Welcome to Wadi Rum, also known as The Valley of the Moon. Located in the south of Jordan, this vast desert wilderness boasts red sand dunes and massive mountains of sandstone and granite. A closer look at the region’s canyons will reveal etchings left behind by ancient desert dwellers. This otherworldly landscape, now occupied by Bedouin tribes and desert foxes, doubled as the surface of Mars during production of Ridley Scott’s The Martian.
A gripping story of survival and perseverance, the film chronicles the experiences of stranded American astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon). During a manned mission on Mars in the near future, a violent storm approaches and threatens the safety of the astronauts. The team is forced to abandon their mission early, but Watney becomes separated from the team and is presumed to be dead. The crew is forced to depart without him, despite their best rescue efforts. Miraculously, Watney survives, but finds himself alone on a desolate planet with meager supplies and no way to contact NASA or his crewmates, who are en route back to Earth. Based on a best-selling novel by Andy Weir, The Martian provides a realistic glimpse into the future of space exploration as Watney uses his brainpower, resilience, and sense of humor to survive.
The film is driven by dialogue spanning the distance between Earth and Mars, and production sound mixer Mac Ruth captured every nuance of the story as it filming took place in Jordan and Hungary. Ruth’s work on the project earned him – along with re-recording mixers Paul Massey and Mark Taylor – a pair of Oscar and BAFTA nominations. Ruth shared his experiences with us, shedding light on the production’s fascinating emphasis on reality and communication.
During preproduction, Ruth worked closely with the art and wardrobe departments to plan an approach for microphone placements. “Arthur Max, the production designer, was extremely helpful. It was never a problem to knock on his door,” Ruth tells us. Oscar-winning costume designer Janty Yates was another integral collaborator. “She was absolutely fantastic because we really had to dive in deep on the costumes, particularly the spacesuits.”
An emphasis on realism anchored the production from the very beginning. “We knew going in that a semblance of reality was the mandate, and that filtered down in many different ways in terms of our methodology on set,” explains Ruth. After extensive discussion, the team lobbied to implement visible, working microphones into the actors’ spacesuit helmets. “We believed a visible mic could be completely realistic and true to what the team called the ‘near future, very believable, accessible technology.’” These mics would be placed not out of convenience or aesthetics, but rather out of accuracy, channeling the methods of NASA engineers. After testing various helmet and mic options, Yates brought the idea to Ridley Scott. He approved the pitch, explaining that he believed it to be completely realistic and true to the technology that would exist.
“There was a great deal of collaboration, and the spacesuit team was fantastic. There were weeks and weeks of prep,” remembers Ruth. “The actors need to be able to hear each other, so the suits are mic’d. In fact, they’re redundantly mic’d to have backup systems. They have ear monitors, and the technology behind that is not as simple as it sounds. It involves dedicated ear monitoring personnel to route the communication matrix between the actors. The systems stay true to the type of technology we believe would be used for Mars travel in the very near future.”
The film features numerous teleconferencing conversations between characters. “We creatively manifested a situation where the actors could utilize the technology to perform the scenes,” Ruth explains. “We shot all of the conversations that use Skype-type communications simultaneously on separate sets.” This allowed the actors to see and hear each other in real time, which was a major responsibility for the sound department. “Facilitating those real-time communications on set was a real challenge,” Ruth tells us. “It’s used at some level on many shows, but we did it to the point where the whole experience was completely transparent and realistic for the actors.”
Ruth’s key production sound team included first assistant sound/ boom operator Sam Stella, second assistant sound/wireless systems engineer Balazs Varga, and second assistant sound/boom operator György Mihályi. Other significant production sound crew members included second unit production sound mixer György Rajna, communications systems engineer György Mohai, and playback engineer Tamás Székely.
During some film productions, the illusion of movement on set is achieved by simply moving the camera. For a scene of a space capsule taking off in The Martian, the production team opted for a more realistic alternative. “The cameras didn’t shake to simulate the rumble of takeoff. The entire capsule set was elaborately built to shake, and the cameras were on long suspended rigs which kept the movements smooth and elegant,” explains Ruth. “The entire space capsule set shook violently, which gave the faces of the actors that jiggly movement.” The sound team further enhanced the actors’ immersive experience by utilizing extremely powerful live sound effects on set. “We made the rig so loud that you couldn’t hear anything else, and that was a very effective technique.”
The crew was still able to communicate on set despite the extreme levels of noise, thanks to the production sound team. “We facilitated inter-crew communication with lots of wireless systems and headsets,” Ruth tells us. These com systems were also very useful for maintaining a sense of realism for the actors. When Watney (Damon) is traveling alone in a Mars rover, he is actually driving a real vehicle built by off-road rally car specialists. Ridley Scott needed to be able to direct him over long distances in the Jordanian desert, and the system made this possible. “Everyone had to communicate, and we facilitated all of those communications. Those conditions were almost as extreme as can ever be experienced on a film set. It really was very challenging, and we’re all extremely proud of the work we did to create that transparent experience for the actors,” recalls Ruth. “I can only leave it up to Mr. Scott to say whether it worked or not, but there were no complaints.”
The Martian’s production sound workflow further emphasized realism with a unique approach to off-camera lines, which are any cues or prompts that an actor receives from outside of the frame. With so much communication between various locations like Mars, the Hermes spacecraft, NASA Mission Control in Houston, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, off-camera lines played a pivotal role in the actors’ performances. “We pre-recorded lines from the script using voice actors before we even had our actors. We created very realistic communications sound that reproduced the eventual lines from the Ares crew. We fed the lines to the actors at Mission Control, so they weren’t acting from someone reading on set. The dialogue was coming out of the wall at Mission Control, which was another element of realism,” Ruth explains. “We actually continued this process throughout the movie as lines were shot, and we built up a library of usable dialogue that was approved by the editorial department and Ridley Scott. We utilized actual recorded lines and played these back for the other actors to react to over the course of the movie. Everyone’s done bits of that, for example they’ll use playback for a telephone conversation, but I’m not aware of a single instance where every off-camera line is a real communication from other actors.” This comprehensive, nonlinear system required a digital audio work station that the team assembled over time with the selected library of dialogue. The team could trigger play-out to any given actor in any given location through on-set speakers, in-ear monitors, or via Skype screens.
Ruth explains that this approach may not be appropriate or necessary for every workflow. “It does absolutely require dedicated personnel and equipment that goes above and beyond what is typically expected on a movie,” he says. “That was a supreme challenge to achieve. We’re not just patting ourselves on the back. Every department was 100 percent on board with this mandate of reality. We were really proud of what we accomplished. It was a lot of things that aren’t typical to a sound department’s experience. The only thing we didn’t have in this movie was dancing! I mean literally, we had it all, and it had to work then and there, and as transparently and seamlessly as possible to not disturb the illusion of complete reality, which is what we were tasked to do.”
Ruth’s other recent work includes 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) and Spy (2015), and he also worked on such notable titles as Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Eragon (2006), and Underworld (2003). He’s currently on location in Budapest shooting The Coldest City, a Cold War espionage thriller based on a graphic novel by Antony Johnston. We asked Ruth what music he would listen to if he was stranded on Mars: “Honestly I’m really into silence these days. I listen to so much sound all day long. I’m a big music lover, but silence is my new music.”
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox