clear, very in your face and have this emotional connection with the audience as human beings. The idea was to have every single sound inside the van be very high quality and be more prominent. That’s the word that comes to my mind, to be “prominent” inside the van with her.

When Fern checks out that really top-end RV, everything just felt so solid and quiet and nailed down. Then, inside Vanguard, there’s this rattley, lived-in, rundown kind of feel…

SD: Exactly. That was the idea to convey that sensation.

For me, the most challenging thing was to select the right sound elements for that moment and for the ambiences and backgrounds. In those terms, the treatment should be minimalistic in many ways. So I did a lot of explorations here and there and shared my temp tracks with Zach during the whole process. We exchanged ideas during the whole process and we brought in specific sounds that Chloé wanted to hear for her film.

Zach, how did you make your choices during the mix? What was your guiding light when choosing which specific sounds to push over the backgrounds and when to just let the backgrounds take the lead?

ZS: Well, Chloé’s style of filmmaking is obviously very documentary-like. I’ve been fortunate to work on a lot of documentaries over the years. And so I kind of have this idea in my head of what a documentary generally sounds like, especially a vérité-driven documentary.

I kind of have this idea in my head of what a documentary generally sounds like…

So I think for most of the film, for me, it was just a matter of looking at every single scene and thinking about it from that point of view, and grounding the sound and the spatialization of the sound and the dynamics and the color of the sound so that it always felt somewhat grounded and anchored to the production dialogue track, because generally with documentary cinema, that’s kind of the meat and potatoes of what you would hear.

The amazing thing was that Sergio, in his process, would look at every scene and think about what are the other sounds happening off-camera? What are the things that are influencing the characters? What are the atmospheric qualities that we can enhance? And then he would share that work with me. And I would think from a slightly different perspective about how I can shape and steer these things in such a way that they ultimately feel as realistic as possible.

It was always a matter of balancing between the cinematic immersion and wanting to keep everything realistic at the same time.

And there were opportunities sometimes — in the case of a montage with Ludovico Einaudi’s music — where we could allow sound design to become more cinematic and more heightened.

It was always a matter of balancing between the cinematic immersion and wanting to keep everything realistic at the same time. And I think Chloé provided a lot of direction for that as well. She had distinct ideas, like, this scene is going to be more realistic and then as we segue into more musical sections let’s be much more cinematic. And that really helped to guide the process.

What format did you mix this in? Was it Atmos? Or was it 5.1? 7.1?

ZS: We predubbed in 7.1 with the hope that there would be a possibility that we might be able to finish in that format.

Unfortunately, it didn’t ultimately make sense with the workflow and with the pandemic and how the film would be seen. We ultimately decided with Searchlight Pictures that we would focus on the 5.1 mix.

Sergio predubbed everything in 7.1. I did the same with dialogue and music. So we could go back to that at any point in time, but ultimately, we focused our energy on the 5.1.

And how did you use that surround field to help tell the story?

ZS: The surround information is always discrete and it’s very specific. And if there’s something happening off-camera or off-screen, it’s serving a very specific purpose in terms of, ‘okay, geographically that’s placing that character over there.’ It’s always serving the story.

…in more exterior scenes, we might feel a little bit more of the wind moving around us.

And then with those montage sequences, with Ludovico’s music, we allowed those moments to really open up. And also when we’re in more exterior scenes, we might feel a little bit more of the wind moving around us. We may feel cars passing behind us or beside us to really place us in the scene with Fern.

When we move to more interior scenes, things tend to get a little bit more narrow so that it feels more realistic and we feel claustrophobic because of that. But it’s pretty dynamic. Even though it’s always focused on the center and it’s anchored to the dialogue, it’s still very dynamic from scene to scene.

I listened to the mix over headphones and it was just amazing how alive the world around Fern felt. There was never a moment in the film where it just felt empty — unless it was supposed to, of course!

ZS: The great thing about this new style of editing— where we’re really mixing while we’re editing — and the fluidity of that process is that you’re thinking about how it’s going to sound in a theatrical space while you’re working on it from the very beginning. And so I feel like Sergio was really specific with which textures were intended to be more spatially behind us or beside us. And that really created a roadmap for how we approached it in the final mix.

The final mix became more about making macro, big picture choices…

The final mix became more about making macro, big picture choices in terms of how it would feel from beginning to ending instead of from scene to scene. Sergio did a really wonderful job of crafting those specifics as he went along on the sound design and editing process.

What was the most challenging scene for you to mix and what went into it?

ZS: There’s a really beautiful scene between Fern and Bob Wells at the very end of the film and if you look in the distance you can see there are some people out riding around on ATVs and they’re just blazing past the screen from left to right. You can see these huge dust clouds. It also happens to be a really emotional moment in the film when we learn something really tragic about Bob Wells’ character, when there’s a sense of closure with Bob and with Fern and with RTR and Fern’s journey and where she’s going next.

Chloé really wanted the design…to take a step back and to allow the dialogue…to shine through

We have a lot of ATVs and a lot of wind in that scene that we were competing with and it’s a very sparse scene. Chloé really wanted the design in that moment to take a step back and to allow the dialogue and the performances to shine through — to just live there in that scarce, minimal desert environment.

So, for me, that was particularly challenging from a dialogue point of view. You can’t deny the fact that those ATVs are driving back there. And it’s part of the track. We’re not going to ADR that because we want to maintain the performances. But, at the same time, we were wrangling all these different sounds in such a way that it just creates this really delicate, consistent scene that allows you to fall into it and really appreciate the story.

What would you want other sound pros to know about the sound of Nomadland?

SD: For me, sound design always goes hand-in-hand with the original idea. And if you stay true to it, it will tell you exactly everything you want to convey. So that’s why I shared everything — all of this process with my colleagues, with my editors, with my group — just to preserve the original idea and have a good exploration and good proposal for the director and to make it happen.

The idea is the most important. We are accomplices to the director. So that’s what I Iooked to do and preserved during the post-production sound process.

ZS: I couldn’t say it better myself.

Again, fantastic job on the sound. This is by far my favorite film of the year for sound, for content, for everything. Fantastic job and best of luck at the Oscars!

ZS: Thank you, Jennifer.

SD: Thank you so much. It’s a beautiful, eloquent sound job in its simplicity. And I don’t mean “simplicity” as a pejorative at all. I understand that silence can be eloquence! And thus, we have a pure connection with the audience through the subtle, emotional, haunting and organic soundscape treatment.

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