Ahead of Oscar night, we chatted with Kevin O’Connell about his career, working with Hollywood royalty and his latest nomination for Hacksaw Ridge.
Kevin O’Connell is a sound mixer based in Los Angeles. He received his first Academy Award nomination for the Oscar classic Terms Of Endearment. Since then, he’s racked up 21 nominations. He’s worked on everything from Top Gun to the Spider-Man trilogy.
JOE: It’s nice to finally talk to you. We had technical difficulties earlier and you couldn’t have been nicer. Our sound engineer bemoaned that the one time we had problems, it’d be during an interview with an Academy Award nominated sound mixer. You said you’re no stranger to technical difficulties in your line of work.
KEVIN: If I had to tell you the number of times I’ve had to explain to someone like Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay or Tony Scott or one of those types of people my technical difficulties you would never hear the end of it.
Any particular memorable ones?
Back in the days when we were on film and not on digital, we would have our premiere or cast and crew screening, the director would get up and the producer would get up and give a big speech and say, “Here we go, here’s our big movie” and then they would play it and there’d be no sound. And then immediately myself, our stage engineer and another mixer would run up to the projection booth to see what went wrong. And that happened on more than one occasion.
Can you tell me about your Irish ancestry?
My father’s father was from Ireland. We grew up in New York and then moved out to California. My Dad was a true Irishman through and through – to the point where every one of his kids… He’d go out drinking the day my mother was in the hospital, and she would have had already picked a name. He’d come back from the bar to the hospital and change all our names to very Irish Catholic names. When my Mom was handed the baby back from the nurse it’d be a different name to the one she’d given it. My youngest brother almost became Séamus but my Mom pushed back on that and they settled on Thomas.
Clip via Lionsgate Movies
Congratulations on your 21 Academy Award nomination.
Thanks very much man, and I got to tell you.. It’s a wonderful feeling, it’s a great experience and in the words of Foreigner, it feels just like the first time. Even though it may be number twenty-one, they had to peel me off the ceiling last Tuesday (when the nomination was announced).
Where does your involvement begin on a project like Hacksaw Ridge?
I got a call from the producer Bill Mechanic about a year ago who told me he was finally able to get this movie made after 13 years of effort. They got Mel to direct it. I was sent the script. I think it’s one of the most powerful films I’ve ever worked on in my whole career which is almost 40 years now. I think it’s one of the most compelling stories I’ve ever heard. And the caveat to the whole thing was that it wasn’t a big studio movie. It was an independent movie.
It was made for almost $40 million which is almost unheard of for a film like this. It wasn’t a high budget movie so we had to figure out several ways to get around the fact that there wasn’t a lot of money. I was going to have to go down to Sydney to do the mix because it had to be completed there for the tax credit. I was down there for about a month and then for technical reasons just to do with Mel’s schedule we shifted and brought the film back to America and finished it.
The first scene where they come over the ridge is brutally realistic.
We worked on that for a long time. We wanted to get that right because it was very important for Desmond Doss [Andrew Garfield’s character in the movie]. He was a pacifist, he didn’t believe in all this violence but yet he wanted to serve his country and the fact that he didn’t carry a rifle and went into that battle and that’s what it was like for these guys… They did their research really well on this particular battle and it was one of the bloodier battles of the Pacific. The guys crawling up the cargo net had blood dripping on them, they had no idea what they were going to face at the top of the ridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF_NiQhtz18
Clip via iPeZz
And the whole idea for Mel which he asked us to convey to the audience was the sheer horror of what was going on up there. The way that that was interpreted was that by the time they got to the ridge it was quiet and they were creeping forward when all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. And when that moment hit, it certainly did.
That entire ten minutes was choreographed with sound effects and dialogue and crowd tracks. There was no music for the entire ten minutes of the battle which was an incredible challenge to the sound team to be able to put the audience right there on that battlefield with the actors. Andrew Garfield and Luke Bracey and Vince Vaughn were selling that 110% so it was our job to match that and give them a backdrop for which to do what they were doing. So sonically, the battle scenes are 90% all recreated sound wise. There were no sounds from that battle. They were using box bombs which look cool when they explode but they don’t make any noise. And they were using prop guns that don’t really fire anything and sound more like cap guns. So all of the artillery, all of the guns, all of the bullet sounds, the whizzing rocket sounds… everything had to be completely recreated and stitched together from scratch from the sound team.
