Designing the Thrilling Sound of ‘Wonder Woman 1984’

Director Patty Jenkins unleashes more of Wonder Woman’s powers in the latest release Wonder Woman 1984. Diana discovers her ability to fly and how to turn objects invisible — leveling-up her arsenal of awesomness in righting the world’s wrongs.

Wonder Woman 1984 is set during the Cold War. Diana is living in Washington, D.C., working in the Smithsonian when a magical stone (called the Dreamstone) shows up there. This stone grants wishes. But, of course, you can’t something for nothing. Each wish granted comes at a personal cost. Struggling businessman Max Lord steals the stone and wishes to ‘become the stone.’ With its power transferred to Max, he can note grant wishes but it costs him his health. In a quest to stave off death, he broadcasts his message to the world that everyone should wish for something they desire. In return, he leeches their collective life force.

In keeping with the tone of the first film, director Jenkins prized natural, realistic sounds even for the more fanciful, magical aspects. She tapped WB Sound‘s Richard King (who’s won four Oscars for sound editing on Dunkirk , Inception , The Dark Knight , and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World ) and Jimmy Boyle (winner of a sound editing Emmy for his work on Band of Brothers ) and their teams split between L.A. and London’s De Lane Lea.

Here, King and Boyle detail their approach to creating Wonder Woman’s iconic sounds — updating her lasso and designing her flying skills and her ability to make objects invisible. They also talk about how they created design-led sequences, like Max Lord’s broadcast, Wonder Woman’s fight with Cheetah, and much more!
 

Wonder Woman 1984 – Official Main Trailer

Wonder Woman’s lasso was established in Director Jenkins’s first Wonder Woman film. How were you able to expand on that sound for Wonder Woman 1984?

Richard King (RK): I began a little bit before Jimmy [Boyle] since he was on another movie, but we both worked on it.

I had a first crack at it. Patty wanted the feeling of the lasso in the first film, but not be slavish to it. In other words, elaborate upon it a little bit, make it a little more interesting, but keep it in the same world. Initially, the sound was mostly electrical, sparky whooshes — and then Jimmy and his team did a lot of work on it and added a lot of detail. And of course, as the visual effects came in, it became more and more elaborate and more and more supple. We wanted to sound all of those moves and really articulate the sound of the lasso’s movement.

It was quite a long process. I think we worked on it almost until the end, Jimmy, didn’t we?

Jimmy Boyle (JB): Yeah, it was definitely developed on and went through stages and it became a combination, as Richard said, of this physical lasso and electrical elements.

We also played around with a choral element, the original idea was to add another subtle presence to the lasso when it’s glowing but we also re-sampled that sound and made quick doppler moves. This effect then took on a characteristic similar to the real physical sound of a lasso whipping. That became a cool ingredient as well. It was a combination of all of those things really.

 

 

In this film, Wonder Woman comes into her other powers. For instance, she makes Steve’s jet turn invisible. How did you handle the sound for that scene?

RK:The way that we intimated that it goes invisible is by making a big moment of the instant that it turns invisible. Beyond that, it had subtle jet sounds to it, but we wanted to make a big event of its disappearance.

So, as you recall from the film, the jet taxiing towards us is speeding up, speeding up, speeding up. Steve throttles up. The jet gets very loud. It zooms overhead, straight up, and then disappears. We basically did that with sound by making it very loud going right over their heads and there’s a beat silence on the sky, which sells the idea that it’s disappeared. And then I think the following cut is the two of them inside the cockpit.

We made bits and pieces of movement out of lightning and thunder rips…

JB: From there, it was subtle jet sounds and ripping air. We made bits and pieces of movement out of lightning and thunder rips that we manipulated to give the sense that the jet had become invisible.

But also, there’s a big hand over to music at that point as well. It becomes quite romantic and balletic once we get into the 4th of July fireworks scene.

RK: It was their love story moment during the fireworks scene. Yeah, very music heavy, but Jimmy and his team made some lovely fireworks that were indistinct, low and muffled. They were very romantic fireworks, I thought Jimmy.

JB: Yeah, definitely. I think that was Patty’s brief early on, wasn’t it Richard? Obviously, we want to describe what’s going on there, but at the same time, once we get up there and get into that sequence, it’s about Steve and Diana and it needs to play on the romance and the music.
 

Were you using EQ envelopes to gradually intensify the processing? How did you make the sound go from normal to a disappearing jet?

JB: We definitely did a bit of that. That was definitely an element within the jet going away that was exactly that; it was a designed EQ sweep that sort of took us to silence as the jet passes over us.

Then we tried to tail out with bits of tails of jets that we could ripple and filter and add the tiniest bit of thunder going away — that kind of thing. But there definitely was a sweep on that. That was part of what we wanted to try and go for in that moment.
 

