Episode 21 features Sound Designer Nia Hansen, who has spent her career at Skywalker Sound working on many films from Pixar and Marvel, plus other franchises like Jurassic World and How to Train Your Dragon.
We discuss starting in the deep end, processes that make large projects manageable, having too many hobbies with not enough time, and “creating magic” for a living.
During the episode we cover:
- Attending Vancouver Film School
- Field Recording
- Exotic Animals
- Staying Organized
- Differences between Marvel magic and Pixar Magic
- Sonic Real Estate
- Working at “The Ranch”
- A “typical” workday
- Production (Pre and Post)
- Storytelling
- And much more…
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
EssaHansen.com (Where you can preorder her first novel Nophek Gloss)
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:26:53
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. Girlfriend in a coma is another thought provoking novel from Douglas Copeland. Reasons are several returns like a Phoenix, as reasons are debatable, and I’ve been watching a bunch of Ralph Bakshi films since the last episode, and so should you. This is The Palmer Files episode 21 with sound designer Nia Hansen, who has spent her career at Skywalker Sound working on many films from Pixar and Marvel, plus other franchises like Jurassic World and How to Train Your Dragon.
00:00:26:58 – 00:00:47:25
Agent Palmer
We discussed starting in the deep end processes that make large projects manageable, having too many hobbies with not enough time, and creating magic for a living. Ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:09:48 – 00:01:30:29
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 21st episode is sound designer Nia Hansen. I first met Nia through our mutual friend on a lease of dark angels and pretty freaks. Also an employee of Skywalker Sound, and it was on said podcast that I first heard Nia discuss some of what she does for her work.
00:01:30:34 – 00:01:52:09
Agent Palmer
It’s it’s that simple. And you’ve already heard the other half of that podcast on this show. When Neil was on episode 13 to discuss anxiety, it wasn’t six Degrees of Separation, it was simply one podcast. In case you wanted to know how. I knew Nia, though. On that show she goes by a nickname that I am not going to disclose at this time how redacted of me.
00:01:52:14 – 00:02:19:02
Agent Palmer
Anyway, as an employee of Skywalker Sound, Nia has a portfolio that includes not just Marvel films like Avengers Endgame, Thor Ragnarok and The Dark World, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man and Captain America Civil War and The Winter soldier, but also some other very notable films like Valerian, Lucy, 47 Ronin, John Carter, and, for good measure, a few animated Pixar new classics like brave, onward, Inside Out, and many, many more.
00:02:19:07 – 00:02:49:42
Agent Palmer
We don’t get into the nitty gritty of any one film, but we talk about the processes that allow Nia and her team to take large scale projects. Like every movie I just rattled off and make them manageable. We also discussed the various productions pre-production, production and post-production field, recording, keeping it simple, the sound library compartmentalization mixes sonic real estate, working at the ranch, hobbies and interests, and all of this is covered in much, much more.
00:02:49:46 – 00:03:09:50
Agent Palmer
So if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or after, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer. You can tweet the show at The Palmer Files, and you can tweet Nia at S.A. Hanson. That’s SSA. And then you can see her complete career credits on IMDb. And then marvel at how much of her career you’ve seen.
00:03:09:55 – 00:03:35:13
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com, and if you follow either of us, you’ll know when her book comes out this fall, upon which she will return to discuss that. Meanwhile, all of these links have been curated for you in the show notes. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:03:35:18 – 00:03:43:27
Agent Palmer
Nia, you are a sound designer for Skywalker Sound. Was this what you always wanted to be?
00:03:43:32 – 00:04:02:16
Nia Hansen
No. So. And I can’t actually remember when the term sound design first got in my head and film sound post-production in general. So I was struggling to bring a bunch of weird interests all together into something that I could call a career or recognizes the career.
00:04:02:23 – 00:04:04:29
Agent Palmer
Some of us are still trying to do that. I mean.
00:04:04:38 – 00:04:24:56
Nia Hansen
Yeah, and I was maybe a bit stubborn trying to find an intersection of all of them instead of sort of picking one. That drew me the most. But I was into cognitive sciences, psychology, philosophy, writing and storytelling. I was composing music and playing music, doing art. So I was trying to find somewhere that brought all of those together.
00:04:25:01 – 00:04:40:44
Nia Hansen
And while I don’t, I don’t remember how sound post-production got in my head, but it seemed to be that intersection. It has storytelling, it has art. There’s sound in music, it’s technical and it’s creative. It’s engaging with an audience on a psychological level. Yeah.
00:04:40:49 – 00:04:42:20
Agent Palmer
Everything. Yes, absolutely.
00:04:42:26 – 00:05:01:34
Nia Hansen
It was everything. So somehow, I found that and I was like, oh, this seems perfect. And I found the Vancouver Film School’s Sound Design for Visual Media program, and I was living in Canada at the time, nine hours from Vancouver. So that was sort of the perfect place to land. And I was really into, video games then.
00:05:01:38 – 00:05:22:44
Nia Hansen
So game audio drew me as well. And that was one of the programs that had a video game audio program. A lot of other sound post-production schools are focused on music production, and film. So it sort of had a little bit of everything. And the program covered a huge range of audio, like recording and film music production, mixing, game audio synthesis, like.
00:05:22:55 – 00:05:25:28
Nia Hansen
So I kind of got a crash course and went from there.
00:05:25:37 – 00:05:46:00
Agent Palmer
So you go there and you’re learning all of these different things, so when you’re done, you can go in any direction, right? Like you can do music or video game or film. So like you got done and was, was it still I want to do film or was it, I’ll see what I can do.
00:05:46:05 – 00:06:02:18
Nia Hansen
Yeah. So the program, a lot of the students were coming in not knowing what they wanted to do, and I was I was sort of set on film and game when I started, but a lot of my classmates had no idea. And then if the course goes on, it was for years, credit wise, crammed it to 12 months.
00:06:02:18 – 00:06:18:37
Nia Hansen
It was really intense. And through the course of that, you see some of them, they’ll find one class where they absolutely love that. Like that’s perfect, they love dialog, or they’re really there for music or something, and they sort of like start to split off into their interests and graduate knowing like, okay, I know what I want to do.
00:06:18:42 – 00:06:38:45
Nia Hansen
So I was definitely still stuck with film, but I loved all of the different aspects of it, and I really enjoyed game audio, but it was a tiny little slice compared to some of the film stuff, the editing and mixing. So I knew I wanted to do one of those, but Skywalker Sound grabbed me right after I graduated, so I quickly got whisked right into film post-production.
00:06:38:50 – 00:06:42:19
Agent Palmer
So what was your first film?
00:06:42:24 – 00:07:07:24
Nia Hansen
My very first film. When I was an intern was A Christmas Carol. The Zemeckis okay remake, and I got dropped in kind of right when they were wrapping that up. So I did some field recording, but we quickly got into the mixing phase, and then after that, there were several that overlapped, How to Train Your Dragon, The Last Airbender, and Percy Jackson.
00:07:07:29 – 00:07:11:00
Agent Palmer
So is that common for projects to overlap?
00:07:11:05 – 00:07:38:34
Nia Hansen
So I was I was interning with Randy Tom, who was doing all of those kind of they they overlapped in different phases. So as a sound designer, you are often starting really early with, pre-production sort of throwing concepts around and getting establishing the esthetic with the director and producers and the rest of the team. So work trickles in really early sometimes, like a year before you’re really supposed to hit the ground running and the rest of the team starts.
00:07:38:39 – 00:07:55:28
Nia Hansen
And then once the team gets started, there’s sort of different phases. So yeah, things were things were colliding. And that’s a bit unusual. And Randy had a lot of projects. So I got I got thrown in the deep end right out of school, which ended up being really good because I realized there’s so much more to learn than went.
00:07:55:28 – 00:08:08:41
Nia Hansen
Even the condensed course I had done could teach me, like, the school couldn’t simulate how big a film production is, and all the different departments, and even just the size of the sound crew and everything. So yeah.
00:08:08:50 – 00:08:30:34
Agent Palmer
From what you learned in school and from your early on, what’s your do you have a favorite part or is it all coming at you so much? Like, are you enjoying the mixing the recording? Like what’s your favorite early on? Not now, but like what was your early on favorite? Like, well this is this is really good. Like or it came easy to you.
00:08:30:39 – 00:08:48:31
Nia Hansen
So early on I got sent out a lot for field recording. So collecting sounds, I’d get kind of a grocery list. And some things are straightforward. Like you need a certain kind of vehicle or a certain animal, or a certain device or something like that, but sometimes it’s something really weird and you have to think outside the box.
