Wuthering Heights – a re-recording mixer’s dream job

Goldcrest’s Jamie Roden had the opportunity to work together with Tom Johnson as re-recording mixers on Andrea Arnold’s highly acclaimed raw and windblown film adaptation of Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’. The film was one of three British films to blow away audiences at the Venice Film Festival.

Director Andrea Arnold wanted the team to aurally describe the picture closely straddling the fine line between a realistic production sound feel and a cinematic experience without leading the picture. Following Robbie Ryan’s award-winning cinematography and Nicolas Chaudeurge’s picture editing, Tom and Jamie kept the sound “feeling fluid and organic”.

Jamie explains further, “Andrea wanted the character of Heathcliff to have an affinity with the trees and the animals and Cathy with the weather. The cinematographer Robbie Ryan captured some breathtaking movement of the trees and our job was to describe the picture as genuinely as possible." Nicolas Becker, the Sound Supervisor spent two weeks at the location recording the sound of wind, rain, trees, etc. He used a range of techniques such as contact microphones on the tree bark and small pin mics placed deep in cracks to capture the internal sound of movement from the tree.

Director Andrea Arnold clearly was impressed with the sound’s outcome. “I love the way Wuthering sounds. Goldcrest is the best. The people there are passionate about making films. They care. They know what they are talking about and they are nice with it. Working with them was the bees knees.”