How Tuner's Sound Designer Built a Film Around Hearing

Johnnie Burn, the Oscar-winning sound designer behind Hamnet and The Zone of Interest, has described how he built the soundscape for Daniel Roher's film Tuner, in an interview published by Variety on 13 November 2026.

The film follows Niki, an expert piano tuner with acutely sensitive hearing, played by Leo Woodall. Havana Rose Liu plays Ruthie, a gifted musician and composer. The story is centred on hyperacusis, a rare condition that affects hearing and can make everyday sounds painfully loud.

Burn told Variety that he had a mild form of hyperacusis in his late teens. He also said that he once witnessed an explosion and was, in his words, 100% deaf for about 20 minutes. Hyperacusis developed afterwards.

To research the film's sound, Burn placed microphones inside his own eardrums and recorded daily life from the point of view of his ears. He said the recordings helped shape the film's sound design.

The team then built separate sound levels for different moments. One shows the world as Niki hears it. Another covers the moments when Niki wears ear defenders, the padded covers worn over the ears to block noise, which restrict what he can hear.

Burn and Roher spent time in the Dolby mix, the final session where the sound is balanced, and fine-tuned every decibel. Burn said the Dolby Atmos format, which places sound in speakers around and above the audience, let the team play sound at much greater volume all around the audience.

For a general audience, the story is a useful look at how a film's sound comes together. Much of what viewers hear was built from one person's own experience, recorded with microphones placed where most people would never think to put them.