
Anora is an instant classic and one of the most successful films of the past year. It not only critically had great indie box office numbers but has also entered the cultural lexicon. The story of a stripper who is wooed by the son of a Russian oligarch. The two get married and the fairytale is threatened when news reaches Russia.
The film is rooted in present-day reality, which not many movies are. It presents modern life as it is—it is very precarious, and the sound reflects that. Andy Hay and John Warrin did the sound editing, blending mostly real-world sounds in an otherworldly way. Hay and Warrin recently spoke with Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
How did you both initially get involved with Sean Baker and how did that transpire in this particular film?
Andy Hay: I met Sean Baker on The Florida Project. I came in to mix that film and we had a fantastic time. Then I did Red Rocket with him and I brought John on to help… We’d been doing a few things together before that and thought he’d be a good fit. John handles everything sound effects-wise. I handled dialogue and music, and so we worked together on Red Rocket. We had a fantastic time on that and that led to Anora.
John Warrin: I think the first time working with Sean was so much fun and he loved the vibe of our studio. I think he had a choice to go to a big studio, but he wanted a very creative collaborative environment and so we just had a great time. So it was kind of a shoo-in for Anora and future projects with him.
So what was your approach to this particular film? What kind of notes did Sean give you?
JW: When we did Red Rocket, there was a lot more guiding us. We learned his language on that one. When we started on Anora, there was a lot less guidance initially. Sean’s a very big-picture person. He has this grand scope of everything and how everything works together. He is very much an auteur, and now we know his language, so more of it was broad strokes.
I read that he doesn’t like doing ADR…
AH: Sean’s films are rooted in realism and that’s what makes them so effective. So for him, when he gets the performance on the day and it’s like, that’s it, that’s the take. That’s what we want. He just wants to preserve that. I think for him it’s in the spirit of that.
It’s only if there’s a technical need, we can queue up ADR if there’s a line change or if there’s an addition, fair enough, but outside of that, his intent is very much to preserve what was crafted on the day. That’s his style overall these are the events that took place on the day that we captured in camera and with these microphones, and let’s present that to the world because that’s the art in its purest form without a whole lot of machinery and machinations and slide of hand happening.

Often ADR sounds fake. It takes you out of the movie sometimes for a minute, sometimes for a whole scene.
AH: I wanted to add that Sean’s movies are not meant to sound like a pop song. We leave in all the grit in these movies. When it comes to ADR, if in production something sounds a little rough, that’s fine. Our job is to be a hundred percent on realism and we’re not trying to clean up everything. So that also helps in not having to do as much technical ADR as you might on another movie.
Excellent. That’s an interesting point. What, it may be something obvious, but was the recording different than a traditional movie? I know he shot on film, did he use any kind of analog sound equipment?
JW: Not to my knowledge. I don’t believe there’s any analog equipment used, but Boris Krichevsky, who is the production mixer on the film, was sort of running, gunning, a lot of it, a single operator running the boom, carrying the boom while also, he’s sort of a one-man band. I don’t think there was any sort of analog machinery used to sort of mirror the use of film.
I will say one interesting thing about Red Rocket, which was also shot on film, is that we employed analog tape emulations after the fact. We wanted it to sound like it looked essentially. We ran stuff through processes to give it that analog feel. We chose not to do that on Anora. There was so much going on in this film, so many people talking at the same time that the priority was intelligibility in this one. Andy did a great job with all the balancing act of all the dialogue.
Were any specific scenes more challenging than others?
AH: The most challenging parts of the film are the moments where things get very dense and you are trying to make sure that the audience is receiving all the information that we want them to receive. When they get back to HQ (The Strip Club) several of the main characters are in the same location and everybody’s talking on top of each other. Everybody must be able to make their point while also maintaining the level of chaos.
We had to make sure that every voice was part of the hubbub. Whomever we’re trying to rack focus on in any given moment just peaks up 10% above the noise such that we focus in and laser in on what they have to say… Then settling that into a world of music with what’s being played in the room. It’s challenging in those moments where you’re really delicately bouncing a lot of sound and also trying to ensure the audience is receptive to exactly what they should be hearing at any given moment. You always have to put yourself in the mindset of the first-time viewer to ensure that they’re getting everything.

Any favorite sounds or moments or scenes or did you guys just thought like, wow, we nailed that…
JW: I think the car scene at the end. We spent a lot of time the sort of metronomic sounds of the windshield wiper, the sound of the snow… creating the arc of the squeak of the windshield and all that, and spent a lot of time with Sean in the studio on that moment.
What was it? What did you use for the wiper, was that manually created or is it something from production?
AH: That’s one of those happy accidents where that squeak comes from that moment on set and there’s a natural progression to how that windshield chill wiper sounded based on the amount of snowfall that was hitting the windshield. So when the windshield was initially dry, it was grating, and then as the snowfall continued, it slowly changed over time until it became basically like a whisper.
When we first heard that, wow that’s interesting. That could be a thing. Then we go mining for every iteration of that sound throughout the various takes, and we find that, oh, there is an arc here, there, there’s a progression of this sound. Let’s grab that, let’s ingest that, let’s edit that to match the metronomic activity of the wiper, cheat it a little bit where needed, but then take that and build that as an emotional beat to mirror Annie’s progression. So if you go back and analyze that scene, that squeak goes from invasive then down to a lullaby as Annie is progressing through the scene. So that was our guide and then we enhanced on top of that.
It’s such a powerful moment in the movie. Everyone in the theater stuck around through the credits silently taking in this powerful emotion enhanced by a very real wiper sound brushing away snow from the windshield.
What’s it like being on the other end of this? It’s won awards, it’s going to win more awards. It’s a great movie. It’s a classic. What’s it like being involved with something like this and now being on the back end of it?
AH: It’s just very rewarding that the work is paying off and the people are resonating with it. Every film that I’ve worked on with Sean I say “This is my favorite Sean Baker film”, and I’ll say it again, “This is my favorite Sean Baker film.” We’re just super happy to have had the opportunity to get to work with someone like Sean who’s just so remarkable.
JW: It’s just amazing that so many people are discovering Sean Baker’s movies now. Although he was already respected, there are a lot of people who follow pop culture that weren’t familiar with his films and now it’s hitting that audience. That’s really exciting for us to be part of that.