00:08:48:31 – 00:09:08:41
Nia Hansen
Like, I worked on one of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and the mermaids had skin. Their scales transformed a skin when they’re out of the water and then back to scales when they’re in the water. So I needed to go out and record something that could be used potentially for skin transferring the scales and back again. So I love thinking outside the box.
00:09:08:41 – 00:09:20:53
Nia Hansen
Like what? What physical material or object or event could I possibly record that would be good for this snake? Very specific non-real world thing. So tackling those gushy lists.
00:09:20:58 – 00:09:41:55
Agent Palmer
When you’re tackling something like that, are you trying to find one sound that does it or. I mean, I mean, the most famous thing I’ve like, seen the behind the scenes on is like the dinosaur noises in Jurassic Park right there. They’re different things all mashed together. So is it. I’m going to record as much stuff that I think will work as possible.
00:09:41:55 – 00:09:52:41
Agent Palmer
And then you go to the lab and smash things together. Or do you have an idea when you’re going out? Like, I’m going to try and put these two things together, like, what is it?
00:09:52:46 – 00:10:06:29
Nia Hansen
It depends. Usually I’m getting as many things as I can because sometimes you come up with an idea and you aren’t sure if it’s actually going to sound the way that it does in your head when you’re thinking of it like, oh, record this, and then you go and get it in it, it’s not interesting at all.
00:10:06:33 – 00:10:31:50
Nia Hansen
So I tend to generate a lot of creative ideas and then try them. And some are going to work out and some aren’t. And sometimes the things that don’t work out end up being great for something. Some other movie later. And one of the other things I loved about recording, especially in the films I worked on with, you know, mythical creatures and alien creatures, I got to record a lot of exotic animals, and when I was a little kid, I wanted to be like an animal trainer, which didn’t happen.
00:10:31:55 – 00:10:45:55
Nia Hansen
But then I realized through sound field recording, I got to, you know, record lions and bears and camels and leopards and alligators and all these amazing creatures up close that I wouldn’t get to otherwise.
00:10:46:00 – 00:10:57:27
Agent Palmer
So first of all, how close? Like, I mean, obviously, I mean, if you’re not holding the mic, in your hand, right, like there’s a boom. So it’s not like your face to face, but how close are you getting?
00:10:57:36 – 00:11:15:30
Nia Hansen
You know, sometimes I’m holding it. Okay. I mean, it depends on the handler and the animal, but sometimes the animals, if they’re used to being handled, you can get up really close, like you go at feeding time and you sort of tag along with the handle. It has a big pail of meat or something. And you put the mic right up in there.
00:11:15:35 – 00:11:23:40
Nia Hansen
And I had experience with animals, which really helped because they can be shy and you sort of have to read a body language and figure out how close you can get and what their mood is like, that sort of thing.
00:11:23:54 – 00:11:40:29
Agent Palmer
So is there a library at Skywalker of just things that have been recorded so you don’t have to keep going? Like you get a laundry list, but you look at it and go like, oh, I have most of this already in the library. Or are you constantly recording new material?
00:11:40:41 – 00:12:01:03
Nia Hansen
There is a huge library from all of Skywalker’s past films. But it’s interesting to see these little niches where you’ll come across something that no one has recorded that’s not in this, you know, 600,000 files and over across time, no one has gotten this lens specific thing. So it’s often a mix. So we have a big library to play with.
00:12:01:08 – 00:12:17:33
Nia Hansen
But we’re also recording specific things. Or sometimes we recording because maybe we need better quality or we need it in a specific environment, or just more variety or some, some really, really specific action that, you know, it’s better just to record than to try and snip pieces together to make it work.
00:12:17:33 – 00:12:38:47
Agent Palmer
And how are you recording? Because obviously from, one thing that the library probably and no one can know this, like, you know, ten, 20 years ago is where we went. We went from 5.1 to 7.1. Now we’re going beyond that. Like, do you have to record differently based on what the output is going to be?
00:12:38:52 – 00:13:01:57
Nia Hansen
No. It’s usually still mono or stereo. Keep it simple. Sometimes ambient noise will be recorded in surround. But it’s just so much easier to work with, simpler format. And then when it gets to the mixing phase, you know, we’re handing it over to another creative who’s going to fill out the space with all those pieces and, you know, five 1 or 7 one or Atmos or whatever it is.
00:13:02:02 – 00:13:35:00
Agent Palmer
All right. So aside from the recording, you’re also mixing, which I remember from your Twitter feed. I think, I don’t know, I think it was Infinity War. It might have been, or it could have been End Game where you took a screenshot of something and it was just a piece of your screen of how many like it was only a subsection of the tracks that were going on at once.
00:13:35:05 – 00:13:36:57
Nia Hansen
00:13:37:02 – 00:14:02:52
Agent Palmer
I run this podcast where within my editor I have you, me for the conversation. Then I have me again for the intro and outro, and then I have so, so that’s three and then I’ve got a four and maybe a fifth depending on how I split the actual music, and I have to scroll for that up and down.
00:14:02:52 – 00:14:11:16
Agent Palmer
And it drives me insane. And that’s five, right? Like how do you keep track of hundreds?
00:14:11:21 – 00:14:38:36
Nia Hansen
Theoretically, yeah. And it is hundreds. Okay. So we divide it into what are called pre dubs or prefixes. So it’s sort of a category of things for a marvel film we’ll have 12 to 15 sort of different categories like this. And each one is about 32 tracks. So those are our sort of lanes to divide things in so that the rerecording mixer later has separation.
00:14:38:36 – 00:14:57:43
Nia Hansen
So we’re not, you know, not not tying things together. If someone asks, you know, can I, can I hear the rain without the birds in it? You want those separate? You can turn one down without the other. Or can I get the hit? But not the electricity is sort of thing. And so we have about 15 different categories to separate things throughout.
00:14:57:52 – 00:15:20:26
Nia Hansen
And it can get really complicated. Like a Captain America Civil War was the first instance we had 12 superheroes fighting each other in the same battle, and we wanted to keep all their distinct powers and weapons separate from each other. Sure, for balance. But that almost alone fills up every every single freedom that we have to work with.
00:15:20:31 – 00:15:29:10
Nia Hansen
So you had to do a bit of Tetris like who, when, and make sure that everything’s now split out in a way that gives us control later, when we need to make choices for the story.
00:15:29:15 – 00:15:55:52
Agent Palmer
It sounds like there’s two processes. There’s the building aspect of everything, what’s going on on screen and what the you know, all the tracks accordingly. And then there’s the I, I guess what I want to ask is what’s the design versus what’s the engineering like. You’re putting all the tracks together is that does engineering. And then the design is, you know, who who gets faded up and who gets faded out.
00:15:55:57 – 00:15:56:20
Agent Palmer
Is that.
00:15:56:29 – 00:16:20:19
Nia Hansen
So? I usually I usually think in the flow of it, like in early on we’re doing field recording. We’re gathering new sounds, foliage, recording things for the show like footsteps and props and cloth and character sounds. And the sound designer is creating unique sounds for anything that’s unusual or needs to be, specially tailored for the movie. So we’re sort of generating assets to work with.
00:16:20:24 – 00:16:42:17
Nia Hansen
And then during the editorial phase, the editors are putting those all in the tracks in sync with picture and doing all that organization, like, you know, what’s going to go where, how are we going to split this out? So we have control, and then when it gets, first we do pre mixing. So we’re taking each of those 15 out of 32 tracks.
00:16:42:22 – 00:17:05:44
Nia Hansen
And this is the bit my crew still prints our pre mixes. But either way you’re taking those 32 tracks and you’re doing a mix of just, just that category of stuff and you’re fitting it in putting in reverb and effects and making it fit. And then you go to the next one until we have all of those 15ft ups nicely, mixed to a picture.
00:17:05:48 – 00:17:21:08
Nia Hansen
And then when we go to the final mix, we have instead of hundreds and hundreds of tracks, we have those 15 that have already been balanced internally within themselves. So then we kind of we’ve crunched that down to a lot less. And then we’re putting those in.