Sounds like a great team with everyone so committed. What’s it like to work on a film where the performers aren’t as committed?
Our toughest job is when we’re trying to sell visual effects that maybe aren’t so great. There were films in the past before visual effects weren’t as good as they are now, where the sound had to really sell what was going on because visually it wasn’t really there.
I hope you’re not disparaging Hot To Trot.
It wasn’t Hot To Trot but there’s a few others I’ve been thinking of. And then you fast forward to a movie like Transformers where you’ve got 18-wheelers that are driving along at 80MPH and they suddenly turn into a 80-foot tall autonomous robot, those are really clever visual effects which the sound brings to life.
Clip via KinoCheck International
Obviously Transformers don’t exist so it’s up to the sound team to sell to the audience that this thing is really happening. And I think a lot of folks don’t understand, certainly when it comes to the Award categories that we’re in for Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. Best Sound Editing are the guys who put together those sounds for those robots and cleverly stitch together the sounds for all those pieces that make it look like something’s actually transforming.
You’ve worked with many great directors, from Mel Gibson to Rob Reiner. Is there a different approach between an action drama and conventional drama or comedy.
Well, Mel Gibson and Rob Reiner are about as far apart on the spectrum as you can imagine in terms of the way they operate. Mel is a true artist in every sense of the word. And I’ll give you an example of that. Anybody can say “Action” and “Cut” or “Make that louder” and “Make that lower” on the mixing stage. But Mel puts his heart in everything. You mentioned that first battle. At the end of it, Andrew Garfield and Luke Bracey head off to find wounded soldiers and they find themselves in a foxhole at night and it’s very quiet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF8lIwlA6Bc
Clip via or xa
The thing that Mel wanted to create is the fact that war is hell, which we did during that battle, and then we took it all the way down when they were sitting in that foxhole. Andrew and Luke are bonding. Then Andrew puts his head back and falls asleep a little bit and then he’s startled by a Japanese soldier who pops his head over the berm and scares the crap out of him. And at that moment we couldn’t figure out exactly what the right sound for that was. We used all the tricks we use in the sound business of an explosion sound or a crash sound or whatever right when that Japanese soldier pops his head up. And then the music guys tried every trick they had and they couldn’t quite get it.
Then Mel, being the consummate artist that he is says, “Hey guys, do you mind if I give it a try?” So we handed Mel a microphone and ran him the scene. Right at that moment when that soldier pops his head up Mel reaches into the microphone and says “AHHHHHHHH!!!” at the top of his lungs.
So we took that sound and put it into all fifty speakers of the theater at one time and trust me, when we played that sound it scared the shit to of all of us too.
That was a big jump moment with the audience I saw it with.
Right, and that’s all down to Mel. He knew the emotion he was trying to extract and wanted to invoke upon the audience and he wasn’t quite getting it so he figured out a way to make that happen using his body.
No half measures with Mel.
No, he goes all in. He’s an amazing guy to work for. I’ve seen him at all junctures off his life, from Passion Of The Christ to when he go into all the issues that he was into, to Apocalypto to now. Mel has come through and he is just an amazing guy and he’s done a lot of work on himself and he’s just an incredibly pleasant guy to be around and I couldn’t speak more highly of him.
What’s the sound mixing community like?
We’re basically a very small community so I’m friends with just about everybody who’s nominated this year. I’ve been working with the Benghazi people for the last 25 years. I’m good friends with the La La Land people. We’re a small community. We’re all friends but we also want to win. We’re all pretty close.
So you haven’t contacted any voodoo witch-doctors to improve your chances?
Not at this point, not at this point but you never know. Don’t count me out on that one.
Some of the directors you worked with… You have the most accomplished resume imaginable. There’s a good chance you’ve worked on most people’s favourite film. How does that feel?
