VOTD: How The Sound Design Of 'Baby Driver' Creates Perfect Harmony
If you've seen Baby Driver, then you already know that it's a masterpiece mesh of music and motion meticulously crafted by director Edgar Wright. But he didn't do that all by himself.
Edgar Wright's Oscar-nominated sound designer Julian Slater is responsible for both the sound mixing and sound editing that brings all of the audio that would otherwise just be a cacophony of sound and creates the synchronous, harmonious mix that we hear in the film. A new video shows how this process works with one particular moment in the opening chase sequence.
Watch the Baby Driver Sound Design Featurette
In this particular example (via IndieWire), Julian Slater illustrates how he used three different police sirens, including one from Europe, and synced them up with the song playing on the film's soundtrack (by way of Baby's iPod earbuds). In the final sequence, it's hard to tell how each of the sirens matches up with the rhythm of the song, but when he isolates each of the audio tracks, you hear how perfectly they sync together.
This is just for a moment in the film that lasts a few seconds. This is what Slater did for the entirety of Baby Driver. So hopefully now you understand the meticulous work that goes into this technical side of filmmaking. It's not hard to understand how Slater ended up with two Oscar nominations for his work on Baby Driver (along with fellow sound mixers Tim Cavagin and Mary H. Ellis), something that Edgar Wright had the foresight to predict back in 2014. This makes me want to go watch Baby Driver again right now.