00:17:21:13 – 00:18:14:33
Agent Palmer
So, I want to divulge for a moment. Right. So my experience with, say, a mixing board or editing software has never been really that complicated. It’s been, theater, with a board and however many microphones there needed to be for the play at a given time, plus the chorus mix, and then, like, podcasting, you know, in whatever form, you know, my, my senior project, that I’ve talked about and I’m probably going to rerecord it and release that at some point on this show that was also, you know, recorded and then but that, but that was recorded direct to computer because it’s one person and then just audacity, which is what I’ve
00:18:14:33 – 00:18:40:20
Agent Palmer
always used because I haven’t never I’ve never needed anything heavier. But I was so close in high school to deciding my college based on I’m going to be a sound engineer. It was like circumstances deemed that I ended up going somewhere else and just becoming a regular liberal arts major that had no idea what I was going to be.
00:18:40:25 – 00:19:02:22
Agent Palmer
But I it was it was like one and one A and one A was sound engineering. I was that close. Now, I don’t know if I for me, I was thinking more along the lines of music at that time. But I’ve, I’ve found that there are people that are afraid of these things like they look at a mixer and they go, what, are you flying a plane you like?
00:19:02:22 – 00:19:17:36
Agent Palmer
You don’t need that much. You don’t need that much control. And I like I understand it, I know what most of these things do. And so that’s why I, I, I like I have a little background in it.
00:19:17:40 – 00:19:21:07
Nia Hansen
Enough to know that if I don’t know that idea.
00:19:21:07 – 00:19:49:39
Agent Palmer
That’s a point like I, I, I’m self-taught to where I’m at right now and like just looking at what you’ve shared and you’ve done some wonderful threads on Twitter about the behind the scenes of that stuff, seeing it peeled back, I have I always had respect for you and what you do, but like, seeing it, like actually seeing it, it’s like, well, it takes your breath away.
00:19:49:39 – 00:20:12:59
Agent Palmer
You’re like, well, like, that’s more just because what I think you do is like, let’s say a lot of work. But what you actually do is more than that somehow. Like, I don’t know why I thought it was like, I don’t I don’t know where the disconnect was, but like, you are doing exponentially more somehow and.
00:20:13:04 – 00:20:33:17
Nia Hansen
And and whenever I try, like as soon with our workflow and things sort of get, condensed down and really organize and, you know, I think, I think in phases. So it seems manageable when you’re in the thick of it and everyone’s on the same page. But when I’m trying to explain it to someone else, like, right now and like zooming out here’s like, oh my God, I really is.
00:20:33:17 – 00:20:37:16
Nia Hansen
A lot of work, a lot of little pieces that I’ll have to work together.
00:20:37:20 – 00:20:59:06
Agent Palmer
Now, the compartmentalization, the little, the things that make it manageable. Was that in place? That was something you learned at Skywalker that was in place or and it’s evolved obviously from piece to piece, or is that something that like or I mean, is that something every, every sound like, is that just the way it’s done?
00:20:59:11 – 00:21:30:22
Nia Hansen
I guess it’s really individual. Like every team will have a different way of organizing things in a different way of working together. And everyone I talk to and even people in game audio, like everyone has to have a different workflow. And we, to organize and chop up the immensity of it into, into coherent bits and phases. So I got in pretty early with a crew that’s mostly the core of us have stuck together, which has been great because we all know this similar workflow.
00:21:30:26 – 00:21:48:10
Nia Hansen
And when we bring new people in, we sort of teach them the way that we have been doing it. So now we have a really tight ship and, and crazy movies like the Marvel films seem really smooth and easy because we’ve developed this workflow and way of coordinating that that really works.
00:21:48:15 – 00:22:12:10
Agent Palmer
Is a franchise like Marvel easier to do? Because once you’ve done the first one, you you kind of know you know what to expect. Like, I mean, you did Civil War, which I’m not going to say is equal to Endgame and Infinity War, but you, you, you put a bunch of superheroes sonically together on screen before. So you’re just doing that.
00:22:12:10 – 00:22:21:56
Agent Palmer
More like, is it easier because it’s a franchise? It’s not like a brand new project every so often. Does that make it slightly easier?
00:22:22:01 – 00:22:43:08
Nia Hansen
Yeah, I feel like each one has gotten easier, partly because even though those films are really difficult, they’re predictable like we’ve done so many. We’ve done about ten now, so we sort of know the how things are going to proceed and what we need to be prepared for. And my team has a workflow that’s evolved through all of those.
00:22:43:13 – 00:23:07:24
Nia Hansen
And then we’ve developed a lot of the characters sonically for many, many films. So we know you know what to reach for. We have their sound palettes developed, and even when someone gets new powers or is evolving, we sort of you have a basis to, to start with. So Infinity War, I thought no end game I thought was going to be the hardest because obviously it’s a gigantic film.
00:23:07:38 – 00:23:25:23
Nia Hansen
It’s culminating years of filmmaking and all these characters are coming together. It has literally everybody in it. Yeah. So I thought, okay, prepare myself. This is going to be the hardest one we’ve done yet. But it was actually the smoothest because of everything we built up until then. It went really, really easy.
00:23:25:28 – 00:23:49:23
Agent Palmer
Now what is it like to know? I mean, you at a certain point, especially within the Marvel Universe, you know, you’re working on a blockbuster. Like it’s not like, oh, here’s this unproven movie. Like, you know, when you’re getting like when you’re putting it starting the pre-production, like, okay, this is going to be big. I don’t want spoilers.
00:23:49:23 – 00:23:58:33
Agent Palmer
Like, that’s not my what I want to get at. I want to know what it’s like to work in that kind of secrecy, because you’re sworn to that, right? Like you.
00:23:58:33 – 00:23:59:15
Nia Hansen
Probably have.
00:23:59:15 – 00:24:08:23
Agent Palmer
NDAs and all that kind of weird, like just what’s that like? Because you you can’t share it. You can’t be like, oh, look what I just like I just did.
00:24:08:23 – 00:24:08:46
Nia Hansen
This whole.
00:24:08:46 – 00:24:15:37
Agent Palmer
Thing like, that doesn’t exist. I mean, maybe within your team, but, like, what’s that like?
00:24:15:42 – 00:24:52:53
Nia Hansen
Definitely being able to talk among our team really helps keep us sane. What keeps me sane? You know, we can discuss it, but we are also starting so much earlier than there’s even any press out that, yeah, it almost gets isolated. So when when the first teaser trailer or something drops and gets, you know, millions of views within hours, it gives me a lot of perspective and like, wow, people are actually really excited about this because without the hubbub and, you know, the fans talking about it, I kind of lose sense that there’s even as much hype as there is until there’s some, you know, press release or bit of media to get people
00:24:52:53 – 00:25:08:57
Nia Hansen
excited. You lose sense of that raw energy. So until it’s close to release, which by that point we’re done with it and we’re sort of out of we’ve already talked about it among ourselves, and it’s sort of fading a little bit, but then you get the fan surge and like, oh wow, this is really huge.
00:25:09:08 – 00:25:15:35
Agent Palmer
So you’re so by the time a movie gets released in theaters, you’ve moved on, you’re on the next project.
00:25:15:40 – 00:25:32:10
Nia Hansen
We usually finish a month or two before it hits theaters, and as a sound designer, I’m the next film is often starting up and even at least concept and stuff like that. Maybe some early, early work. So yeah, my brain’s already kind of trying to switch gears a little bit to the next one.
00:25:32:14 – 00:26:00:27
Agent Palmer
How do you compartmentalize that mentally? Because these aren’t I’m not asking you to run, run five miles. And at the same time, think about what you’re going to make for dinner. Like it’s not like these are. I’m asking you to run five miles and then run five miles it at the same time in two different places. So what’s that like to just be winding out of one and winding into another, like simultaneously?
00:26:00:32 – 00:26:24:22
Nia Hansen
It can be tough if it’s if it’s in the same sort of wheelhouse, like, and then my next movie is another Marvel movie. Then it’s sort of easy because I know I’m staying in the same esthetic. Some things are going to be familiar, and I kind of know what to do. But if it’s a different genre or a different tone, like going from Marvel to Pixar, then my brain has to switch a lot more gears to get over there from here.
00:26:24:27 – 00:26:28:36
Nia Hansen
And so, yeah, I don’t think I have a good strategy for myself yet.
00:26:28:40 – 00:26:30:28
Agent Palmer
Well, I practice, you know. I mean.
00:26:30:39 – 00:26:31:19
Nia Hansen
Yeah.
00:26:31:24 – 00:27:02:54
Agent Palmer
What’s involved in creating, an esthetic sonically is it, you know, the director asking you questions or just telling you about the film? Like what? What goes into that process? Because obviously you’re making the especially within the Marvel Universe where it’s kind of grounded in real life. That’s one thing. But Pixar, you’re no like, that’s, that’s not you’re making it up.
