By Jeff Sneider ♦ Photos by Francine Orr
The ruthless world of “Fallout” offers a delicate balance of sonic bombast and the kind of haunting silence that would accompany a post-apocalyptic setting. Based on the bestselling video game, the Amazon Prime Video series takes place in 2296, roughly 219 years after a nuclear attack destroyed Los Angeles and changed everything.
The live-action sci-fi series hails from creators/showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and notably counts “Westworld” alums Jonathan (AKA Jonah) Nolan and Lisa Joy among its executive producers. While the visual scope of the series is majestic, the attention to detail within the sound mix is equally impressive.
CineMontage sat down with four members of the “Fallout” sound team, all of whom work together at StudioPost at Universal Studios — supervising sound editor Susan Cahill, sound designer Daniel Colman, and re-recording mixers Keith Rogers and Steve Bucino — to discuss what goes into a big-budget series like this.
Before diving in, the quartet made sure to tip their cap to several of their “Fallout” colleagues who were invaluable to creating the sound of the series, including dialogue editor Jane Boegel (“a great asset”), music editor Chris Kaller, mix tech Rick Camara (“he keeps us all together”), and sound effects editors Jonathan Golodner and Karen Triest.
“It has been a joy working with this group,” said Cahill.
“Fallout” stars Ella Purnell as Lucy MacLean, an intrepid vault dweller who makes the bold decision to leave Vault 33 and go to the surface by herself in search of her missing father (Kyle MacLachlan). The show’s sound team took a fascinating approach to creating the epic roar of the vault opening, with each creak and groan sounding a warning of the danger that lurks beyond the safety of its massive door.
“When Lucy is coming out of the vault door in Episode 1, (video game producer) Bethesda gave us a library of various sounds from the different games. Each game is based on a different vault, so I picked little pieces of various vault doors to put intothis one. So, we start with a little of Vault 111 from Fallout 4, and towards the end of it opening up, you hear this great creak from [Fallout 76’s] Vault 76,” explained Colman.
“It’s massive putting it all together [because] of all these little layers and nuances, but hearing it on the mix stage once Steve had really worked it into the Atmos field, you could hear the key start from the ceiling and sweep all the way through the room, clank into the front of the screen, turn, open up the vault door, yank, and reverse back up all the way to the ceiling. It was this all-encompassing experience of really working Atmos to its fullest,” Colman said.
“There’s also a key reveal once Lucy comes out of the vault, and Bucino ex-plained how initially, there were some drums from composer Ramin Djawadi that were giving away the coastline reveal, which they wanted to build to with sound design and crashing waves. The drums were a little too close to the sound of the waves crashing, so Rogers pulled down some of those sounds so we hold back [the coastline reveal]. It was all about tension and release, as it’s Lucy’s first time outside, and most of that is a big set in Africa — a real location with the exception of the Ferris wheel on the pier.”
Of course, that all happens at the end of Episode 1. But it’s Episode 2 that the team is most proud of and subsequently submitted for Emmy consideration. (That episode, “The Target,” ended up getting multiple Emmy nods.)
“There are great scenes with The Ghoul, and Maximus and the [Knight Titus] suit fighting, and that moment where Max loses control of the jetpack and flies around uncontrollably. Steve did an amazing job in the mix [with Max] flying overhead and bouncing all around us,” said Cahill. “We had a lot of fun with the ADR to that, and treating the voice in the suit, and playing up the comedy as well as all the action” as it malfunctioned.
The “Fallout” team also singled out a scene set in an outdoor market in Philly that is teeming with life — even as the specter of death hangs over everything and everyone — because it gave them the opportunity to take full advantage of Dolby Atmos’ remarkable capabilities.
“It’s as if the show was shot with that in mind,” joked Bucino.
“There was a conversation in the room about revealing Philly as we came up over the walls of it, and I know that with Loop Group and Walla sound effects [and Sound Mixer Tod A. Maitland’s production tracks], we just let it encompass us once we entered it for the first time, and that’s where a lot of the use of Dolby Atmos was really helpful because we were able to move objects around,” explained Bucino. “So on the stage, we came up with the double-headed cow moo, and we started introducing these mutated animals, so Lucy kind of sees that and hears that for the first time, and it’s a really subtle effect, but it starts to open her eyes to the world she’s about to experience.”
