LAFS Alum and Production Sound Mixer Phillip Bladh Talks Sound of Metal, A24, and Oscar Night
For most professionals working in the entertainment industry, the dream of winning an Oscar remains just that, an elusive, distant maybe.
That maybe turned into a yes in 2021 for sound mixer Phillip Bladh, a graduate of our 2008 recording arts program, when he had the honor that few people get, hearing his name read out loud for the Best Sound category, as part of the winning sound team for the 2019 critically acclaimed film, Sound of Metal during the 93rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony.
Few people understand the emotional power of sound in film better than Phillip Bladh.
Sound of Metal, directed by Darius Marder (The Place Beyond the Pines) and starring Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler, Jason Bourne, Rogue One) and Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon, Bates Motel), relied heavily on the expertise of its sound professionals to tell the touching, poignant, and at times sonically imposing story of a heavy-metal drummer going through the life-altering experience of losing his hearing.
Their efforts received continuous high praise since premiering at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, for their sound design approach of manipulating the sound in the film to present the audience with different perspectives and have been repeatedly referenced as case studies and examples of sound design technique.
By the end of 2019, Sound of Metal appeared on 52 film critics’ top-ten lists for 2020 as the ninth highest-ranked film, including first place on five lists and second place on seven lists, setting it well on its way to becoming an awards season contender.
At the 93rd Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor (Riz Ahmed), and Best Supporting Actor (Paul Raci), winning for Best Sound and Best Film Editing
In the surreal moment after his name was called, Phillip and his team made their way to the stage, receiving their Oscars in front of presenters and nominees such as Bong Joon-ho, Brad Pitt, Bryan Cranston, David Fincher, Glenn Close, Harrison Ford, Joaquin Phoenix, Margot Robbie, Reese Witherspoon, and Zendaya. Now forever honored as the best of the best in their field.
“Funny story about the Oscars. I’m standing there holding my award during the ceremony, and another mixer was like, ‘Go talk to anybody. You’re officially one of the guys now.’ So I go and talk to Steven Soderbergh [who oversaw production of the ceremony that year], and I tell him how much I enjoy his movies.”
Phillip’s journey from graduating from The Los Angeles Recording School in 2008 to standing on the Oscars stage in 2020 for his work on the Sound of Metal was neither quick nor easy. And it was those experiences along the way that helped prepare him for accomplishing award-winning work on this film.
In this interview, Phillip takes us inside of his big breaks along the way that led to working on Sound of Metal and his personal experience at the 93rd Annual Academy Awards.
Philip, congratulations on all of your achievements and your Oscar win! How did you end up working on this Oscar-nominated film?
PB: I had actually worked with producer Chris Stinson (The Holdovers, The Drama)on an A24 movie, one of the first A24 movies from 2017 called The Lovers in Santa Clarita.
A24 was still in the process of establishing itself as a production house, having specialized in distribution.
It’s funny because our A24 rep told us, ‘Hey, we just produced our first low-budget movie. it’s coming out soon. We just wrapped a week ago, it’s called Moonlight, you should keep an eye out for it’
I was like, ‘Ok.’
And then, you know, it goes on to be THE movie, their first fully produced movie wins Best Picture, how crazy is that?
Wow, yeah, that was a big shift for them. Early on, before Moonlight, they’d done things like Spring Breakers and Ex Machina, right? None of us will ever forget that Best Picture reveal moment, with the La La Land mix-up. Now it feels like every other film is an A24 film.
PB: Yeah, I mean, they have been really up and down. I’ve worked on tons of A24 stuff and have seen the growth they’ve had.
Now I sometimes see newly released movies, and I’m like, that’s from A24?
They kind of do everything now.
Right. They just had a big year with Marty Supreme and others like Lady Bird in the past. So you were working with Chris Stinson?
PB: Yes, out of all of my past work, my relationship with A24 is probably a big break, too. I started working with them early on in their journey, so I kind of got in early.
They would bring me out to different locations for shoots.
Through those opportunities, I’d worked with Chris Stinson.
There was this situation where they couldn’t find anyone to work on their $2.8 million budget indie movie in Boston, because everyone else was on other productions like the first Knives Out.
So he emailed me and asked if I would be interested in working on it, and I replied, “Sure. Send me the script.”
I read it. It was Sound of Metal.
I thought, I would do anything, anything to work on this movie.
