JOHNNIE BURNJohnnie Burn is an Oscar-, BAFTA- and Cannes-winning sound designer, supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer, and European Sound Designer of the Year, whose work explores the possibilities of sound as a fundamental part of cinematic storytelling.
He begins shaping sound from the earliest stages of a project — often from the script — working closely with directors to find a sonic language unique to each film.
Johnnie’s philosophy is simple: sound reaches the audience before thought does.
His work includes long-standing collaborations with Jonathan Glazer and Yorgos Lanthimos, alongside films with Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Jordan Peele, Danny Boyle, Chloé Zhao, Ben Affleck, Trey Edward Shults and Daniel Roher.
For Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, Johnnie won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Sound, as well as the CST Award for Best Artist-Technician at the Cannes Film Festival. The work grew out of an unusually long period of research and experimentation with Glazer, finding a way for sound to tell a story that the image deliberately refused to show. The result was an unseen world existing beyond the frame — built from fragments of distant life, violence, machinery and human activity — that became fundamental to the film’s meaning and emotional force.
That idea — that sound can tell the story rather than simply accompany it — runs throughout his work. From the subjective sonic worlds of Under the Skin and Nope, through The Favourite, Poor Things, Bugonia, 28 Years Later and Hamnet, Johnnie’s role moves fluidly between sound design, supervision and the final mix.
Recent work includes mixing Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger, joining the film during post-production and shaping a meticulously judged final mix whose nuance, dynamics and perspective are crucial to the nature of its storytelling.
For Ben Affleck’s Animals, the sound builds a heightened but believable sense of Los Angeles, subtly amplifying the pressure surrounding the story and its characters.
Danny Boyle’s powerful INK inhabits a world alive with the visceral physicality of the pre-digital era — printing presses, typewriters, ringing telephones, Tube trains and machinery; a time when almost everything made a real mechanical sound of its own. The soundscape draws on that vitality and noise to give the film an urgent, propulsive energy rooted in the period itself.
Also among his recent films is Tuner, Daniel Roher’s first narrative feature, in which sound becomes central to experiencing the world through its protagonist’s extraordinary sensitivity to hearing. The film reflects something at the heart of Johnnie’s approach: using sound not simply as an effect, but as a way of shaping perspective, character and emotion — placing the audience inside the film rather than merely surrounding them with it.
Whether designing a film from its earliest stages or taking responsibility for its final mix, the ambition remains the same:
Every film should have its own sound world, made for that film and nothing else.
Under the Skin — Jonathan Glazer
The Lobster — Yorgos Lanthimos
Ammonite — Francis Lee
The Killing of a Sacred Deer — Yorgos Lanthimos
Waves — Trey Edward Shults
The Favourite — Yorgos Lanthimos
Nope — Jordan Peele
The Zone of Interest — Jonathan Glazer
Poor Things — Yorgos Lanthimos
September Says — Ariane Labed
Kinds of Kindness — Yorgos Lanthimos
Hurry Up Tomorrow — Trey Edward Shults
28 Years Later — Danny Boyle
Bugonia — Yorgos Lanthimos
Hamnet — Chloé Zhao
Tuner — Daniel Roher
Animals — Ben Affleck
INK — Danny Boyle
Digger — Alejandro G. Iñárritu
johnnieburn@icloud.com
