The Sound of Joker - Oscar Podcast 2020

Academy Award-winning sound supervisor Alan Murray and re-recording mixers Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic discuss how they used impressionistic sound design to take the audience inside Arthur Fleck’s mind. They also deconstruct the film’s centerpiece subway confrontation and let the audience in on how a simple door creak can unnerve an audience. In the second part of this conversation, production sound mixer Tod Maitland discusses the challenges of capturing a gritty and disturbing 1970s Gotham City on the streets of a very modern-day New York.

Joker is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver. The film, based on DC Comics characters, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. Joker provides a possible origin story for the character; set in 1981, it follows Arthur Fleck, a failed stand-up comedian whose descent into insanity and nihilism inspires a violent counter-cultural revolution against the wealthy in a decaying Gotham City.