That’s how great I thought it was, but never thinking, “This is gonna be my Oscar film.”
Never. Never once. Not even while we were shooting it.
I mean, I came from Indie world, so like those things just didn’t happen.
WATCH: Breaking Down The Sound of Metal with Phillip Bladh
But that’s the way it happens in this industry, right? Sometimes there are those great stories where it’s a lesser-known director or indie film that stands out and steals the spotlight. How did you find out you’d been nominated?
PB: Yeah, the whole thing was a total blindside. I found out about it from my dad, who was texting me
Was your family excited for you?
PB: Yes, my parents definitely were. My father especially. He’s my biggest fan. My MVP. He was the one texting me when he saw the film, telling me how amazing the sound was.
My mom has also been very supportive and was excited and proud as well.
So when this whole thing was happening, I was more excited for my parents, because I couldn’t imagine my daughter winning an Academy Award, I mean, holy crap, what that would feel like. Just thinking about it makes me emotional, you know? So it was, like, a huge, huge thing for them.
But with the awards and buzz, my parents were the ones who were mostly keeping track of it.
Aside from the Academy Award, you now have quite the collection of awards and trophies. The sound team really swept with this film that year, everything from film festivals to the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). That’s huge!
PB: Yes, we ended up winning nine trophies. It was a full sweep. We won just about every award you can win for mixing a movie, including the Spotlight Award. So, I guess it’s actually ten trophies.
It’s funny, before we got to the actual Oscars, I didn’t really believe it was all happening until we won the BAFTA. Then, it became real.
When we won the Cinema Audio Society Award, which is kind of like the SAG Award for the sound professionals, I really was like, “Uh-oh, this is, like, real, real.”
Then, we were nominated for the Academy Awards.
My mom and dad said it was the most stressful moment of their life. Waking up at 5 AM to watch the announcements, and they do it in alphabetical order. So it was announced last.
That must have been exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. Once awards season gets underway, it’s usually a blur for nominees and studios. Except you experienced a different version of it because it was in 2021, the year of the pandemic, right? So fewer in-person events and travel, also, the Oscars were later that year in April, nearly May, instead of February or March.
PB: Yes. There was the question of whether the Oscars were even going to happen, because the BAFTAs were canceled. So initially, they were postponed with no official date announced.
It’s funny, the way that I learned that I won the BAFTA was that I was on my phone.
I was sitting in a sushi restaurant having lunch while they were announcing winners.
I couldn’t even watch it. I kept going online and refreshing until it said that we won.
The BAFTAs were one that I do wish I could have attended. That would have been cool.
And then that’s when the hype picked up.
It was officially, like, everyone said, this is the winner. Sound of Metal’s gonna win.
Gold Derby, The Envelope, Oscar predictions, everyone had Sound of Metal on top.
But I never thought I would win, because I imagined this was how it always happens. Someone thinks they’re gonna win, they get there, and then it goes to the other guy. So I could not let myself believe it.
So, you got to attend the Oscars, which was also a different happening in downtown L.A., instead of in Hollywood at Union Station, to allow for social distancing, right? Tell us about your Oscar experience,
PB: Yes. So, I got to go to the Oscars, and we won for sound and editing.
I almost feel like if I had gone to the weird Oscars and not won, I would have been really slighted. But even though some people didn’t enjoy that experience as much, I got to attend and we won, so It’ll always be my favorite.
It did feel really intimate, as they could only have 100 people in the room at a time.
The red carpet was also really small that year.
We went into the main area, and they served us hors d’oeuvres or whatever.
We walked around, and I met one of the other sound guys. I met Emile Mosseri, who was the composer of Minari. He and I had emailed a lot, because he was also the composer on this movie that I had worked on with Jesse Eisenberg.
I also met John Pritchett, who worked on That Thing You Do, which is one of my favorite movies. He’s also done, like, four Paul Thomas Anderson movies, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Avengers: Endgame, but also classics like Dirty Dancing. He’s worked on so many great films.
He was telling me how he had cancer and was retiring. He was on his last movie, which was Killers of the Flower Moon, in Oklahoma. And after that, he was done.
I told him, “They should give it to you.”
He was touched, I could tell, and told me, “He was like, I very much appreciate that, Phil.”
So anyhow, we got to watch some of the awards before our win.
