Director Joseph Kosinski on the sound of ‘F1’

0:00KCRW sponsors include Neon presenting The Christophers, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Stephen Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon, starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Cole. The Christophers opens April 10th at AMC Century City and AMC The Grove. From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:26Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. Director Joseph Kaczynski followed one big movie star triumph, Top Gun Maverick, with another last year's F1 starring Brad Pitt. And like Top Gun Maverick, F1 was also nominated for the Best Picture Oscar along with four others. It won this year for Best Sound Design. So now we revisit the sounds of the director of F1, Joseph Kaczynski. I was thinking about the way you use music. I mean, I love the Daft Punk stuff and M83. I mean, there's a real textural thing you do with music. Yes, I think music is very much part of my creative process. And I love nothing more than being able to kind of put something on the headphones and go for a walk and just let the images just start to play.

1:19And certainly Oblivion came out of listening to M83 and walking around Santa Monica when I was unemployed. my first, you know, 18 months in L.A., dreaming up this story that eventually I got to make into a film, which was an amazing experience. You really use music basically as kind of an emotional metaphor for what the characters are going through. Yes. I think, you know, I think the soundtrack, the score, your ears almost drive emotion more than your eyes do. I think the eyes are a little more analytical, intellectual. spiritual music and sound somehow can resonate deeply in a way that, you know, and when those two things are working together, you know, for me, that's kind of like my most memorable moments when I think of cinema, you know, if I think back to like Strauss and, you know, the space station in 2001, sequences like that, to me are kind of the purest form of cinema.

2:16And, you know, I love moments when I have the opportunity in a movie to be able to do that and just let it be kind of image and score. I think it's what's really fun as we're talking about this in the first sort of five minutes or so of F1, when you go from a piece of music that definitely tells us where we are. It's also about a certain kind of machismo. It's also about an era that's long past that was looking back to an era that had passed before that. And then to the textural stuff of the Hans Zimmer score. I mean, I just thought what you do in oral terms in the first five minutes of the movie is kind of extraordinary.

2:50Yeah, I wanted to find a way to teach you everything you need to know about who Sonny Hayes was as a character without having to explain that. And I think, you know, without spoiling it, the song that we drop at the opening bars of this movie tell you a lot about who this guy is and what he's about and sets the stage for, you know, him being dropped into a very different world, in this case, the world of Formula One, where, you know, it's the first time we hear a little bit of Hans' score. And what I love about Hans' score in this is it's really a little bit of a throwback for Hans to his electronic roots, which is, you know, where he started.

3:27You know, if you haven't seen the Buggles video recently, Video Killed the Radio Star, that is Hans Zimmer on the keyboard in the background. And that's where he started. And he gets to kind of flex, you know, his synth muscle in this movie a little bit. But also a lot of the music you use of the music, of people who think of themselves as being kind of, you know, loners with swagger. and just using that to sort of immediately go into score, right from one of those drops to comment on what we've just heard. Yeah. I mean, I just want to talk to you about that deliberation in this, Joseph, because I think it's really impressive just, again, to use sound as a texture.

4:02So especially, like I got to see it in a great theater, so to feel that almost kind of vertiginous sort of fall from this pounding music that works almost on a sheer endorphin level to this other music that makes your heart race slightly faster than normal. Yeah. I mean, that is the world of Formula One. It is such a... It's also the world of the kind of flying that happens in Top Gun. Yes. Given that these are both sort of Jerry Bruckheimer movies, and there's almost an archetypal relationship with audiences we have to that. Yeah. You're using music to both bring us into it and comment on what it is we're watching.

4:36Yeah. You know, talking about Jerry Bruckheimer, I'm a child of 80s cinema. And, you know, we got to remember, Jerry Bruckheimer also made American Gigolo. And Flashdance. And Flashdance and Thief, you know, Tangerine Dream. Which is very much the same kind of textual. I mean, you can't imagine M83 or Daft Punk don't listen to that stuff. Yeah, without it. So I think that kind of, you said melancholy, that kind of textual, synthetic, electronic score is ingrained into my nervous system from, you know, watching all those things, you know, growing up. and certainly bubbles up, I think, in all the movies I've done, except maybe for Only the Brave.

