Meet Nia Hansen

SF & Fantasy Author, Film Sound Designer

Nia has been at Skywalker Sound since 2009, first interning with Director of Sound Design Randy Thom and then apprenticing with Gary Rydstrom on several films that cemented her understanding of sound design as a storytelling element. Nia has worked on Disney and Pixar animations, as well as VFX-heavy sci-fi and fantasy blockbusters including over ten films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She enjoys the creative challenge of designing unique technological and otherworldly sounds.

Nia and Aslı Yalçın (Field recordist and co-founder at Vadi Sound) had a written conversation about the amazing projects that Nia has undertaken during her career, how she approaches her work and the things and people that shaped her professional journey.

There are so many interesting points and real-life examples here for both the young and the seasoned folks in audio! Thank you Nia and here we go!

How did you become a film sound designer and an author? What are some of the experiences as well as people that helped you build this career and the professional you are today?

I was one of those creative, imaginative kids who was always making things up, telling stories in whatever medium was at hand, and exploring out in nature, so it was probably inevitable that I would end up in the arts. That said, I can’t remember any key formative experience that sparked a passion to pursue either writing or sound.

I’ve been writing since I was little—creating worlds and characters, and following the evolution of their stories—though only recently did I decide to buckle down on learning writing craft and pursue traditional publication. This growth was mostly informal as there are plenty of learning resources available, and I gathered a group of wonderful other authors around me for critiques and support. Contrary to my work in audio, which involves teams and clients, writing is mostly a solo practice where I have a lot of creative control, and has been a nice companion to sound—except for double the deadlines of course!

I came to film sound in a roundabout way, looking for a career that fit in the middle of too many different interests from music to philosophy to physics. I found an intersection in audio storytelling—more game audio than film post, at this point—and my research led me to the Vancouver Film School’s “Sound Design for Visual Media” program in 2008. This course was 12 months long and touched on most aspects of recording, synthesis, foley, sound editing, sound mixing, game audio, and music production—a good all-around primer.

After hard work and a stroke of strange luck, I graduated straight into an internship at Skywalker Sound and a series of powerful mentors: Randy Thom, Gary Rydstrom, Chris Boyes, Shannon Mills, Juan Peralta, Tom Johnson, and many more. This early learning curve dumped me in with an amazing crew who stuck together through over ten Marvel films. Together we refined workflows and communication, tackling new sound challenges while handling familiar legacy material. All the while, I progressed through various roles from assistant to foley supervising, to sound effects editing and deeper into sound design and co-supervising.

What type of projects do you take on now and what services do you provide?

I primarily work on science fiction and fantasy films, both live action and animated. When I was first heading into audio post production, I didn’t expect to be able to work on two of my favorite genres, but I’m delighted it turned out that way!

My role as a sound designer includes creating new signature sounds for the film (in these genres that includes things like technology, spaceships, aliens, monsters, magic, superpowers, weapons, etc.), editing and presenting sounds, meeting with clients for spotting and review, coordinating the effects crew, and maintaining the overall quality, aesthetic direction, and consistency of the project. I also do sound effects editing on the projects I’m sound designer on, and others.

What’s some of the good and not so good aspects of your jobs?

The good: it’s deeply creative play and I’m able to work with other creatives who bring interesting ideas to elevate the work. Field recording trips are so much fun and allow for unique experiences like interacting with exotic animals, visiting unusual locations, or learning about niche hobbies and activities. The job is both artistic and technical, working both sides of the brain, and I often get to change gears quite a bit as the schedule progresses so the work is never too repetitive. There’s also nothing quite like getting to see the finished product in a big theater!

The not-so-good: schedules are often in flux and can shift around, plus early design work cropping up unexpectedly up to a year in advance of main post production. The unpredictability can make it hard to plan jobs, time off, and finances. Another downside for my role in particular is that it can be isolating and high-pressure at times before our full crew has begun editorial, meaning I don’t have opportunities to get feedback or bounce ideas off others, and there isn’t budget for an apprentice to assist with the workload.

I know you’ve worked on lots of big projects. As a sound designer, when and how do you get involved with films?

I start alongside the supervising sound editor in the earliest stage, helping look at the project’s scope, potential schedule, and the editors we’ll need. Projects typically come to us anywhere from a year to two or three years in advance of when post production is due to begin. I start early to meet with the clients and hear their ideas and goals, watch clips or an early cut of the film, and start organizing what’s needed in terms of recordings, new design, and info for my crew later on. I’ll also do a week or two of early sound design here and there to start creating sounds for the main design elements of the movie and review these with the filmmakers to ensure we’re headed in the right direction or if/how we need to course correct. This material also gets integrated into the film cut as it continues to evolve, so they’re living with some “real” audio versus temp sound effects.

Do directors you work with usually have ideas for sound design? Were there any films where the director brought some creative ideas and how did you two co-create film’s sound?