Wonder Woman figures out another skill — how to fly. It’s not magical flying. It feels very natural and very in character for her. Overall, she doesn’t have a supernatural kind of feel. Everything about her is very natural-feeling. So how did you handle her discovery of her flying ability?

RK: We kind of left it to the audience’s imagination. If you notice in that first scene, she takes off using her lasso and she figures out that if she moves her hands in a certain way she can bank and change altitude. And, so she kind of teaches herself how to fly.

…when she moves her hands, we would accentuate the buffeting wind as if she’s creating turbulence…

She’s flying/floating in a buffeting, high-altitude wind, so consequently, when she moves her hands, we would accentuate the buffeting wind as if she’s creating turbulence and she gradually learns in the course of the sequence how to control her flight.

We didn’t want to make a big deal, sonically, out of her flying— like hearing a constant whistling wind or something. It started out that way but became gentler.

JB: Yeah, it was something that we definitely felt should be natural, but powerful. I think there’s quite a lot of low description. We weren’t going for lots of high frequency here. I think that was a direction from Patty as well, she wanted the description of the air movement and wind but for the scene to be natural with good physicality. Basically to be weighty and powerful but not interfere with what’s going on in the scene, which again plays big on music.

RK: Patty has a really strong sense of how sound plays in her movies, especially emphasis and de-emphasis on certain frequencies, and to keep things in a mellow pocket so nothing is too bright or clashy or hashy. She loves the low-end element…

Patty has a really strong sense of how sound plays in her movies, especially emphasis and de-emphasis on certain frequencies…

JB: …which is great because I think that’s how we felt as well, that there are frequencies that really bite your ear and if you have too much of that for too long in films, it can become quite tiring.

Patty was definitely very sensitive to that and she briefed us quite early on to that fact. She likes the weight but not so much the shrill, higher frequencies all the time. And certain things would catch her ear.

But it’s a good thing because when you get big and powerful and loud, you don’t want to tear people’s heads off.
 

Did you get to record any new and interesting whooshes or were you pulling most of them from libraries? Where did your wind movement sounds come from?

RK: I think I did record some. Most of the recording we did (or at least that I did and I think that Jimmy did too) were elements for sound design. They weren’t sounds to just go directly into the film, although we did record some horses for the sequence in Themyscira.

We did an underwater record which we used in Themyscira at the beginning of the film…

JB: We did do an underwater record which we used in Themyscira at the beginning of the film, but also mainly for the Cheetah fight at the end where they fought in the water.

And then we recorded lots of spot effects and things that could potentially be left for foley. I bought some old IBM keyboards and that kind of stuff, which we recorded to use for ambiences within the lab and some of the offices.

We definitely designed lots of new elements for the things that you’re asking about, like the winds and the whooshes, as Richard said.

RK: It was an interesting process working on the film because myself and my team cut the first temp dub here in L.A. while most of Jimmy’s team was still on another show. He put his dialogue folks on early and foley, too. Jimmy shot the foley in London.

JB: I was actually finishing the film Richard mentioned in L.A. so Richard and I had the first spotting session there at Warner Bros. in Burbank. Richard had been working on the film’s sound effects and design at that point. Then Iain Eyre our dialogue editor, Kevin Penney our foley supervisor, and Buster Flaws our London-based First Assistant started in looking after mainly ADR and foley for the first temp mix.

Then we went to England to do the temp dub and then from that point on, Jimmy’s team handled the majority of the editorial.

RK: Then we went to England to do the temp dub and then from that point on, Jimmy’s team handled the majority of the editorial. I was working back here in L.A. with Andrew Bock, my good right hand. We figured out a way to safely utilize the same sessions using a shared folder and a sign-out sheet using Google Whiteboard.

JB: We had a server set up by Warner Bros. De lane Lea and Burbank. Andrew and Buster developed and perfected a system where we could easily share sessions and media. It worked very well with the time difference.

RK: The handoff was at about 11 or 12 o’clock in the morning but we always had access to all the sessions unless someone was working on it. And there was a lot trading back and forth. And I think that strengthened the sound of the film, just having so many creative hands on it, with Jimmy and I as the guiding creative forces.

I would open a session that I had last worked on and see that somebody had done some really cool work on it. It was a constant additive process of addition, improvement, and if Jimmy or I didn’t like something that somebody put in, you know… It was guidance with a lot of free territory for the editors to roam in and get creative. So it was an excellent collaboration.

Jimmy recorded a lot of foley in the natural world.

I think Jimmy and I have very similar aesthetic tastes in sound. We’re on the same wavelength and so from early on we shared all creative responsibilities.

As I said, the foley was shot in London, and as Jimmy said, they recorded a lot of foley in the natural world. I think he did some footsteps in a shallow bay, right Jimmy, for the horses on Themyscira?