5:19Maybe there is a little bit. No, I think there's that there too. There is a little bit at the end, yeah. There is that kind of, yeah, it's more, I don't even know how to describe it. The line between, I think, sound design and score is kind of blurry, and I think I like that area. I like it where the sound design is almost musical. I think there's something, again, It's all about getting your audience into the emotional space. And for me, music does that. And so, you know, it's a very instinctual thing. It's almost a hard thing to talk about because you really feel it rather than think about it.

5:56By the way, we're talking about something that he thinks he's not speaking well about, but he is. We're talking about sound and sound textures with my guest, Joseph Kosinski, who's new film as director, is F1. You may have heard about it. It's the treatment. And so often you've taken what is, again, almost sort of mythic, sort of masculine sort of status and making us ask questions about it in ways that are incredibly nuanced. And I think that's why I was kind of thrilled to hear that you were doing something on F1 because it's kind of like this sort of ultimate sort of collaboration, but finally loneliness because a bunch of people get you into the car, but finally it's you in the car.

6:34That's right. I was very lucky to have the seven-time Formula One world champion, Lewis Hamilton, as my producing partner on this film. And, of course, he was an incredible resource. And Michael makes a tiny cameo in the film. He does make a tiny, a lot of the drivers do. But, you know, Lewis obviously was incredibly helpful with the technical details. But what was the most useful thing from Lewis was he gave us insight into the spiritual aspect of what it's like to be in this car and what it is he's chasing. And there's an important moment near the end of the film where Sonny finds that thing he's looking for in the moment.

7:11He says Brad Pitt's character. Yes. and that was something that came completely from Lewis in a really kind of personal conversation with him and really unlocked the character in a way that, you know, we would not have been able to do and having the guy who actually lives this life weekend to weekend to be a part of the process was pretty incredible. I think, interesting too, because I think there's a subtext within when you're talking about loneliness and you have Damson Idris in the film who's, like Lewis, one of the few people of color to have broken through on this. So to sort of have that, I mean, there's that sort of antagonism that both he and Sonny have because they're both loners and both people who are isolated and dealing with alienation.

7:51And I like that race is not stated, but we feel it anyway. No, I think that's not the story I wanted to tell because that's Lewis's story. And I didn't want Joshua to have Lewis's story. And that's the damn signature character, Joshua. Yes, but what I liked about what I was interested in exploring is the notion that Sonny and Joshua discover they are actually the same person at different points in their lives. And what I liked was casting two actors who on the outside look like they couldn't be more different. and what they discover and what Sonny realizes is that Joshua Pierce is a version of himself 30 years ago and he sees could be making the same mistakes he did and does everything he can to help him avoid that.

8:36So it was really about these two men discovering they have a lot more in common than they think and then ultimately teaming up together over the course of the story. You've gone from a smaller stage to a bigger stage, but still these questions of alienation and loneliness play out in all the films that you've made. It's interesting, yeah. And I wonder where that comes from for you. I don't know. I don't know if it's like the films that I was drawn to growing up that kind of resonate. And I'm thinking back through movies like 2001 or Blade Runner, if those are kind of an element that I'm attracted to and why that works cinematically, if that gives you empathy for the character and draws you in.

9:20It's not intentional, but I do, when I look back, now that I've made six films, there does seem to be a common thread. And I promise you, I'm not a lonely person. I'm not a cozy girl. But I just look at my own self going like, what is it that, why am I drawn to these stories? As my wife would say, she's like, you make, you know, movies for dudes. And I'm like, do I really? I don't see it that way. But yeah, there is, you know, it's interesting to look back and wonder why is it that these are stories I'm drawn to. I think interesting, too, because so often films ask us to judge and be afraid of the future.

9:59And you're protecting us often. People have to ask themselves, because they're all people who are really handy and have confidence in their hands, literally in their hands. They have to ask themselves, do they want to stay in the past or be in the future? None of them live in the present. Right. Right. No, it is interesting. And certainly, yeah, Sonny Hayes, in the case of this film, having to go into the world of Formula One, I have never been in a world that is more forward-looking and more technologically kind of advanced and present than this world. I mean, these cars, for people who don't know, each team designs and builds their own car.

10:34These are not off-the-shelf machines. They have to be built by the team that's racing it. And often, these pieces come out of the factory the night before the race. So when I went to Austin in 2021 on Lewis's invitation and watched the mechanics build a car in the garage, and then Lewis climbed into it and drove it, you know, at 220 miles an hour around the track, I had never seen anything like it. And that's where I kind of said, I have to show the world what this sport is like, because I certainly was not aware of just how fascinating it was. It's the treatment and my 2025 conversation with Joseph Kaczynski on his film F1.