I feel very humbled and fortunate to have had the career that I’ve had and I think that if I have any reason to point to that success it’s because I’ve been surrounded by incredibly talented people my entire career.
When I first got started in the business I was really lucky to work on films like Grease and Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. What 22 year-old isn’t excited to be sitting on a stage with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas? There was a time we were working on Empire. It was my birthday and the mixers hired me a belly dancer. They told me to come onto the stage and as I walked out onto the stage they had a belly dancer singing “Happy Birthday” to me while Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill were sitting on the side of the room watching and I think it was one of the weirdest experiences of my life.
Did the lads get into the mix, start belly dancing?
No. I think they were about as embarrassed for me as I was to be honest with you.
But listen, I’ve had the experience of working with some of the best storytellers of our time and I think Tony Scott is right there at the top of that list. I learned more from Tony Scott than any other director in my life. I was 26 when I mixed Top Gun with Tony. Tony taught me how to get more out of a soundtrack than anybody. From Top Gun to Days Of Thunder to True Romance, just about every movie of his I worked on and every time I worked with Tony he always wanted to push the envelope which made me a better mixer. He was also a really good friend. You work with a guy like Michael Bay, you learn to push to the edge of the envelope. And also Jerry Bruckheimer. I’ve done at least twenty films with Jerry Bruckheimer and when you work with guys who are at the top of their game, it makes you strive to be better yourself. Like I said, I feel very humble and fortunate to have worked with such a great bunch of guys.
Clip via Warner Bros.
What was your experience of working on True Romance?
Anytime you work on a Tony Scott movie it’s some of the greatest fun because Tony was a really fun guy to be around. Even though you worked really, really hard he made it really fun. He smoked Monte Cristo number 2’s which you paid $30 for. He’d smoke like three or four a day. The room was always filled with smoke but in a good way. We were always laughing and joking and having fun. One scene in particular is the one where Dennis Hopper is being interrogated by Christopher Walken. He’s sitting there and he asks Christopher Walken for a cigarette. And Dennis Hopper lights his cigarette. And the sound of Dennis Hopper taking a drag on that cigarette we must have worked on for two hours. The crackle, crunch. Tony felt that that moment was a particular moment of stress that he wanted everybody to understand. Because that’s the way Tony was. Like I said, he was a true artist.
Plus the score by Hans Zimmer makes it one of the greatest scenes of any film I’ve ever been involved with.
How important were movies growing up in the O’Connell household?
Growing up both my parents were involved in the film industry. My father was an accountant and my mother was the assistant to the head of the sound department at 20th Century Fox in the 1960’s. I got to go down onto the set of all these movies and television shows like Daniel Boon and Batman and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. They were all done on the Fox lot so I would visit the sets of those and The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure. It was never my desire to be in the film business, I was really interested in being a fireman when I was a kid so when I was 18 I took the test and became a Los Angeles county firefighter.
I did that job for about a year and it was a really, really tough job because I was part of the camp crews. They’re the crews that drove around putting out brush fires. I was 19 and still living at home and my Mom said, “This job looks terrible, it looks dangerous. I’d rather you thought about getting a job at the studio”. So I reluctantly agreed about a year into the Fire Department job that I’d go down and check out the studio. I thought it was kind of boring at first because it was a couple of guys sitting around in a dark room watching 35mm of film reels spinning around and I didn’t quite understand what was going on there. And then I thought about it some more, fought some more harsh fires and said, “Alright Ma, I’ll give it a shot”. When I was 20 I got a job at Samuel Goldwyn studios and that was the year I got to work on Grease and Hair and a lot of other cool films. From that moment on I never looked back and was just grateful to the opportunity she gave me to get into the sound department.
The image of being a fireman saving a beautiful lady from a fire versus the reality of putting out brush fires…
I still have an image of myself saving a beautiful lady from a fire. It hasn’t happened yet.
You’ve got a year of experience under your belt so when it does happen, you’ll be golden.
I’ll be ready.
What are your memories of Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid?