00:27:02:54 – 00:27:06:32
Agent Palmer
So where’s the esthetic direction coming from?
00:27:06:37 – 00:27:28:19
Nia Hansen
Yeah, I like to have early talks about the story. And if we could see art and just sort of get get an idea of what their visual esthetic is and the characters and the story, and then I’ll do some try and get footage and do some tests. So maybe I’ll do a few versions of something, or I’ll do a version that I feel is where I want to go with it, or where I feel it should go.
00:27:28:24 – 00:27:45:54
Nia Hansen
And then we’ll play that back and get feedback and have a back and forth for a little while till we nail that esthetic. Like on onward. It was really tricky because I had done magic for Doctor Strange in a lot of the Marvel superheroes, so magic was really familiar to me, but the tone of it was much different.
00:27:46:05 – 00:28:12:20
Nia Hansen
So with Marvel, the magic can be really dark and really powerful and sort of like gritty and realistic. But for onward, it needed to be. It needed to be cool. It needed to be fun. It couldn’t be too light and twinkly. But it also couldn’t be, you know, really dark and powerful. So it took a while to sort of figure out where that line was between cool and sweet and funny and, strong for all the different spells.
00:28:12:20 – 00:28:40:34
Agent Palmer
And where, where does the score come in? Because I know, and it hit me recently I was watching twister for the millionth time, and I noticed that before, the Van Halen song, Human Beings comes on the score plays the riff for about a minute, which I had never noticed before, and I just it just hit me and I was like, okay, I hear it.
00:28:40:34 – 00:29:01:10
Agent Palmer
But like, obviously those are things that are tied into the rest of the sound and where the score is in the mix, whether it’s paramount or just like kind of in the background. So how much of the score or where does the score in the music come in to the process? Because you obviously don’t have that in pre-production.
00:29:01:15 – 00:29:25:18
Nia Hansen
Now, where the sound post-production sort of working concurrently with the composer developing the score, and all the source music, license songs and stuff, getting, getting to chosen in decided on. So about halfway through our process, we will often get mock ups. So it’s not the final recorded score, but it’s an idea of what they’re headed for.
00:29:25:23 – 00:29:48:22
Nia Hansen
And before that, we’ll have temp music. So music from other films that have been cut in to represent, you know, the emotion and where that needs to be. And you know what the sort of shape of it is. So between the temp music and the mock ups, we’ll get an idea of what’s there. But it doesn’t quite help us really get a sense of what frequencies are going to be clashing, like what sonic real estate is taken up or not.
00:29:48:27 – 00:30:05:26
Nia Hansen
So we do our best with those. And then around the time of the final mix, we’ll get the recorded score coming in and, and it’s then it’s a bit of a, you know, we’re putting putting everything together and then we’ll see what like clashes and start making decisions and shaping both to fit together.
00:30:05:30 – 00:30:29:40
Agent Palmer
Okay. So I want to ask, you work in waveforms all the time, but there’s a difference between seeing something and hearing it. How much of that is, like, how much of the visual versus the audio? Like, how much does that plays into when you’re putting stuff together because you’re looking at nothing but waveforms most of the time.
00:30:29:52 – 00:30:54:20
Nia Hansen
Yeah. So and and even there may not be any visuals at all when I start sound design, like on Doctor Strange, I had a list of names of, you know, spells and relics and weapons that I had no visual for, no art, no description really. So it was up to my brain to sort of figure out what that might sound like, and then if it fits and visual, if it came later, that’s great.
00:30:54:25 – 00:31:16:30
Nia Hansen
If not, then, you know, it goes in the library for later. So I’m often starting without any visual, if it’s an animated film or an event with visual effects that aren’t going to be done for a long time, we’re very often working without a visual, so the sound has to be telling the story and providing information that doesn’t fit something right away.
00:31:16:30 – 00:31:52:05
Nia Hansen
And then we’re we’re altering it and fixing it as the visual emerges or changes towards the final. But I often close my eyes because I feel like the sound. You should be able to understand what’s going on without the picture, like, especially in a busy scene, like an action scene or something. If you can close your eyes and still get the get the flow of it, like, okay, Captain America just threw a shield, it went over here and hit this other thing and then, you know, or someone screams and then their body falls, and then you should sort of get a feel to feel the action on screen with the sound alone.
00:31:52:12 – 00:31:56:06
Nia Hansen
If we’re if we’re doing a really good job.
00:31:56:11 – 00:32:11:34
Agent Palmer
And when you I’m going to I’m going to turn this around. Like when you watch movies that you didn’t work on, do you find yourself paying more attention to the sound because of what you do, or are you just trying to enjoy it?
00:32:11:39 – 00:32:32:49
Nia Hansen
I get this question a lot, like, can you flip the switch in like that? Yeah, not watching it sound first. I can it’s it’s it’s sort of all over the map. Sometimes I watch and I’m just so engrossed in the story that I’m not noticing. And we say this a lot to ourselves. Like, if the audience doesn’t notice the sound when they’re watching a film, then we’ve done a good job.
00:32:32:54 – 00:32:46:05
Nia Hansen
You know, there’s there’s nothing that’s pulling them out of the experience. There’s nothing that feels unbelievable about the sound. You know, they’re not struggling to hear the dialog so no one notices us or our contribution. If we’ve done a good job, that’s it.
00:32:46:05 – 00:33:02:16
Agent Palmer
And it’s like I’m outside of the actors on the screen when it comes to the editing, the directing, the visual effects, the sound, all of that stuff is probably best if you don’t notice it right like that. That’s when you know you did a good job.
00:33:02:29 – 00:33:02:49
Nia Hansen
Yeah.
00:33:02:54 – 00:33:03:43
Agent Palmer
00:33:03:48 – 00:33:12:35
Nia Hansen
And like, I’ll notice the reaction. Like if I have a reaction like, oh man, I was so cool. Then I’m noticing it. But it’s through the emotion of reacting to, you know what? It’s done.
00:33:12:47 – 00:33:46:43
Agent Palmer
Do you feel appreciated within the industry? Like, do you feel like sound in general gets its due from like directors and, you know, editors and producers, or is it often overlooked? It’s not visual effects. So it’s not flashy. It’s not the explosion. Right. But you’re you’re putting a voice to that explosion. So you’re a part of it. But do you feel overlooked or are you do you feel rightly appreciated, as you should?
00:33:46:43 – 00:34:16:23
Nia Hansen
I guess I feel like it’s overlooked, but partly because I feel like there’s some phase where people aren’t being educated about what we actually do, like directors and producers and other departments. Like maybe the sound post-production part of their education is just so short, and then they’re off to something else. But I feel like there’s some piece of education that’s missing because so many people don’t don’t understand what we do, what our schedule is like.
00:34:16:23 – 00:34:32:08
Nia Hansen
You know, where sound needs to come into play, what sound can contribute to the storytelling and to the to the visuals. So a lot of times we’re explaining that over and over to clients to try and get them on the same page. So yeah.
00:34:32:13 – 00:34:52:58
Agent Palmer
So what is I mean, you work at Skywalker Sound and I’m not going to try and out. I’m not going to assume anything, but I want to know what’s the most common question you get or that you have to answer? B when once people find out you work at Skywalker Sound like what’s the common.
00:34:53:01 – 00:35:21:42
Nia Hansen
Most common question? I think everyone assumes that I work on Star Wars. Okay, they hear Skywalker, Lucasfilm, and they think that all all those companies do our Star Wars. But Skywalker Sound works on on all kinds of films. So I do a lot of the Marvel films. I have worked on Clone Wars, so I can’t say I didn’t do a Star Wars, but we work on all kinds of things Disney, animations and Pixar and all that.
00:35:21:47 – 00:35:29:42
Agent Palmer
You’ve been there a while. So were you there before the Disney merger?
00:35:29:47 – 00:35:30:16
Nia Hansen
I was.
00:35:30:25 – 00:35:31:10
Agent Palmer
So.
00:35:31:15 – 00:35:32:52
Nia Hansen
Like four years or so before I.
00:35:32:56 – 00:35:45:41
Agent Palmer
Was there. What was that like, if if it’s even like if you can even say, like, what was the reaction? Because that’s, that’s a very big shift for the company. So to speak.
00:35:45:45 – 00:36:05:49
Nia Hansen
It was huge. But for Skywalker Sound, not a lot changed. We started this little company on the outskirts that got right into that bubble. But not much changed for us. You know, we we’re still at Skywalker Ranch. We still have the same clients that we did before it. Sure. If that would change. So, yeah, it’s sort of carried on.
