Sound Guys Sound Off: The Pros Behind The Biggest Shows On TV Talk Craft
Image Source: IMDb
Without sound supervisors, your favorite media's auditory craft and quality would be very different. From balancing the sounds to stitching music into the scenes and creating the sound effects necessary for the scenario, the sound supervisors and their teams have a lot on their plates. In a feature with The Hollywood Reporter, sound supervisors who worked on The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power gave a bit of insight into how they worked in some of the more iconic sounds.
HBO’s The Last of Us is based on a popular video game, meaning there were post-apocalyptic sound effects the team had to create while remaining faithful to the source material. Sound supervisor Michael J. Benavente explained a bit of the process, explaining that show creator Craig Mazin “had it down and he knew what he wanted.” Along with Mazin, the team contributed their voices to the sound effects for the infected, getting so creative and out-of-the-box that one member was hospitalized.
RELATED:
The clickers required a separate vocalization, as they had a more distinct and iconic sound in the game. Mazin said that they had “access to the video game sounds” but wanted to “try it fresh” and got the original voice actors for new sounds.
Image Source: IMDb
The latest season of The Mandalorian saw the return of Anzellans. Skywalker Sound’s sound supervisor Matt Wood explained how their vocals were created, “Similar to things we’ve done before, like with Jawas or Ewoks or whatnot, you pitch them up because they’re small, but then you perform them with a really gravelly voice.”
Image Source: RoP Wiki
Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power had an army of Orcs fight in a massive battle. Sound supervisor Robert Stambler broke down the motivation behind their vocals, explaining, “They are humanoid, but they’re living in a world that’s unfit for them…we really wanted them to feel uncomfortable in the sense that they don’t like sunshine, they don’t like fresh air, and the whole arc of their story in this first season is they’re trying to create their homeland.”
They took a group of voice actors, having them channel “sickly and unwell” and creating “even more contrast between the sounds of the Orcs and the sounds of the humans” by using “processing techniques…to create a more monstrous, animalistic version of what a humanoid could sound like.”
READ NEXT:
Latest News
Featured
