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The trio has a long history of
collaboration and trust. “I like to
hear their creative opinions. We
work together as a real tight team.
You can see how comfortable our
relationship is, and that brings the
feeling on set that we’re all family.
It;also;gives;the;actors;confidence
that we really are there to look af-
ter their performances,” says Hayes,
who reveals that he’s a stickler for
not wanting to change performanc-
es by asking the actors to project
their lines more. “As the production
sound mixer, I want to give actors
confidence;to;use;their;voices;the
way they would like to use them.”
That was a challenge on Fan-
tastic Beasts, especially for the New
York City street scenes. Hayes need-
ed to record the subdued perfor-
mance of Newt (Eddie Redmayne)
—;a;character;who;lacks;confidence
when outside of his element, and his
counterpart Tina (Katherine Water-
ston), who matches the energy of
Newt’s delivery. While on the street,
the noisy cars could have easily
drowned out Newt and Tina’s lines,
but Hayes feels that “If David Yates
and his cast have been in rehears-
als for many weeks or months and
they have discovered a performance
in those rehearsals that they want to
bring to the set, I want to support
them and let them tell the story the
way they want to. I need to be able
to capture the vocals clean enough
without having to say, ‘Hey guys,
can I have more level?’”
Hayes’ solution was to have
mics sewn into the actors’ costumes.
But that’s not a request one can just
spring on the costume department at
the last minute. It took forethought
and planning. Hayes says, “Arthur
worked closely in prep with costume
designer Colleen Atwood to sew spe-
cific;mics;into;the;actors’;clothing,
such as Newt’s bowtie, which, by the
way, was very small. She and her
team were extremely collaborative
in working with Arthur, with how
much they were prepared to give us
creatively.”
The actors’ second lav mics
were located in their waistcoats or
somewhere on their person that pro-
vided a farther perspective than the
Production sound mixer Simon Hayes
Newt (Eddie Redmayne) navigates New York with his magical suitcase
Kowalski (Dan Fogler), Newt (Eddie Redmayne), & Tina (Katherine Waterston) investigate