11:13There's more of that after this.

11:22KCRW sponsors include Neon, presenting The Christophers, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon. The Christopher stars Ian McKellen and Michaela Cole as artists facing off in a game of deception, forgery, and playful psychological cat and mouse. Opens April 10th at AMC Century City and AMC The Grove. You're listening to The Treatment and more of my interview from 2025 with director Joseph Kaczynski on his film F1. That touch is so important for these characters. At some point, almost every character in the film talks about touching something and what it feels like.

12:01Just watching, I mean, that even is a big part of Tron. Even though it's abstract and virtual, they're still talking about getting their hands on things. Yeah. I think tactility, getting the audience to feel something has always been something I've been striving for. uh even tron was a movie that i pushed to shoot as much of it practically as possible um you would think it's a very digital world but in fact we built a ton of sets and and the suits and the lights in the suits and all of that was real and that has always been something i've been working towards on every film and obviously in this film you know we shot this film at real grand prix's on race weekend.

12:46Brad and Damson are driving real race cars in this film. This was not shot on a soundstage. This was not shot on a blue screen. There's not a stunt driver just off camera piloting around. Like, you know, Lewis had told me that he had never seen a film that really captures the feeling using that word again of what it's like to be in one of these cars. So that was my goal with this was to give the audience that sensation of what it's like to pilot one of these things which only 20 people in the world get to do i don't think there is a more exclusive sport or profession in the world maybe like astronaut or something i mean there are 20 people that get to do this job and you know to make a film that allows everyone who wants to go buy a imax ticket to experience that was a pretty cool you know thing to try to do it's interesting too because for people who don't watch f1 or have never been to it before and again one of the things you get really right about is how loud it is.

13:42I mean, you think being around fighter planes is loud. There's nothing, because you feel the air rumble from the ground up in a way you don't with planes. Because one of the things you don't see really in F-1 is nobody laps anybody. They're all really close together. And there's one scene where Sonny talks about if we can shave this and this and this and this, that's the race. Yeah, that's the world of Formula One. It's tenths of a second. And when it comes to a race, the tenth of a second you get from the pit stop crew is just as valuable as what a driver can eke out because ultimately you need it all to to work together to to win this thing so it is it's simultaneously a solo endeavor but also a team sport at the same time and i wanted to show that that there is more than one person you know because when you when you watch a race or when we talk about it the drive everyone knows the driver's names but no one knows the name of the mechanic on the right front tire and and their job is ultimately just as important to the victory of the team as the driver at the end of the day and just a specialized too yeah it is it is a very very specialized i mean can you imagine training weeks months or years to just change the right front tire i mean that's your specialty and when it comes down to a race it's like you've got that two or three seconds to prove yourself and all the pressures on you.

15:05And, you know, even heard stories of mechanics who mess up a wheel change in such a way that they're not able to do their job ever again. It's so traumatizing that one bad pit stop, like they have to walk away. And that sort of level of pressure is actually something we experienced on this film because, you know, most films you have hours or days to shoot a scene and get it right. This film, because we were shooting during real Grand Prix's, we would often only get a window of five to ten minutes to shoot our scenes. So it was much more like a live stage play in terms of how we shot it than anything else I've ever done before.

15:43But it was a kind of like a cinematic pit stop in a way and a really interesting challenge that I haven't experienced before. So I think it really is a film that demands being seen in a theater. Yes. But that's the thing that clearly, if you saw Tron as a kid, there's nothing like seeing Tron in a theater. It almost doesn't work if you don't see it in a theater. Yep, yep. And I feel that even with Spider-Man, all these films that you've made are films you want people to experience, not just to see, but experience in movie theaters. Yeah. Well, my, some of my strongest memories are being a kid and going to the movies and looking up on that big screen, you know, in Marshalltown, Iowa and, and being transported to another place for two or two and a half hours.