“Those are moments where, along with Max [Aaron Moten] and the suit flying, I just went with it by being aggressive and having as much fun with it as I could,” said Bucino. “And it made sense for the scene and it made sense for the story — and it was the rare moment where kind of going over the top, pun intended, with the Atmos field made a lot of sense and it was very effective.”
Another tricky task that the team took on was designing the sound of the feral ghouls, such as Roger (Neal Huff) and Martha (Alexa Marcigliano), who are beginning to turn into mindless monsters.
“What was cool about those was the transition that we were seeing…. We’re talking to them as people in the midst of their transition into feral ghouls, so there are multiple layers that we played with and really worked line by line,” said Colman. “We had them during production and then we brought them in for ADR to do a more raspy zombie-esque version of their lines. We recorded loop groups with them to add some other voices that we could play with at times, and I used a little bit of dehumanizer on those, which I tend to stay away from for all design stuff. But I used it [here] as a little bit of FutzBox to add a little more rasp to it, and then added creature sounds on top of that. We edited it very closely to match the pitches and the envelope of their words so that with each line we could play a little, more or less, with that transition into the feral state.”
The “Fallout” team was under pressure to build upon a world that has existed for 20 years and developed a very rabid base, but they knew they’d done right when they could hear audiences taking shallow breaths during the series’first big action sequence, which sees Los Angeles come under attack.
“I’ll never forget the moment where that first bomb goes off, because I remember we played with this a lot in the mix. Jonah asked us to take out that boom — the sound of the bomb — and he said, ‘That’s it. It’s so much more impactful when there’s the absence of sound. It’s not always about what you’re adding, it’s about what you choose to take away.’ And that moment, in the theater, you just felt everyone’s goosebumps,” said Cahill.
Because much of “Fallout”’s sound team had previously worked with Nolan, they had a good idea of what he was looking for and credited him with being a good communicator in that regard.
“For the mix in general, I kind of understand his sensibilities and what he likes. He uses sound to help tell the story, which is awesome for a sound team because we get to create, and he trusts our instincts,” said Rogers.
“Jonah creates a road map in editorial using temp music and temp effects, so we have a road map of what we want to achieve. But as far as Jonah’s style, every project is a little different. There’s no set way that he likes to mix. He’s a very complete filmmaker in the way he sees and envisions every scene, so we’re just trying to help support his creative vision,” added Rogers.
“Knowing that it was Jonathan Nolan, [I thought] this was the perfect project to really go all-out. I tried to bring the most aggressive and intense sounds when appropriate, do as much as I could with what Daniel gave me, and really focus on bringing out the creativity in it, hoping that he would go for things like that. Most of the time, that stuff was well received,” said Bucino.
“In my experience of working with Jonah [during] the last couple years of ‘Westworld,’ he very much favors saving production as much as possible,” noted Cahill.
“He’s sensitive to ADR, so it’s a lot of work cleaning the original production tracks but also maintaining the real sound from the set [because] he doesn’t like things stripped. He doesn’t like cleaning out too much because he really wants to maintain the real sound, so when we are doing ADR, it’s in combination with production,” she said. “We’re trying to do as little ADR as possible to maintain the integrity of production. So it’s a lot of trying to find a great match so we can do a combo and maybe only have to use a word or two, or even just a syllable, of the ADR so that it’s not noticeable.”
Before heading off to work on their next project together — the Hulu series Deli Boys — the group weighed in on the importance of being a Guild member.
“[It’s] so vital to our everyday work environment, just knowing that there’s collaboration with high-level professionals, first of all, and everybody is bringing their A-games” while also affording members certain protections, said Rogers.
“The union has provided me with the opportunity to work on some of the best projects that I could have ever imagined, such as ‘Fallout.’ and also, protection for myself and my family… For a family of four to be able to afford health insurance and know we’re protected is really, really important to me,” said Bucino, who first joined the Guild when he moved from New York to California to be a Sound Supervisor on the CBS series “Life in Pieces.”
“Fallout” has performed very well on Prime Video, drawing more than 65 million viewers in its first two weeks of release — a figure that prompted Amazon MGM Studios to quickly renew the series for a second season.
Regardless of how “Fallout” fares with Emmy voters, it has already proven to be a hit with critics and most importantly, with fans of the games, which may be the biggest victory of all.
Be the first to comment