00:36:05:54 – 00:36:22:04
Nia Hansen
There are there are, corporate things that have shifted, just like payroll and no administration kind of things that don’t really affect our creativity or workflow, but change the scaffolding around us as a company.
00:36:22:08 – 00:36:42:23
Agent Palmer
And, I mean, people talk about going to the ranch like it’s a pilgrimage and you work there. So like, do you appreciate that, like that? Like that’s what it is? Or is it just like, no, this is where I work.
00:36:42:28 – 00:37:04:46
Nia Hansen
I, I don’t know that I can appreciate it from the fan perspective where, you know, it’s it has the symbolism in it, but it’s absolutely a beautiful piece of property. And the the buildings are amazing. So I often and just driving in to work thinking, this is amazing, this is beautiful. I’m walking through the building and you can’t help but just look around.
00:37:04:51 – 00:37:12:23
Nia Hansen
And I love giving tours because I get to see it through someone else’s eyes. And it reminds me like, this is incredible place for a lot of reasons.
00:37:12:28 – 00:37:17:43
Agent Palmer
All right. So I want to shift you play music.
00:37:17:48 – 00:37:22:55
Nia Hansen
I, I used to play piano, I taught myself, and I played some guitar, but I haven’t in many years.
00:37:23:08 – 00:37:23:27
Agent Palmer
Did.
00:37:23:27 – 00:37:25:23
Nia Hansen
Any of that skill set to sound?
00:37:25:23 – 00:37:38:36
Agent Palmer
Did any of that affect or impact, or is it transferable to what you do now, like, oh, I have a better ear because I picked up some musical instruments early on.
00:37:38:41 – 00:37:59:08
Nia Hansen
Yeah, I think so. Not the not the mechanical aspect of it, because our tools are so different. Definitely. You know, the way you’re thinking about it creatively, the way you’re engaging with sound and frequencies as opposed to the same sound editing is a lot like music. You of with little sounds or notes. And you’re you’re working with rhythm, you’re working with cadence.
00:37:59:13 – 00:38:05:29
Nia Hansen
You’re working with syntax, kind of like language. You it’s very it maps very closely. I feel like.
00:38:05:34 – 00:38:21:01
Agent Palmer
And you, you have you’re you’re literally a jack of all trades is all is what I want to say. Because, like you, you’re an author, but you also falconry.
00:38:21:05 – 00:38:39:30
Nia Hansen
Yeah. I have more hobbies than I have time, so I’ve had to gradually accept it, put some on the backburner. I’m a licensed falconer, and I was doing Japanese swordsmanship for many years. Along with other little hobbies that, you know, filled pockets of time. But since pockets are shrinking, so the.
00:38:39:30 – 00:38:46:43
Agent Palmer
The falconry, that means that if anybody needs a bird sound, you’re like, I got this.
00:38:46:48 – 00:38:50:37
Nia Hansen
I was that person.
00:38:50:42 – 00:39:08:16
Nia Hansen
Yeah. And horseback riding. So a lot of my early movies I did warhorse with gay rights term as assistant and then Lone Ranger horses and Pixar’s Brave at Horses. So for beginning of my career, I was the horse person because I had so many years experience. It just made sense.
00:39:08:21 – 00:39:11:34
Agent Palmer
Is there anything you haven’t worked on that you want to.
00:39:11:39 – 00:39:30:07
Nia Hansen
Oh, that’s a good question. I often I find that there will be a movie that sounds really cool and I think, oh, I really want to work on that, but I can’t. And then the movie ends up not being very good. Or I hear from the crew that it was really, really hard to work on and I think, oh, I dodged a bullet.
00:39:30:12 – 00:39:44:39
Agent Palmer
Is like, how much do you know of movies ahead of time? Do you know what I mean? Like, do you get the full script or at least a version of it? Because a year, a year of pre-production, like the script can change?
00:39:44:44 – 00:40:04:54
Nia Hansen
Yeah, it depends on the studio and secrecy levels and stuff like that. Sometimes you’ll get a script early on, but it can change a lot from the script and even when we’re working on sound editorial, the movie’s still changing. Like one misconception people have is that we’re working on a finished film and we’re doing the sound, but it’s not at all finished.
00:40:04:54 – 00:40:22:08
Nia Hansen
It’s still being edited, the story is being shaped, and we’re recording new dialog from the actors. There might be additional photography. The music is getting decided, the visual effects are being worked on, so it’s very fluid. While we’re in the thick of it with the sound. So the movies constantly changing.
00:40:22:08 – 00:40:27:27
Agent Palmer
Are you on sight or is that a different department for the actual dialog part?
00:40:27:32 – 00:40:40:33
Nia Hansen
The aren’t the production sound team is completely separate. Okay, but then our dialog and ADR supervisor will be going to record actors or, you know, setting up a timeline so we can get dialog recorded.
00:40:40:38 – 00:41:04:09
Agent Palmer
Okay. I want to ask about because ADR is when it’s done in post, so to speak, right? Yeah. So that’s kind of be the hardest thing in the world is to record somebody like to record somebody once in, I don’t know, a field and then do ADR on them and make it sound like they’re still in the field.
00:41:04:09 – 00:41:15:10
Agent Palmer
So is that. Yeah. Is that one of the hardest things like is, is meshing those two things up together, or is there something harder that we just don’t know about?
00:41:15:15 – 00:41:32:19
Nia Hansen
I have huge respect for, dialog rerecording mixers that have, you know, sometimes it’ll be just one word in the middle of a sentence that they’re replacing, and they have to make it seamless. It’s yeah, it’s amazing. You take dialog that’s recorded in a little booth, and then you have to make it sound perfectly like it’s out in that field.
00:41:32:23 – 00:41:34:53
Agent Palmer
That’s okay. Yeah. I mean, because that I.
00:41:34:53 – 00:41:36:32
Nia Hansen
Don’t know how to I don’t know how they do it smack.
00:41:36:40 – 00:41:46:45
Agent Palmer
Like, that’s that’s where some of it is magic. Like I, it’s one of those things where your answer when people say, what do you do for a living should just be magic. Like because they’re hard to.
00:41:46:54 – 00:41:47:28
Nia Hansen
Magic.
00:41:47:33 – 00:41:52:54
Agent Palmer
That even juggling that many tracks like I just it still blows my mind.
00:41:52:59 – 00:42:02:53
Nia Hansen
And ADR is one of those things where if you if you haven’t done it right, you really notice it well, like at the line, like you thumb. So it suddenly sounds like they’re in a closet for a few words and then out.
00:42:02:58 – 00:42:13:15
Agent Palmer
So how do you unwind? Like do you get to unwind?
00:42:13:20 – 00:42:35:22
Nia Hansen
I do unwind, but it can be tough because my brain is it’s full at the end of the day. And sometimes, like a lot of people unwind watching TV or a movie. But sometimes after 12 hours of working on a movie, I don’t want to watch a movie. I don’t want to go home and unwind with, like, so I might read a book or do something else.
00:42:35:27 – 00:42:45:53
Nia Hansen
But yeah, right now I’m I’m writing as well, and that’s taking up all of my morning and evening time. So but that gives me energy. So it feels a bit like unwinding at the same time.
00:42:45:58 – 00:43:07:29
Agent Palmer
So, you will be back. I’m going to let everyone know right now. You’ll be back. What we’re going to talk about your book and you’re writing. I’m not ignoring it. But that’s a separate episode because I do have a million other questions for you as a writer. But one thing I did want to ask you is like, what’s the process of you’re working on a movie?
00:43:07:29 – 00:43:30:04
Agent Palmer
There’s a deadline that’s not related to you. It’s like a full like production deadline. So do you when you’re in the middle of a, let’s say, endgame, do you work a 9 to 5? Are you working 18 hours? Like what? What are you working on your average day in not even pre-production but production.
00:43:30:08 – 00:43:54:47
Nia Hansen
So it’s usually ten hour days at the beginning. So things get crazy around the final mix because everything’s coming together. We’re getting the music in. The rerecording mixers are starting to put everything together and the visual effects are really ramping up because they have to finish to, and the picture needs to be as locked as it can. So that’s when everyone’s scrambling and and like you said, there’s a hard deadline.