JB: Yeah, absolutely, there were all sorts of bits and pieces. I like to do that a lot. If there are things that you feel would be better recorded in that real space, I like to capture those things that way. It’s something Glen Gathard our foley mixer and I are passionate about.

…you shoot different styles of foley for different movies and different director’s tastes.

One of the briefs early on from Patty was that she really likes to keep as much of the production sound as possible, if there’s foley being added it should fit seamlessly with that production sound. That’s really helpful to know because you shoot different styles of foley for different movies and different director’s tastes. So we knew quite early on that we really needed to make sure whatever we were doing to augment the production sound, it needed to feel like production ultimately. So that was what we set out to achieve and I feel we achieved it.

RK: Yeah, I think that was the goal with everything, even the more fanciful sounds like the lasso…

JB: It had to be grounded in reality in some way.

RK: Yes we wanted to base all of her power sounds on sounds that we recorded, and use a light touch with the manipulation and processing.
 

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It feels like you really had some fun with Max Lord’s broadcast to the world. So Max is spreading his message and he’s getting back everyone’s wishes. There was so much cool processing and spatialization going on in that sequence. As the camera moves to different places where you see this broadcast, of course, all of that processing changes so that you experience his broadcast in that space.

Can you tell me about your work on that sequence? What were some of your creative opportunities or challenges in designing that bit?

JB: There were two things within that — exactly what you asked about with the treatments within the spaces — which Richard and I tried to do in the cutting room pre-temp mix to get an idea that we could play for Patty because, as you could imagine, you could spend hours on a sequence like that in the mix theater, which we couldn’t spend during a temp mix.

…as you could imagine, you could spend hours on a sequence like that in the mix theater…

Gary Rizzo liked what we did and said, ‘Look, let’s not get rid of this. Let’s not just use this for temp purposes. I want to build on this.’

So Richard and I did the treatments on it, and then Gary took it further and we all had some fun with it.

And then there were the wishes. There are people around the world that are making these wishes and that was something that Richard started on early and got his guys in L.A. to record things. We just followed on with that, all of us. If we had an ADR session with crowd guys, or we had ADR sessions and had some time left over, we’d grab all of us and anyone that spoke another language and do loads of these things that we could use and treat. So that became very layered.
 

After Barbara/Cheetah was defeated, Wonder Woman seeks out Max, who is still doing his broadcast. That must’ve been so tough to mix because you have all those people’s wishing voices and this big wind and big music and Max is yelling and Wonder Woman is talking softly. How did you wrangle that scene into submission?

JB: That was one of the tougher ones wasn’t it, Richard?

RK: Yes, because of all that you said, Jennifer. It all needed to be there too, to make its point.

It was a very fine line to walk, with a lot of experiments and revisions.

So, it was a really delicate balance. Gary Rizzo and Gilbert Lake (the effects mixer) really walked a fine line there because there’s a lot of emphasis on the voices. You have to hear Max, obviously, but you have to also give a nod to the wind, and Wonder Woman is trying to stop Max at that point and so we need to hear a little bit of the lasso. It was a very fine line to walk, with a lot of experiments and revisions.

JB: Yeah, it definitely was, like so many other things within the film and it was great for Richard and I to brainstorm these challenges with Gilly, Gary and the rest of our team.

We were all at De Lane Lea at Warner Brothers. Because we had the cutting rooms upstairs, we could bounce between the mixing stage and our cutting rooms and review ideas while we were mixing. We would do some stuff and play it to Gary and Gilly — as you’d expect we would do; that’s the process. But, at the same time, it was very involved, back and forth. And they would come up with ideas and say, ‘what about this?’ This area of the film was one of those places where we’d all come up with solutions to how we would make that work best with what we needed to try and achieve, to tell the story.
 

[tweet_box]Designing the Wonderful Sound of ‘Wonder Woman 1984′[/tweet_box]

Another scene I love for its creative sound opportunities was that second fight between Wonder Woman and Barbara. Barbara has transformed into Cheetah and Wonder Woman is wearing Asteria’s armor. There’s so much great stuff in there, like electrical elements, water elements, and animal elements. Can you tell me about that scene and some of your favorite sounds for it?

JB: We had lots of factors and things to play with in that, like the high wire fight and the cheetah vocalizations, that was quite involved. It ended up being a combination of sourced and sampled big cats. I think it was maybe a puma with little bits of tiger stuff in there, some pitched, morphed, moved, and then we got the whole performance from actress Kristen Wiig. We morphed between the two. And that was good fun. I always find those things are the hardest, when you’re trying to do that human into animal vocal and keep it feeling like it is real. It’s difficult but rewarding when you get it right.

