The Revenant (2015) dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu

A huge welcome today to our final special guest, the wonderful Alex Gregson. Alex is Head of Audio at 344 Audio, and has led on the edits of the last eight episodes of our podcast, for which we are eternal grateful. He is newly diagnosed as autistic and reflects very thoughtfully on how his autism has contributed positively to his career as a sound engineer and audio editor.

For our analysis, Alex brings along Alejandro González Iñárritu's Academy Award winning 2015 revenge thriller The Revenant, and asks David and Lillian to pay particular attention to the rich soundscape of the film. We discuss the careful detailing of the sound design, as well as Iñárritu's concoction of a 'cacajanga' soundscape. We find autistic resonance in the meticulous attention paid to the layering of the natural sounds of the wild landscapes, as well as the precise choices made in the levels of balance between sound effects, score and dialogue.

We move on the reflect on some of the challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals who are sensitive to sound, and consider how filmmakers might rethink their approach to final mix of a movie to better accommodate those who might struggle with such sensory input.

A huge thanks again to Alex for joining us, and for doing such a brilliant job of editing our latest batch of episodes. For more on the work that 344 Audio do, you can visit their website here: https://www.344audio.com/