We always get the directors’ thoughts early on, although these conversations are usually story-based or character- and emotion-based. Sound can be a tricky thing to articulate even if you do know the technical terms and lingo, but we all know how to talk about story. Some examples of how these discussions go:

• On Pixar’s Onward, the young main character, Ian, is trying to master various magical spells, leading up to his victory in the big climactic battle. In our initial discussions, there were no visual ideas for the different spells yet, so we focused on making Ian’s character arc crystal clear. He progresses from finding the magic scary and out of control, to slowly gaining confidence and power. The sound design needed to convey this, as well as make each magic spell distinct and signature enough that they would be recognizable when used quickly in the middle of action later on.

• On Disney’s Encanto, we focused on how to bring to life the sound of the living house, La Casita, and how to convey a variety of emotions and phrases using purely natural materials like tiles, wood boards, stones, and metal, sort of like R2D2’s expressiveness.

• On Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War, our biggest focus was the penultimate weapon, the Infinity Gauntlet, set with six magical stones that control space, time, and reality. The original idea was that each of the stones’ activation would sound distinct from the others, but be able to be played in tandem like notes in a chord. In the end, the Gauntlet wasn’t used in a way where this idea would be apparent, so we settled for one signature tonal activation sound—a weird synth “bwaaa”—that signaled the Gauntlet about to be used, and the fear/stakes associated with that. Each stone’s subsequent effects were made to sound unique from each other and recognizable across not just this film but the previous Marvel Cinematic Universe installments these universal powers have appeared in.

• On Disney’s Wish, our discussions of the two kinds of magic were focused on the emotions they represented: the little character Star’s warm, wondrous, sparkling, good-feeling golden magic, and the villain character’s corrupted, insidious, all-consuming magic. Similarly, on Disney’s Big Hero 6, we discussed the material nature of Baymax, a robot, in terms of his inflatable, lovable, warm and squishy mode contrasted with his hard, cold, powerful battlebot armor.

Myself and my co-supervisor also work closely with the picture editor, who functions as a go-between with the directors and generally knows what’s in the pipeline in terms of visuals and story direction. Sometimes our early talks are just based on the script, but usually start later on in tandem with art, storyboard, test sequences, or scenes. With animated films or ones that are heavy with visual effects, a lot of the early sound design discussion is to help us understand what things are going to look and function like when the visuals are final. What material is this, how is it going to behave, what is the important story point?

Subtle sounds can be just as effective for supporting and/or telling the story. What advice would you share on using subtle sounds as effective tools of storytelling? Can you share examples of that in your work?

In some of the action-packed and music-heavy films I work on, there isn’t as much breathing room for subtlety in design, but those quiet moments become opportunities to reset the loudness level with the audience, and to use detail or subconscious sounds to get them to “lean in” toward the story. This could be small, intimate sounds that connect us to place and character, like creaks in a building, specific wisps of wind, body shuffles …or very subliminal, surreal sounds that don’t fit to anything in the scene but can play a subconscious emotion, like a drone, a rumble, a long breath, or a whine.

One example I like is from First Man, a practical, period film about the astronaut Neil Armstrong. I got to do the first pass of sound editing on the Agena spin sequence, which starts with a stressful but successful spacecraft docking maneuver and the resulting quiet after initial celebration. A problem with the docking develops through a tension of subtle sounds, first gentle human foley movements and small noises of instruments and craft creaks, slowly escalating into a life-threatening spin. There’s no music through this sequence, so we get to hear detail in individual sounds—beeps, tiny thrusters, switches, rattles and creaks, low moans, whirling rhythms—that are selling the tug-of-war between control and chaos as the two astronauts try to correct the spin. This sequence could have easily been a wall of music or a cacophony of noise without shaping the tension or tightening the connection to the human element. As the scene climaxes with intense spinning, we get into Neil’s head, the point-of-view and the sound field narrowing down, his breathing loud. Subtle use of sound can be in the mix choice as well, where we bring out the detail or intent of a few sounds.

Subtlety is excellent for tension. There’s a delicate, high-stakes surgery scene in Marvel’s Doctor Strange where the operating room is silent and we get to play with isolated details to build tension and convey progress good or bad: the whine of a drill, subtle foley, a ticking watch, the insertion of an instrument into the brain, and of course beats of silence that make us lean in.

Subtlety is also important in realistic creature design, whether it’s a monstrous human like The Hulk, or a dragon, alien, or cute critter. Breathing sounds and nasal/mouth sounds as connective tissue around the vocals is a powerful way to convey emotion and add realism. With Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok, we processed Ruffalo’s dialogue and I did a separate pass of breaths and growls sourced from big animals like bulls, tigers, walrus, and bears, to fill out around the dialogue, sell his size, and make him feel truly bestial.

Can you talk about your approach to adding pre-recorded sound effects vs on-set on Foley recording? How do you use dialogue and sound effects? And what’s your approach to silence and ambiences?

We get very limited usable production sound effects, but it does help us determine sync, especially for foley. Of course, everything depends on the on-set sound production crew and what circumstances they’re tackling. The visual effects heavy films I work on involve green screen, noisy costumes, wind machines, fake vehicles, foam props, and other sonic challenges. On set, the focus is to capture clean dialogue. Anything else is a bonus!

There have been a few instances where sound recordists on set have been able to record valuable material for us in between production takes. For example, on Spielberg’s War Horse, the recordist was able to get us great material from some of the horses, artillery, guns, and in-character crowds. On Marvel’s Black Widow, we were able to get some recordings of the production motorcycles for better accuracy during a city chase scene.

With ambience versus silence, I’m always trying to focus on storytelling and mood rather than covering everything we see on screen literally. The shape of the final soundtrack is up to the re-recording mixer, so in preparation for that, I split the ambiences up into categories for greater control and I try to provide enough material to fill the theater and create immersion. Even if it’s a very quiet scene, there are different flavors of “vanilla” airs and subtle ambiences that can maintain the sense of space and the intimacy with the picture, without being loud or busy.

How much of your time is in post and what is your preferred approach there? What about designed sound effects and use of synth?

My workflow starts with and early viewing of the film and discussions with the filmmakers, and a big-picture organization of what sounds the film needs, as well as how to organize my efforts and my team. Next I’ll gather assets from the sound library and record new sounds, which might be in the studio with things I have on hand or might involve research and travel. Once I’ve gathered the elements I want to play with, then I’m layering, manipulating, and processing these into new designs.

The sound design style I learned from my early mentors, Gary Rydstrom and Shannon Mills, was to keep things as organic as possible, versus synthesized. This means recording/gathering sounds that are close to what you need, and processing as little as possible. There are a lot of plugins I love—I just use them sparingly and with intent! I feel like the more a sound gets processed and run through plugins, the more it starts to lose character and devolve into a robotic sound that would be the same no matter what source you fed in initially. I would rather start with a sound that’s already cool and interesting, and make it better, than try to manipulate a boring sound into something expressive. Additionally, I find the act of sound effect recording and playing around with objects and environments to be idea-generating: I’ll often come away not only with useful sound material, but with new thoughts about how to approach the design I’m aiming for.

Leaning on organic sounds maintains a degree of believability and tactility that’s important for grounding sci-fi and fantasy films, helping the sound “stick to picture” and resonate with the audience. For example, manipulating real animal sounds into monsters and aliens carries a primal emotion that humans respond to subconsciously.

How has your sound design evolved and expanded throughout the years?

I’ve truly learned from every phase and experience: transcribing spotting session and playback notes, transferring old recording DAT tapes from decades ago, recording out in the field and in the studio, mastering sound recordings, editing sound effects from library, noodling with plugins, sitting in on the premix and final mix. Being able to work with different crews and in different roles during my early career was incredible lucky and valuable.

Cross-pollination of skills and knowledge between roles has been a huge part of my growth. Beyond the techniques I could apply to all areas my work, I gained more empathy for people in other departments, and learned the things that saved others time downstream and gave them that time to be more creative and elevate the work further. My sound recording, mastering, and metadata skills leveled up immensely once I got experience navigating and utilizing the sound library myself as a sound effects editor. My foley spotting became way more efficient once I took a seat as the foley mixer and saw how those cues were actually handled during recording. Editing foley off the stage made me better at knowing how to cue them to get what I actually needed, and how to waste less of the foley artists’ valuable time. Sitting in on the premix and final mix stages—when edited material is being weeded and shaped and combined together—gave me a sense of what was actually necessary to cut as an editor, where I was overcutting, what sort of recordings or processing I could do earlier to save stage time, and so on.

My workflow and sound design style now, 15 years in, is a result of this constant cross-pollination between supervising, mixing, foley, sound effects, recording, and design. Added to this, I try to learn as much as I can from others who have a different style or technique than mine, and I learn from every new film because there is always—always! —something in it that I’ve never tackled before. All the tricks and creative thinking I’ve absorbed helps me become faster at closing the gap between the idea of what I want and executing it, which was my biggest struggle early on.

What’s your experience of being a woman in audio? Based on these and as an avid supporter of women in audio, can you share some recommendations with both the young and seasoned women that are working in audio?

Women are, at best, still only 5% of the industry. This has been palpable to me in every room since film school, and is a constant reality even when in supportive bubbled environments like Skywalker Sound. I’m often the only woman on a sound crew, or in a filmmaker meeting, and every year when film awards time comes around again, I scan down the list of nominees and see we’re still only 2%, if that.

I try to make an effort to connect with more women in audio, and to be visible for and available to the younger women in school or starting their career. Doing interviews like this, podcasts and articles, being accessible on social media, or present on awards ballots is showing those women that we are taking up space they can have too. I find this especially important in sound design and sound effects editing, departments that are even more male-dominated than others like foley and dialogue.

I may have limited time to give, but I make an effort to give it to marginalized folks in the audio industry, and extend opportunities that direction when I’m able. One of my recommendations is to not be too shy to reach out to other women in the industry for connection, discussions, sharing resources, advice, or mentorship. Our circles will be curated with advocates who you can connect with as well.

Thank you so much, Aslı, for hosting this interview and letting me share some stories and experience!