They would do the broadcast, and then during commercials, they would open it and air it out, and we’d all have to put our masks on for safety.
Take us into that moment when you heard your name being called. What did that feel like?
PB: It’s one of those things that I remember and don’t at the same time; it all happens slowly and fast at the same time. One minute you’re making your way to the stage, and the next you’re on stage looking at Joel Cohen, Francis McDormand, Aaron Sorkin, Reese Witherspoon, Harrison Ford.
It was like holy crap!
But, yes. They announced us, and I went up. I look down and see Paul Raci, who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, who was looking at me and bawling his eyes out, completely over the moon. Looking like, just like, “Oh my god, my sound team just won!”
So if you watch me in the video clips of our win, when I point to somebody in the audience. I was pointing at Paul Raci.
Then, they tell you. Ok, you can go off stage now. The Oscar is right there, so you actually see me telling the only female member of our sound team, Michelle Couttolenc, one of our post-supervisors, to carry the Oscar.
That’s when we both learned that you have to hold it with two hands; it’s pretty heavy. No one warns you.
I also later learned that she was only the second woman ever to win a sound Oscar.
Did you get your Oscar that same day or did you have to wait?
PB:Yeah, when you get your Oscar, they point at the little number on the back, and they tell you, “This is your number; do not swap this Oscar with anyone else. Because, you know, people hold them, go to the table, a mix-up could happen. Also, make sure you don’t leave it anywhere.”
They took me through a little press junket, and I was a total nerd.
Anytime I saw a sound guy, you know, because there were at least eight sound guys that I walked past. Every time I passed one, I was like, “Hey, you wanna hold the sound, Oscar?”
I was just excited.
When I finally had a moment to look at my phone after the win, it had thousands of messages.
It was fun to go through them and see some that read like this:
“Hey man, did worked on this thing eight years ago, where you were the sound guy, and we were in the fog of some swamp filming this thing about a thing? Remember?!”
I just imagined that all of these people who were tuning in and seeing who the winner was, and then they see me go on the stage, and they do a spit take, “I know that guy!”
Because that had never happened to me, and I always thought it’d be pretty cool if I saw somebody I knew when, you know, and then I was that guy. So it was very strange and surreal.
It was cool, though. I talked to David Fincher. I talked to Soderbergh.
I talked to Steven Yeun. He was a very big fan of Sound of Metal.
There were people coming up to me and telling me how much they loved the film.
I talked to Renee Zellweger. I told her how much I love Jerry Maguire, and she was like, “That’s my favorite movie I’ve ever done.” And I was like, “That’s my favorite.”
I was just walking around being a total nerd, and it was totally fine, because I was an award-winning nerd.
Then, it ended, and we just went home.
There was no, like, there wasn’t an after-party that year.
There were things that I would’ve liked to have attended, but they were canceled– the Governor’s Ball or the Nominees Brunch.
Maybe one day I’ll get to attend again.
Yes! You never know. You may end up getting nominated again. It still sounds like a cool experience, and thanks to that experience, you’re an official Oscar winner. You even won one before Martin Scorsese.
PB: Haha! Yes. It’s funny, Joaquin Phoenix was there the year that I won, and we’d just worked on C’mon, C’mon together.
I wanted to bump into him and say, ”Look, man, we both have one. I have one, and you have one. We have the same number of Oscars today!”
Where do you keep your Oscar?
PB: It’s at my parents’ home right now. Sort of as a thank you to them for all of their support and for always believing in me, especially at the beginning of my career. I’m very thankful.
Did you feel any different after you won the Oscar?
PB: It’s funny. Winning an Academy Award is what everybody who works in this industry dreams of.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been watching a movie now, and someone says something, something Oscar-winning, and I’m like, “Oh crap, I have one of those.”
It’s very strange.
In terms of what I do, sure, it gives you more credibility. However, every job you take, every production, is different. Having an Oscar doesn’t mean you know everything.
Some people think that once you win an Oscar, everyone just reaches out to you and that you’ll go to all these parties or places and get recognized, and like, that’s just not how it works.
Cold calling your wish list directors doesn’t really work either, even as an Oscar winner.
You still have to continue to do good work, work hard on sets, be a team player, and offer solutions. Be someone people want to work with and do a good job.
Curious what it takes to mix sound at this level? Explore The LA Recording School’s audio production programs.