00:43:54:47 – 00:44:10:25
Nia Hansen
Like there’s a time, there’s a point where we have to deliver our final mix. Yeah, we can’t go over that because they need to create media to send it to theaters and get everything going. So we do have a heart out, and at that point you can only work more hours. You’re not going to get more time. Yeah.
00:44:10:25 – 00:44:18:07
Nia Hansen
Afterwards. So so it ends up, you know, late nights and weekends and wherever you have to sort of work more time to get everything finished.
00:44:18:07 – 00:44:35:16
Agent Palmer
Do trailers create more work? Because obviously a trailer comes out before the movie’s done in production sometimes. So do you have to stop what you’re doing and, like, work on like a teaser trailer? Because obviously the sound needs to be good for that, too.
00:44:35:29 – 00:44:49:03
Nia Hansen
So there are specific trailer houses that do all the audio, but they will ask us for specific things, especially if it’s a signature sound like some of the Marvel powers and weapons. They’re not going to have that. So they’ll ask us for the big things and then they’ll fill out the rest.
00:44:49:03 – 00:44:50:04
Agent Palmer
Okay, so that’s.
00:44:50:04 – 00:45:08:09
Nia Hansen
But we will have to send them that and the trailers, the way that falls in our schedule, it’s usually when we’re busiest is when they’re asking for this thing. Okay. And, and it can be tricky. We have to pull a little bits from all over this big movie that we’re working on for whatever shots are in the trailer.
00:45:08:09 – 00:45:16:17
Nia Hansen
Okay, so we’ll have if our assistant has time or someone has a little bit extra time, we’ll throw down on that, like gather these things for the trailer.
00:45:16:21 – 00:45:35:49
Agent Palmer
Is there a part of the movie making process you would like to experience taking sound out of it? Like, would you like to shoot? Would you like to maybe like experience directing? I’m not saying like as a career change, but just, you know, walk in someone else’s shoes in the industry. What would you want to do?
00:45:35:54 – 00:45:58:17
Nia Hansen
I did a little bit of film editing, and that was really fun, and I think it was engaging my writer’s brain, like making story choices and emotional choices, and pacing choices and things like that. So I think as far as something I would want to do or learn, film editing, I think would be right, would fit right with me in terms of shadowing someone and seeing how things work.
00:45:58:17 – 00:46:17:55
Nia Hansen
I’m really curious how the visual visual effects department works because we sort of get the output. But it, it almost mystifies them more the things that we receive and when and I wanted to know how that work flow. I’ll go maybe one day I’ll, I’ll go shadow ILM or something.
00:46:18:00 – 00:46:27:09
Agent Palmer
I mean that. Yeah. It’s that’s your go to. Right. I mean that talk about going to the top right.
00:46:27:14 – 00:46:48:40
Nia Hansen
Like, what are you guys doing? What are you delivering? Well, visual effects are tough because there’s so many different houses now. Like it gets farmed out all over the world, specific parts of each shot. So, you know, maybe I should shadow whoever is coordinating everybody. All of those different houses across the world, all coming together to make one whole.
00:46:48:45 – 00:46:51:11
Nia Hansen
Yeah. Another field. That’s immense.
00:46:51:16 – 00:47:12:12
Agent Palmer
What do you I mean, you’ve worked on animated, you’ve worked on live action. Is there one that you prefer? I mean, obviously a lot of these have been fictional. So I guess there’s two questions I want to ask animated versus live action and then fiction versus nonfiction. As far as what you’re working on.
00:47:12:17 – 00:47:31:40
Nia Hansen
I would say fiction. And I really love the genres that I work in. A lot of science fiction and fantasy and I sort of my two loves, any kind of speculative fiction. So I’m really happy that I’ve gotten to work on a lot of those, animated versus live action. Depends. Animated films are shorter, so they’re easier.
00:47:31:40 – 00:47:53:03
Nia Hansen
And there’s a, there’s a harder animation like others. So they’re a lot more finished when we get to the final phase than a live action, because they have to finish the animation so that they can render and finish all of those shots. So we’re doing a lot less scrambling after changes at the very end. So there are a lot easier.
00:47:53:08 – 00:48:06:38
Nia Hansen
But live action is fun as well, and I almost feel like everything I work on is a bit animated because there’s so many visual effects in the Marvel films that a lot of things in, in ways they’re similar.
00:48:06:42 – 00:48:12:16
Agent Palmer
That’s I mean, that’s fair because that well, that’s why I asked fiction versus non.
00:48:12:20 – 00:48:35:18
Nia Hansen
Well in sometimes I do think and others on my crew like, oh we just want to work on like a quiet drama, you know, decent door closes and vehicles and the easy thing and those, those kinds of films have their own challenges as well. And, you know, the time that you get to spend on little details is it’s really, really fun.
00:48:35:23 – 00:48:51:50
Nia Hansen
You know, we don’t get a lot of time to spend on tiny details and ambiance and little minutia in some of these blockbusters, but that can be really rewarding. I think I’d like to work on some some quieter dramas that have room for nuance and subtext in little detail.
00:48:51:56 – 00:49:13:54
Agent Palmer
So you’re playing in sound all day, do you listen? I mean, I know you listen to podcasts, but like, do you like at a certain point are you like, no, I want I don’t want to hear anything like no music, no podcasts. I’m just, I’m done. Or do you always have like music on?
00:49:13:59 – 00:49:34:47
Nia Hansen
I don’t always have music on. I do listen to podcasts on my my drive. It depends. I think in a way I could not hear things. So even if I don’t have anything playing, I’m hearing in my fridge, I’m hearing the neighbors making noise. I’m hearing the word walk over there. I’m hearing like I’m always hyper oriented and I have some synesthesia with sounds.
00:49:34:47 – 00:49:45:58
Nia Hansen
I’m always connected to the sound around me. I can’t sort of shut off. So music is more like creating a uniform distraction for me where I don’t have to be hearing everything else.
00:49:46:09 – 00:49:49:40
Agent Palmer
What what do you listen to?
00:49:49:45 – 00:50:09:58
Nia Hansen
I’ll often get fixated on a specific song or album for like a month and just play it on loop, and that’ll sort of be my calming, you know, something routine that’s predictable that I could reset myself with. But otherwise, I listen to a lot of video game soundtracks directly because that’s what I’m listening to when I’m writing, and it gets me in a mood.
00:50:10:04 – 00:50:13:51
Agent Palmer
And what are your favorite video game scores? Then?
00:50:13:56 – 00:50:20:32
Nia Hansen
Oh, that depends whether I’m I’m writing. If I’m in a fantasy or a science fiction movie.
00:50:20:37 – 00:50:22:29
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:50:22:34 – 00:50:39:01
Nia Hansen
So, let’s see my fantasy playlist, The Witcher. Okay. Soundtracks are really good. Final Fantasy, of course. Sci fi has been more Deus Ex, Mass Effect, things like that. Okay.
00:50:39:06 – 00:50:40:23
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No, I.
00:50:40:31 – 00:50:43:36
Nia Hansen
I it’s usually a mix of like two, 30 different things.
00:50:43:45 – 00:50:55:12
Agent Palmer
I’m trying to think the last score I listened to, which was not that long ago, it’s probably Dragon Quest eight. I think it was eight.
00:50:55:17 – 00:51:22:56
Nia Hansen
I like game soundtracks. I think of or film soundtracks because film is so score to action. That’s like specific story action. Okay. It has a much different shape, whereas video game music feels like it’s I don’t know, it’s it’s not quite as dramatic like the dynamics of it. It’s fitting an emotion and a mood more than like action on a screen because it’s not fit unless it’s fit to a cinematic, you know.
00:51:22:57 – 00:51:44:21
Agent Palmer
Well, yeah, it’s it’s fit more to a chapter than a paragraph I think is. Yeah, it’s the way it works. Which that’s I mean, because the only the other thing is, I mean, I got huge into film scores at one point, and it’s not like I had like a favorite or anything. It was just like, I really got into them.
00:51:44:26 – 00:52:08:34
Agent Palmer
And then I started kind of, sort of shifted to video game scores. Maybe for the same reason, actually, because they were, you know, you there are there are times within a video game score where I don’t immediately picture where I’m supposed to be, like, had I played that game versus a film score where, like, I’ll hear something and be like, oh, nope, I can see it.
00:52:08:39 – 00:52:09:21
Agent Palmer
The movie’s now.
00:52:09:21 – 00:52:28:39
Nia Hansen
Playing. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And a lot of video game scores like, some of the location music is designed to not get boring because you may be playing in that location for a long time. Which is helpful if you just have something on in the background. It’s not, you know, nagging at you.