Clip via Movieclips Trailer Vault
That was my first mixing job ever. That was back in a time when I was 23 years-old which was pretty young to be sitting behind a mixing console. There was no formal training to become a mixer at that time so my first day mixing was my first day on the job. It was directed by Carl Reiner and produced by Steve Martin. The picture editor was a guy named Bud Moleman who used to cut the I Love Lucy series. I felt kind of pressured, you know? Because I’m sitting in a room with Steve Martin and Carl Reiner behind me. I said to the mixer that I was working with a guy named Bill Varney, I said “Bill, I’ve got about fifteen tracks here. What do I do?” He said “Put them all on minus ten”.
The movie starts out with a thunder and lighting storm and a car skidding down a muddy road. So on this fader you’ve got some tracks of thunder, and then on this fader there’s four or five tracks of lighting, and there’s also skids and car engines and crashing sounds. Anyway, I put them all on minus ten and we push forward and what came out of the speaker was the loudest, most distorted sound you’ve heard in your life. I was frozen like a deer in the headlights with my fingers just hovering over the faders not knowing what to do and I looked over at Bill Varney and he’s screaming at me at the top of his lungs and I can’t hear him. So I lean in and he says, “YOU’RE PLAYING EVERYTHING TOO LOUD?” So I ask him, “Should I put it on minus 20?” and he said “YES!” So I pulled everything down to minus 20 and I looked behind me and Carl Reiner had his hands in his ears and Steve Martin looked like he was about to throw up and Bud was actually getting sick. It was one of the most shocking things that had ever happened to me. I didn’t know quite what to do.
Sounds like a nightmare.
It was like a nightmare.
And because Carl Reiner was such a sweet man and so was Steve Martin, I was able to squeak by on that one but my very next film after that was Poltergeist which was a Steven Spielberg project. He didn’t “direct it” but he did direct it. Tobe Hooper was the credited director but when we were mixing Steven Spielberg was the one sitting at the console giving us direction. That was a much more complex movie than Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. I just remember Steven Spielberg leaning over to me and whispering in my ear, he was trying to tell me something he wanted me to do with the keys when the family run out of the house and get in the car. And the second he started talking to me all I heard was * slowed down, distorted noise * and it got all echoy because Steven Spielberg was whispering in my ear. And I’m like twenty-three years old so it’s a little bit intimidating.
Clip via Movieclips Trailer Vault
Do you recall what you said?
I remember answering him by saying, “Yes, absolutely” and then immediately after that I looked over to Bill and said “What did he say?” and he said “Raise the keys”. The emotion that Steven was trying to get was that they’d run out of the house and were trying to get in the car and get the car started but they couldn’t get the keys in the ignition so he wanted the sound of the keys to be the sound of the anxiety they were going through.
So Tobe Hooper was the credited director?
He directed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie back in the 70’s which was gruesome and cool. But Tobe directed the film but really Steven was the guy gaffing the mix on the stage. Tobe would come in and sit in the back and would hang out.
Not a bad job if you can get it. What is your favourite film you’ve worked on?
My favourite film that I’ve worked on always comes back to me as Top Gun. I was 26 years-old. It was about as cool as a movie that you could work on. It was about sexy people, cool music. We had Berlin and Kenny Loggins music and “Danger Zone” and “Take My Breath Away”. And nothing but jets and good looking guys and gals.
Dialogue like that becomes part of our vernacular, and no movie has got more mileage from quick lines like Top Gun. “I’ve got a need, a need for speed”. It’s like almost every line from that movie has become iconic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAfbp3YX9F0
Clip via TheTrailerGal
Do you know what lines are going to stand the test of time when you first hear them?
You never know what’s going to stick and everything is different. The Top Gun lines have just become such a part of what we say and do in everyday life and people just accept them. It’s a really cool thing to be apart of. No one is more grateful for their career than myself.
Thanks for talking to us Kevin and we’ll keep our fingers and toes crossed for you on Oscar night.
Great talking to you and please give my best to your sound engineer. Tell him not to be disappointment and to hang on in there.
Hacksaw Ridge is on release in Irish cinemas now. The Academy Awards are on tonight with full coverage tomorrow on JOE.
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