I always find those things are the hardest, when you’re trying to do that human into animal vocal and keep it feeling like it is real.

And then there’s the suit of armor. Richard and I had some fun with that, coming up with the different elements. The suit needed to be articulate, but Patty said, ‘I want it to sound as big and as heavy and as powerful as we possibly can.’ At the same time, it’s got a lot of moving parts, which move very fast but we needed to keep it low and powerful. That was a challenge but again Richard and I scratched our heads, came up with ideas and tweaked and developed it.

RK: The armor needed to sound like it was the thickness of a manhole cover, but it was obviously very finely made and very articulated but it needed to sound much thicker and heavier than it actually was, just to convey that sense of impregnability.

JB: And it was definitely tough as well, because it needed to sound graceful but heavy and metallic, but not some sort of old rusty thing. It needed to sound beautiful because it looked beautiful.

RK: Yeah, and have a slight ring to it when it got hit. The armor was something we worked on for quite a while.

JB: It was a tricky one.

That scene needed to sound really impressive and big — a monumental fight between two super beings.

RK: The visual effects kind of came in late. They changed. They kept evolving but the finals came in, as I recall, quite late. There was a lot of detail-work with the swinging around on the high tension wires and sparks and impacts between the two of them as they fight. That scene needed to sound really impressive and big — a monumental fight between two super beings.

JB: I think in the end, for the wings opening and closing, Rowan Watson (one of our effects editors) and I got some different metals and things and did some recording. I probably shouldn’t tell you this (the decorators at Warner Bros. won’t be very happy with us), but there are these big old Victorian radiators in the back stairwell that we were running things up and down to try to get movement off, and that we could manipulate to be as heavy or light as we wanted to. That was another thing that we played with to try and get something that fits. Sampling stuff is great but sometimes it is really nice to just get that real performance into it, to get some other elements that are interesting.
 

That was going to be another one of my questions: what metal did you find to best represent this armor? What gave you the right sort of tonality and heaviness?

RK: Victorian Cast armor!

JB: Haha, a Warner Bros. radiator! No, it was a combination of all sorts.

RK: A lot of different kinds of metals.

JB: And I think probably non-literal stuff in there that we’d done for the powers. I remember when she takes flight, we’d made powerful movements that were not linked to anything that was literal for what she was wearing.

We played around with the high-wire stuff as well. I definitely remember that we messed around with a recording we did of huge springs to give us some of those feelings of those wires and the sounds resonating through them as they’re swinging around.

You don’t just want the whoosh of the wire. You want the twangy quality of big, thick cable…

RK: And we did some recording of a long piece of wire on one of the Warner Bros. shooting stages, which are vast. We tied it to one of the catwalks and were able to swing it and tension it and then twang it and do a lot of stuff with it in a really large, quiet space. You don’t just want the whoosh of the wire. You want the twangy quality of big, thick cable — metal cable — as it pivots around and swings. There are a lot of delicate sounds in there to convey that idea of them hanging and swinging on the wires.
 

What do you wish that other sound pros knew about your work on Wonder Woman 1984?

RK: I would like them to be absorbed in the film, first, and then if they see it a second time — go back for a second viewing — to check out the sound. I think it’s a very emotional film. It’s got a lot of warmth and heart and, if we’ve done our jobs, I think that the audience will get drawn into that and get totally enveloped in the world Patty built and just accept the sounds they hear, even the superpower sounds, as just a given. That’s why we really tried to stick to sounds of the world and natural sounds, building upon those rather than creating a thing that is that sound.

And it was always with the emphasis upon: I could imagine hearing that in the real world.

It’s a number of elements that, through a lot of trial and error, we found the right levels for, and both Jimmy and I did a lot of pre dubbing in that sense of, you know, having a lot of elements and finding the right sound within that large group of elements for something. And it was always with the emphasis upon: I could imagine hearing that in the real world.

So you don’t want to take the audience out of the fantasy, out of the story, for a second. That’s the biggest challenge in movies like this, because there’s so much crazy stuff going on and yet you don’t want it to ever sound unreal. You want it to sound like, ‘yeah, I could imagine hearing that. I hear that it’s happening in that spot in that particular space. I recognize that it’s in an acoustic space. I hear the reverb of it.’

I think first and foremost we tell the story, then we make it sound cool.

JB: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think that whenever I go to the cinema, I always sit that first time and watch the film and enjoy it. I think the only time I get pulled out of the film is if something is not describing something well enough, or if it’s really, really good — but that’s me thinking to myself, ‘how did they do that? That’s cool.’

But yeah, I think I absolutely agree with what Richard is saying: I think first and foremost we tell the story, then we make it sound cool.

A big thanks to Richard King and Jimmy Boyle for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Wonder Woman 1984 and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

 

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