‘Blonde’ Sound Team on How Ana de Armas Perfected Marilyn Monroe’s Voice

variety.com:

Courtney Howard Sound designer/re-recording mixer Leslie Shatz has used his finely tuned skills to service many movies, from cutting Yoda’s dialogue in “The Empire Strikes Back” to collaborating with Toto on David Lynch’s “Dune.” Yet with “Blonde” (now streaming on Netflix), based on author Joyce Carol Oates’ fictionalized look at Marilyn Monroe’s life and death, he and filmmaker Andrew Dominik (“Killing Them Softly,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”) reunite a third time to create a striking sonic experience. “Andrew’s very untraditional in terms of sound,” Shatz says. “He wants sounds to have an emotional context.” In order to immerse audiences in their heroine’s psychological trials, the team crafts a soundscape that augments the narrative’s thematic resonance. “One of the things we talked about was to keep the sound moving, [to give it] a swirling feeling to keep you in a dreamlike state, or keep you unsettled, with the world constantly moving around you.” Shatz continues, “I experimented with panning the music also, because the music had a very dreamlike aspect to it that lent itself to being moved around the room.” As Norma Jeane herself transformed into the silver-screen persona of Marilyn Monroe, star Ana de Armas changed her own natural Cuban accent into the icon’s breathy voice. “Ana wanted to perfect the voice of Marilyn in post and she devoted much time and energy to it.” The process proved beneficial. “We took it under a microscope.” This included recording dialogue for recreations of Monroe’s films utilizing period-specific equipment. “We were using a ribbon mic and a way that the instruments record her, using equipment and processing to give it a period feel.” Bringing in