‘Everything Everywhere All At Once‘ features unusual, creative concepts, so its sound team had to get equally out-there. Don’t miss Part 1!
The Daniels’ ideas of what might exist in parallel universes range from nearly normal to flat-out bizarre. In one verse, humans have hot dog hands. Twite created the hand sounds by recording a collection of very thin belts pilfered from his wife’s closet, twisting the leafy ends of leeks, drumming his fingers on his belly, and adding in a dose of cat food squishes that the Daniels favored.”
In another verse, a raccoon named Raccacoonie (voiced by composer Randy Newman) hides under the hat of a novice Hibachi chef, controlling his movements by tugging on the chef’s hair. ADR supervisor Diaz used Sounds in Sync’s EdiCue to help cue Newman’s lines and his singing, but he also performed lots of extra material off-the-cuff, channeling the inspiration of being a raccoon that’s been picked up by animal control.
“Randy was amazing. He was just riffing off all these lines and we were all laughing,” says Diaz, who passed much of the additional takes and improvisations over to composer Ryan Lott of Son Lux, who did the score. “A lot of the extra takes were added to the songs in the soundtrack, as were recordings from actress Stephanie Hsu, who played Joy/Jobu. She was randomly singing in the ADR session, and that ended up in the soundtrack for the movie.”
Diaz also recorded the Martial Club—a Hong Kong-style martial arts trio of brothers Andy and Brian Le and their friend Daniel Mah—who helped to coordinate the fight scenes and also appeared on screen for a tussle involving a fanny pack. “We had them in the recording room, and they’re literally fighting each other so we could get realistic grunts and efforts,” Diaz explains. “There is a five-minute recording of them doing flips and trying not to kick the mic. Then, at the end, one would say a line from the film that goes, ‘Oh, Kevin. F**k.’ and get hit in the face.”
The ADR fight sound sessions were important for building out the numerous fight scenes in a visceral and brutal way. Kiser notes, “Their efforts and grunts added a whole other level of detail. The whooshes and impacts accentuate the precision of the movements, but ADR efforts and grunts are what ground the fights in reality.”
While the majority of the film is full-on sound, there are moments of reprieve, such as the verse that consists of nothing more than majestic rock formations and shifting winds. Re-recording mixer Fehrman worked with director Scheinert to craft Twite’s trove of wind tracks into a delicate scene that capitalizes on the Dolby Atmos capabilities.
Fehrman says: “It started as this big atmospheric moment, but we slowly boiled it down. Dan [Scheinert] was very specific. He wanted us to be able to trace one wind that comes in from the left and then another one that sort of drifts in after that. There’s a distant wind chime. It’s a moment to breathe and meditate on all that we’ve just seen and heard in the film. Everything is very subtle, yet immersive.”