00:52:28:46 – 00:52:35:00
Agent Palmer
What are your favorite video games like? Scores aside?
00:52:35:05 – 00:52:39:08
Nia Hansen
Every game I’m bad at, I’m bad. What is your favorite kind of question?
00:52:39:08 – 00:52:43:53
Agent Palmer
Oh, no, I’m not asking for one. I’m just, you know, just,
00:52:43:57 – 00:53:09:53
Nia Hansen
I play a bit of everything. The Final Fantasy games have always been close to my heart. Metal Gear solid games, first person shooters like Killzone. Silent Hill. Okay, I’m not a I don’t get scared very easily, but that one. I like those movies. Let me see. See, my mind’s blanking. Well, I have so many favorite. Let me look across all genres.
00:53:09:53 – 00:53:14:07
Agent Palmer
Let me tweak the question. What was your first console?
00:53:14:12 – 00:53:24:59
Nia Hansen
Oh, I wasn’t allowed to have console when I was a kid, so it was like, you’re over at the cousins and they have a console and you get to play. It was like a super cheat. My first console was a Game Boy Color, I believe.
00:53:25:03 – 00:53:38:24
Agent Palmer
Okay, yeah, my first console was a Game Boy because my parents, when I asked for a Nintendo, gave me a computer. So my first real console wasn’t until I bought a Gamecube for myself. That was my first actual console.
00:53:38:28 – 00:53:53:01
Nia Hansen
And I had I had a mac. So I did emulate a lot of things that I missed, like Super Nintendo and Toad. And he has an and a lot of the games that I missed because I didn’t have a console growing up, I found emulation. I was like, I can cheat.
00:53:53:06 – 00:54:02:03
Agent Palmer
Well, the let’s be fair, the best thing about emulation is you can make your own save points like that.
00:54:02:14 – 00:54:03:12
Nia Hansen
So yeah, that.
00:54:03:12 – 00:54:06:44
Agent Palmer
Was the deal breaker. It was like, oh, I don’t have to get to a save.
00:54:06:46 – 00:54:17:50
Nia Hansen
My I can just my anxiety is solved. My anxiety about whether I’m going to make the right choices solved.
00:54:17:55 – 00:54:31:05
Agent Palmer
So what’s one thing. And I think this can go one of two ways. So what’s one thing the general public should know about sound design?
00:54:31:10 – 00:55:00:53
Nia Hansen
Well, I think the easy misconception about sound post-production is that things magically get recorded on set when they film the movie. Which is understandable, but the only thing that the production sound team is really focused on is recording clean dialog on set. So everything else is a team of people like me putting in afterwards and making creative choices about as far as one thing about sound design, I’m not sure.
00:55:00:53 – 00:55:31:59
Nia Hansen
It’s sort of a nebulous process. Perhaps its sound design is not just creating, you know, cool explosions and spaceships and things that have existed, like alien weapons and creatures. But it’s also making choices for the story, you know, making making sure that the sounds that are in there are working the right emotion that they’re pointing out the the steering, the audience toward the right narrative motion and details.
00:55:32:04 – 00:55:39:15
Nia Hansen
So sound design is not just making the cool sound, but also, you know, working in service to the story with sound.
00:55:39:26 – 00:55:40:42
Agent Palmer
It’s the details.
00:55:40:47 – 00:55:44:54
Nia Hansen
Yeah. And is it all comes back to story for me?
00:55:44:59 – 00:55:51:10
Agent Palmer
Okay. How about this. Who’s your favorite storyteller?
00:55:51:14 – 00:55:56:40
Nia Hansen
My mind instantly goes like, tries to collate all different, like books. Like TV movies.
00:55:56:49 – 00:55:59:15
Agent Palmer
I just said story sound for a reason.
00:55:59:27 – 00:56:27:24
Nia Hansen
Like that’s too broad. That’s too bad for my little brain. Favorite storyteller. I will say, since I’ve worked on ten Marvel films now, our picture editor on many of them, Jeff Ford, I his storytelling that he does in while editing is really impressive. Like, I can see the story taking shape in all of the choices he makes.
00:56:27:28 – 00:56:37:52
Nia Hansen
That was, Winter soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame. Wow. Really fun to work on. And I learned a lot about story just by watching it take shape.
00:56:38:07 – 00:56:39:09
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:56:39:13 – 00:57:02:33
Nia Hansen
And and just overall in my job, I love that I get to see I get to see these narratives being shaped and character arcs being shaped like the choices that are made, the things that are cut out, the things that are added or tweaked, you know, performance that’s changed. It’s really cool to get to see, you know, story craft going on while I’m working on, you know, sound, which is parallel to that, but different.
00:57:02:38 – 00:57:37:13
Agent Palmer
All right. So you you see things getting added and subtracted. How much does adding something add to your workload or is that factor. You know what I mean? Like if I’m, you know, a director and I decide that we’re going to add in 30s of a new shot that we didn’t have before, and now we do. Like, is that factored into your production schedule that things like that are going to happen, or are you kind of scheduled to a T where it’s like, oh, now we’ve got more work.
00:57:37:18 – 00:57:57:32
Nia Hansen
A little, both. I think it’s scheduled scheduled in the understanding that things are going to be changing. But you know how much? Who knows. But yeah, shattering added shot to being taken out. Sometimes they come back in, sometimes they get lengthened or shortened. So we’re constantly keeping our tracks up to date, and keeping copies of everything we’ve done.
00:57:57:32 – 00:57:59:17
Nia Hansen
You know, in case something comes back.
00:57:59:22 – 00:58:14:16
Agent Palmer
And you’ve been with Skywalker for a while. Technology has obviously changed. Has it made your life easier as things have progressed, or has it made it more complex? Because now you’ve got more options?
00:58:14:21 – 00:58:36:19
Nia Hansen
I’d say it makes it easier. We haven’t had like a big technology shift. We’re working with the same software. Mostly. It’s just they’ve taken our requests into account in some of the fix. Some of the bugs we complain about, things we ask for, getting easier and easier. But there hasn’t been like, a huge shift in software or hardware since I’ve been.
00:58:36:19 – 00:58:38:58
Nia Hansen
But yeah, it’s gotten easier.
00:58:39:03 – 00:58:50:41
Agent Palmer
What is your favorite part of the process? Is it the pre-production? Is it the middle or is it that it’s completed? And I’ve done that.
00:58:50:46 – 00:59:18:31
Nia Hansen
I think either pre-production or the middle. I like different things about both of them. And the final mix is fun as well. Even though it’s crazy, everything is coming together and you’re you’re seeing it in on the mix stage, which is like a small theater. So you’re seeing it on the big screen and it suddenly feels like a film, you know, after working on a little computer screen for months and months, we finally see it in the big theater and it feels like a movie.
00:59:18:34 – 00:59:34:19
Agent Palmer
Do you do you get to test things out in the theater, like, have you ever, you know, made a decision on your computer and then been like, I wonder how this is going to sound in the theater. Let’s export it and find out. Like, is that a thing that happens.
00:59:34:24 – 00:59:57:36
Nia Hansen
Usually when we have a bigger chunk of things that we want to listen to? Okay. Like a whole wheel or something? You can I can just take one thing. Okay. Let me hear it in the big stage. But my my edit room is like a little, little theater. I have a big screen in there. And it it feels it feels correctly sized so that I can guess how it will translate into a bigger space.
00:59:57:36 – 01:00:00:10
Agent Palmer
How how different is it sonically?
01:00:00:10 – 01:00:01:08
Nia Hansen
Yeah. Or the size, you.
01:00:01:08 – 01:00:08:07
Agent Palmer
Know, sonically between, you know, what you’re working on and then being in the theater?
01:00:08:12 – 01:00:27:06
Nia Hansen
Well, the size you definitely feel the size of the space. So I need to make sure that what I’m making is big enough to fill a bigger room. And I’ve sort of internalized the little tricks and just how my brain is hearing it in the small space so that I know that little sound that’ll fill out all of the speakers that are in, big mic stage.
01:00:27:10 – 01:00:37:58
Nia Hansen
All right. But then there are also choices that are going to be made later. The rerecording mixer will be moving things around and placing things in speakers differently than I might have in my room, because that’s got more area.
01:00:38:03 – 01:01:00:39
Agent Palmer
All right, so I’m deadly serious in wondering this. Like how loud? What? Like what’s the volume level when you’re working right? Because I know that I try and like when it’s just a podcast, but when I edit I try and edit with my volume only at about like 50%, so that way I know it will be loud enough, but like that’s a consideration you have to take in, right?
