For Director David Fincher’s latest film Mank — now available on Netflix — he’s teamed up once again with his long-time collaborator, supervising sound editor Ren Klyce. Here, Klyce shares details on creating an ‘old Hollywood’ feel by working in mono, adding patina layers of analog equipment hiss and natural ‘theater’ reverb, and creating a special filter modeled after the original Citizen Kane .
Jennifer Walden
December 10, 2020
A Sound Effect
Fight Club, Se7en, The Game, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Zodiac, Mindhunter, House of Cards, Panic Room, and the list goes on — these are just some of the amazing projects that Director David Fincher and supervising sound editor Ren Klyce have worked on together.
One of the hallmarks of Fincher’s films is the attention to detail, and Klyce is an apposite candidate to fill that bill sonically. The seven-time Oscar-nominated sound supervisor/sound designer is never short of creative ideas and solutions, as he demonstrates most recently on Mank.
Mank is a biographical drama on how Citizen Kane came to be, who the writers were (Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles), and what the extent of their collaboration was on the film.
Fincher wanted Mank to have an ‘old Hollywood’ feel, so Klyce comes up with a multi-step sonic patina process that includes running the mix through a filter modeled after the sonic shape of the original Citizen Kane film, adding layers of analog film equipment noise and hiss, and adding in natural reverb created by playing the final mix back on a scoring stage and capturing the room bounce.
Here, Klyce shares enlightening and amusing details on how they achieved that patina, the important role of Foley, orchestrating sound effects and music, and so much more!
The Fincher Analyst 