91st Oscars Backstage Interview Transcript: SOUND EDITING

SPEECH BY: John Warhurst and Nina Hartstone

FILM: "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY"

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Q. Congratulations on the award. 
A. (Nina Hartstone)  Thank you. 
A. (John Warhurst)  Thank you.

Q. And not to conflate the editing and mixing sides, but since the same film won both sound awards, my question will be the same:  What do you do when you are recreating sound when that sound is iconic and known by millions in pre digital?  In other words, it exists, it's part of our cultural heritage, and yet you are called upon at the same time to recreate. 
A. (John Warhurst)  Well, I mean, we use parts.  You know, we use, say, for example, we take Live Aid.  We used the actual original multitrack of Live Aid, which was the original recording from them.  But then we recreated all the    the whole crowds of Live Aid, which was obviously new.  So it's sort of a blend of old and new recordings.  And I think that we always wanted to keep the spirit    there was definitely    we have to keep the spirit of Queen, and, you know, in the film.  And it had to be the Queen that everybody knew with the same sort of sound everybody knew.  But it also had to work in, you know, in the cinema in 2018, in Dolby Atmos.  So it was sort of a blend, a mixture of the two.  That's what we aimed for. 

Q. Congratulations. 
A. (Nina Hartstone)  Yeah.  Hi.  Thank you. 

Q. Thanks.  It's very obvious that you became very close with Queen and the team from Queen Productions during    well, including this week.  Could you tell us a little bit about what it's been like today so far?  You know, what have you talked about, and what have you just experienced and learned together? 
A. (Nina Hartstone)  I mean, the    actually, apart from winning the Oscar, the absolute highlight for me was having the Oscars opened by Queen, which was just massive.  I didn't feel like it could get any more exciting than that moment as when they came on stage.  But, yeah, it's been a thrilling day.  It's obviously my first time here, and to win, it's been incredible. 

Q. Hi.  Congratulations to both. 
A. (John Warhurst)  Thank you.

Q. This is such a celebration for all the women in the room.  I'm so happy for you.  What is something that you learned at Pinewood Studios so many years ago that stuck with you all these years? 
A. (Nina Hartstone)  I think I learned that the film industry is a hard industry.  You have to work very hard to get on.  You have to think on your feet and collaborate with everyone around you.  And it's basically just trying to learn as much as you can as you're coming up through the industry so that you can be useful and work your way up through it.  That's basically what I learned.
A. (John Warhurst)  There was one thing actually, which we ran out of time for, which was about Nina, that we run out of time for in our speech, but along this journey, we actually found out that Nina is the first European woman to be nominated in the sound editing category and now the first European woman to win a sound editing award.
A. (Nina Hartstone)  Hopefully there will be many more women after this year, hopefully. 

Q. Congratulations to both of you. 
A. (Nina Hartstone)  Thank you very much.

 

 


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