The Sound of NOPE with Jordan Peele & Johnnie Burn

In this exclusive SoundWorks Collection video, Director Jordan Peele and Supervising Sound Editor, Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer Johnnie Burn discuss the creative process for crafting the sonic world of NOPE. They explore the use of silence, haunting winds, slowed down peacock vocals and startling chimpanzee foley.

A man and his sister discover something sinister in the skies above their California horse ranch, while the owner of a nearby theme park tries to profit from the mysterious, otherworldly phenomenon.

"What they've orchestrated as the soundscape of this film is otherworldly in a way so haunting that I literally had nightmares just about these sounds. Some of them come from terrestrial terrors, allowing Peele to suggest scenes of grisly violence without making a gruesome visual spectacle. Instead, off-camera attacks are seen in shrewd glimpses, but the violence hits hard because of the wet, pulpy thuds of the blows coming down. You don't need to see the blood when you can hear it." MASHABLE.COM

"NOPE has been hand-tooled for the kind of presentation you can only get in a real theater — preferably Imax, to take full advantage of the film’s striking production design and eerie sound mix, which ranges from a thunderous, cinderblock-shaking roar to the kind of hush that isn’t so much a stillness as a sonic vacuum: the kind of silence in which you hear nothing but your own heartbeat. Kudos to sound designer Johnnie Burn" THE WASHINGTON POST

JOHNNIE BURN:
Johnnie Burn is a British Film Sound Designer, Supervisor and Re-Recording Mixer working on films that use sound well, in London, New York & LA. Recent work is the immersive soundscape and sound design of Jordan Peele’s NOPE.

His first film outing was Jonathan Glazers' extraordinary UNDER THE SKIN, which led him to meet director Yorgos Lanthimos in 2015 to work on THE LOBSTER, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER in 2017 and The Academy Award winning THE FAVOURITE in 2019. Johnnie had great success with Trey Edward Shults’ WAVES (2019), and more recently the incredible Francis Lee's AMMONITE.

Before movies, Johnnie honed his skills on many of the best sounding ads and music videos of the last few decades, and has been lucky to have worked for icons including Travis Scott, Madonna, Prince, George Michael, David Bowie, Richard Ashcroft, UNKLE and even The Spice Girls, designed the sounds you heard on SKYPE, and continues to grow the HUGELEY talented team @Wavestudios London, New York and Amsterdam.

WATCH NOPE:
www.nope.movie

JOHNNIE BURN:
www.johnnieburn.com