01:01:00:39 – 01:01:02:59
Agent Palmer
Like you can’t, you know what I mean? So yeah.
01:01:02:59 – 01:01:27:02
Nia Hansen
We have a level. We have an industry standard level or it’s supposed to be industry standard. So we work to that. And I know that if I’m in a small room, I’m going to need to turn that down a little bit. And I figured out where is a good translation to the bigger rooms, because if I have it, the volume is loud as it’s supposed to be to fill a room five times the size of mine, it’s going to be too loud for my ears.
01:01:27:07 – 01:01:50:25
Nia Hansen
So I turn it down a little so I know that it when it goes to the bigger room. It’ll sound good there. So we we do our final mix for an industry standard, but we understand that a lot of theaters will turn it down or they’ll turn it up. And there are some mixers that, knowing that it will get turned down will mix a lot louder to compensate for the.
01:01:50:29 – 01:01:51:10
Agent Palmer
Oh yeah.
01:01:51:15 – 01:01:52:34
Nia Hansen
So they’re turning the sound down.
01:01:52:34 – 01:01:56:09
Agent Palmer
So they’re like, all right, Athena’s going to turn this down by 10%. So I’m going to ratchet it up.
01:01:56:09 – 01:02:22:18
Nia Hansen
So I’ll make it. Yeah. But then films like ours where we’re actually mixing to the standard and we have like a nice, comfortable, powerful mix, all right. Just gets turned down and then it sounds weak compared to the ones that have cranked it to compensate. Yeah, I’m not sure what to do about that, but there is a standard that lets us know the work, the right volume.
01:02:22:23 – 01:02:51:40
Agent Palmer
Okay, the obvious thing here is that there are some pieces of this conversation that even to me, felt unfinished, but I did want to save some pieces of Neha’s immensely diverse, varied hobbies and her personal background for the writing episode or the author episode, whichever, because you can call it either one. This was supposed to be more about her professional career, although maybe she’ll have two writers.
01:02:51:40 – 01:03:17:48
Agent Palmer
A very impressive career as well. Depending on who you are, you can be impressed with both. As much as either writing a book is not the easiest thing in the world, and then to have it published, not self-published, but published. Let’s say I can’t wait to jump into the writer side of Nia’s personality when she returns. In the meantime, did you notice anything similar to my discussion with Kevin on episode 20 about visual effects?
01:03:17:53 – 01:03:46:11
Agent Palmer
Both of these now integral parts of video production now hinge on doing things well and not being noticed. That’s a thing that not a lot of people understand in general. And here there are two industries of people just doing their best to enhance without detracting. Think about your own work, your own hobbies and projects. Have you gotten in your own way, looking to make more of a name for yourself than to maximize the impact of your actual end result?
01:03:46:16 – 01:04:06:58
Agent Palmer
Sometimes we have to put ourselves in the supporting role. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 21. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer.
01:04:06:58 – 01:04:31:39
Agent Palmer
You can tweet the show at The Palmer Files, and you can tweet Nia at Hanson. That’s SSA h a n c n. Additionally, if you follow either of us, you’ll know when Neha’s book comes out and when to expect her return on this show as a published author. Plus, as always, don’t forget you can see all of my writings on Agent palmer.com email can be sent to the show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com.
01:04:31:44 – 01:04:52:13
Agent Palmer
If you have any feedback on this episode or any previous episode, or if there’s any topic or guest you’d like me to consider, you can hear more of me in the meantime on our liner notes, a musical conversation podcast with host Chris Maier and my other gig as co-host of the podcast digest with Dan Lizette.
01:04:52:18 – 01:05:06:09
Agent Palmer
You?
01:05:06:14 – 01:05:30:02
Agent Palmer
Be.
01:05:30:07 – 01:05:33:27
Agent Palmer
All right. Nia, do you have one final question for me?
01:05:33:32 – 01:05:46:27
Nia Hansen
I’m curious. You said you almost fell into, sound engineering career course early on. If you had gone that direction, where do you think you would have ended up?
01:05:46:32 – 01:06:13:29
Agent Palmer
There’s a part. I mean, the initial direction I had thought of was in music production. Because it was what I had toyed around in the most. I was never the best musician. I played bass, I played guitar, I played a little bit of drums, I was, I was, I was proficient enough to fake it with other people.
01:06:13:34 – 01:06:43:27
Agent Palmer
But what I was better at than anyone else within my circle was mixing things on what at the time was a Tascam Porta studio. So I felt like because I was more proficient at that, probably would have been my direction, but that was just being a board jockey. So where I would have ended up after maybe going to a school, like the one you did is anyone’s guess.
01:06:43:27 – 01:07:20:50
Agent Palmer
Like, I honestly don’t know. It’s just I’m I’m comfortable enough with the technology that I probably would have gone where I probably would have done what you did, which is like, whatever was more fun in class. In different disciplines. But I think initially it would have been music. I think if I put myself back in that space now, you know, and for those people that are like, have followed my circle, like, producer Palmer’s not a joke like, I, I have done the whole, like, being in someone’s ear while they’re recording.
01:07:20:55 – 01:07:39:37
Agent Palmer
And I know from now, you know, editing my own show, I know what I’m listening for. And it’s not even editing my own show. It’s, you know, I used to write the show notes for the Wicked Theory podcast, and I used to do it live so that Bill wouldn’t have to because his turnaround was recorded live.
01:07:39:44 – 01:07:59:11
Agent Palmer
It was recorded live Saturday night and then put it out Monday. So I would write the show notes live when he was recording. So that was done right. He could just mix it down, put it together with whatever he needed to do in post and then put it out Monday. So I’ve got an ear for like what worked?
01:07:59:11 – 01:08:17:30
Agent Palmer
What didn’t. You know, Bill and I used to. Nothing ever came of it. It was a live show. It’s it’s hard to do, but Bill and I would quote unquote debrief after episodes. Right. And I think and you’d have to ask him, but I think I got a better sense of what works and what doesn’t, in general.
01:08:17:30 – 01:09:01:03
Agent Palmer
So there are times when I’ll listen to a podcast and I’ll be like, all right, like that. That segment should have probably been cut. Like, if this was an edited show, that segment would be gone. And I wonder if maybe that would have been the direction that took me away from like, sound design into actual, production, like producing, because I feel like while I’m comfortable at the board and I’m comfortable in, in the editing, I think the thing I’m best at now that’s adjusted is using my ear for storytelling, for what works and what doesn’t, which is an adjustment that’s like an A.
01:09:01:08 – 01:09:22:59
Agent Palmer
It’s like, a weird, like emotional maturity. It’s like a job maturity, because I don’t know if that’s something that I’ve, I’ve had all this practice at it, which is how it’s kind of come to the forefront of like, well, I know that’s a skill set. I now have, but initially, yeah, I was like, nope. Like, let’s just record music.
01:09:23:04 – 01:09:31:11
Nia Hansen
And do you, do you really enjoy the aspect of working with someone, like producing artists who are being creative, or do you like creating the thing yourself?
01:09:31:17 – 01:10:00:41
Agent Palmer
Oh no. In a perfect world, I am someone’s Brendan McDonald to someone else’s Mark. Mary. Like in a perfect world, that’s who I am. Like, I’m not the guy on mic now. I created this show because no one around me was going to create this show. So that’s one thing. And I, I enjoy doing this, but I’d much rather be the producer behind the scenes.
01:10:00:46 – 01:10:23:40
Agent Palmer
It’s why I don’t mind scheduling. I don’t mind even the editing. And, you know, the post-production and the the pre-interview stuff, you know, of whatever that entails. All of that’s fine. The on mike stuff is comfortable. I’m fun with it. Or is fun, and I’m comfortable with it, but it’s not the end all be all for me.
01:10:23:40 – 01:10:36:16
Agent Palmer
Like, I would be completely happy, you know, setting you up for a podcast. And there’s being like, all right, well, you’re going to record now and then I’ll just be in your ear and just be like, all right, there’s one more question you should probably ask. You know, like.
01:10:36:21 – 01:10:38:28
Nia Hansen
Whatever it is, right.
01:10:38:36 – 01:10:54:06
Agent Palmer
That I, I’m it’s not that I’m uncomfortable doing this. I think I’m more prepared and better to do it for someone else. That’s probably I think I answered your question.
01:10:54:11 – 01:10:55:06
Nia Hansen
Yeah, that makes sense.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).