16:27And, you know, we talk about chasing a feeling. Certainly, I think that's what I'm trying to do in making these films is try to give the audience the experience I had as a 12 year old kid, you know, going to the cinema on a Saturday. and, you know, seeing the world we live in now with these portable screens that we carry around, which are great, but nothing matches the experience of being in a packed auditorium, looking at a 60-foot screen and feeling the sound in your chest and reacting, you know, with a group of people. There's a couple sequences in this movie that are, you know, you really feel the crowd.

17:07You feel it, you know, you experience it with a group of people in a way that's just completely different than watching it on your own. So I really hope people go out and see this movie on the biggest screen possible because that's how we designed it. It's a dream. We're talking about the community of theater goers going to see movies about loneliness and alienation with my guest director, Joseph Kosinski, whose new film is F1. You've not only done movies about our relationship to on-screen masculinity, but so often you've had these, you work with actors who are themselves kind of exemplars of a certain kind of masculinity, be it Jeff Bridges or Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, but also guys who have a sense of humor about what it is they're playing.

17:47Yes. So, I mean, they're not just doing two-dimensional versions of that, but they themselves, their careers have been sort of like these films that make us ask questions about our relationship to masculine heroes. Yeah, I've been very lucky to work with incredible people. Jeff Bridges, you know, to have him be the lead of my first film and to have it be someone who was so generous and trusting in me, a first-time filmmaker, I feel very, very lucky because a first movie, especially something of that scale for a new director, you can get swallowed up by the machine very, very easily. and because it was Jeff Bridges he couldn't have been better to me and more trusting of me and I think that having such a great experience on my first film really you know set me up in a way that a lot of first timers in the studio system aren't set up and so I can you know I want to thank him for that and then obviously same happened with Tom Cruise, Josh Brolin Brad Pitt I've worked with I've been very lucky to work with some incredible people and had an amazing experience with every one of them.

19:01What's really fun about the films, too, is how much we feel that sort of sense of anxiety in everybody. I mean, it's certainly here. It's expressed in so many different ways, but it's just sort of intense. I don't want to say fear because it's not fear. Pressure. It's pressure, but it's also how people react to that pressure and how some people can completely externalize it and others don't. And again, it's the world of Top Gun Maverick. It's this pressure that could crush anybody. And everybody's reacting to it in different ways. And in some ways, everybody feels like they're in their own movie.

19:34Right. But they're still living under this, forgive me for going back to this world again, bubble. And that's the fun of watching how these actors respond to it. And we know who everybody is just by the way they stand in a room. Interesting. And that's no small thing. Well, casting is the most important job of a director. And I really do believe that if you cast the movie correctly, you have a shot at making something that works. If you don't cast it correctly, I think you'll never get there. So I do want to give credit to the incredible cast and not just the main cast, you know, Brad and Damson Carey and Javier, but also the supporting cast in this film, a bunch of incredible British actors.

20:16Well, the actor who plays Demson's mom, she's just terrific. Yes, Sarah Niles. Oh, she's wonderful. But that young woman who's terrified of doing the wrong thing in the pit. This is the part of the pit crew. Yeah, and in a proper sports movie, if you've done your job right, you feel like every member of the team, you know a little bit about them by the end of the movie. But that notion of pressure is something that very much exists in Formula One. And I think if you're making a movie with Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, icons, the only way to get the audience to really wonder if they're going to succeed in the end is if you crank up the pressure on their characters in every possible way you can.

20:58Because these are guys who have obviously won at life and in the business. So if you're going to put them in their movie, you need to put the screws to their character right from the top. And so that's something certainly we tried to do at every point we could. My guest to Joseph Kaczynski's new film as director is F1. Again, thank you for doing this. It's great to be here. Thanks, Elvis.

21:28F1 was the highest-grossing original film of 2025. Got four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Barrel Into a Win for Best Sound. Its director, Joe Kaczynski, who has two consecutive films nominated for Best Picture, F1 and Top Gun Maverick, joined us here. Conversations about sound and fury and creation. Hear them at the archive, kcrw.com slash thetreatment. And all new reflections on inspirations drop every week at kcrw.com slash thetreat. This week, author and former LA Times film critic Ken Turan on a writer he finds ambitious, thought-provoking, and highly readable. Rebecca Mooney produces and edits the show, which is mixed by Kenny Gilchrist.

22:20To better days, everyone, I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment.

22:38KCW sponsors include Neon presenting The Christophers, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Stephen Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon, starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Cole. The Christophers opens April 10th at AMC Century City and AMC The Grove.