SUNDANCE 2023: Celebrating the Sound of a Musical Icon in ‘Little Richard: I Am Everything’ Doc – with Sound Designer Andres Gonzalez

Director Lisa Cortes's rock-doc Little Richard: I Am Everything – in US Documentary Competition at Sundance 2023 – looks at the life and work of music icon Little Richard. Here, supervising sound editor/sound designer Andres Gonzalez talks about recreating the sounds of crowds, ambiences, and diegetic elements for the archival footage, and creating new sounds to enhance the magical and cosmic elements that represent Little Richard's energy.

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Sundance; Andres Gonzalez

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Award-winning supervising sound editor/sound designer Andres E. Marthe Gonzalez at Gigantic Studios in NYC brings to life the sound of director Lisa Cortes’s debut documentary film Little Richard: I Am Everything in US Documentary Competition at Sundance 2023. The film celebrates Little Richard’s colorful and larger-than-life music and explores his complex personal life through interviews with those he’s inspired and collaborated with (like Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Nile Rodgers), through archival performances and interviews, and images from his life.

Gonzalez, along with sound effects editor Gibran Yusuf , supervising dialogue editor Tristan Baylis, dialogue editor Nicholas Schenck, and sound designer/re-recording mixer Tom Paul, worked to recreate the missing sound from archival material and restore original recordings, and design new elements – such as the magical sparkle that surrounds Little Richard – to enhance Cortes’s portrayal of this iconic and trail-blazing musical legend.

Meet the Artist 2023: Lisa Cortés on “Little Richard: I Am Everything”

What were director Lisa Cortes’s goals for sound on Little Richard: I Am Everything? And what were your creative ideas on how sound could help to tell or support this story?

Supervising sound editor/sound designer Andres Gonzalez

Andres E. Marthe Gonzalez (AG): Lisa Cortes was an amazing director to work with because, from the beginning, she gave us all this freedom; she was very open to the ideas that we had yet she knew what she wanted.

When she came to the spotting session, she said, “I don’t want this movie to sound like Disney or Tinker Bell.” She was talking about these magical particles flying around in the film. They’re supposed to represent the essence of Little Richard. But she didn’t want them to sound like Tinker Bell – to sound like the classic magic sound that we always hear for particles. That’s a very thin line because that’s your first instinct, to throw these classic wind chimes in and get away with it.

She wanted to always evoke this magic because this is the origin of an incredible talent who is Little Richard, and we owe him so much. His whole life he was basically in the shadows. Even though everyone knew him, he was never recognized as the artist he was. So for her, it was very important that we bring out this idea that Little Richard is everything. She wanted these particles to sound celestial, to be a representation of his talent and his personality. So, she wanted this energy to build throughout the movie.

Since he was celestial, there are so many images of galaxies and the universe and explosions. There is a lot of movement, just as there is in his music. She wanted us to capture this energy and bring these images to life with psychedelic sounds. They had to be very big sounds yet very realistic.

She wanted these particles to sound celestial, to be a representation of his talent and his personality.

I hate using that word “realistic” because the universe doesn’t have any sound. But, we are so used to hearing this massive sound for the universe, right? So when she said “realistic,” I knew immediately what she wanted. She wanted the classic, big, huge universe sound with all these massive explosions. She wanted to feel the mass of the universe, its substance. So we have all of these amazing explosions in this movie.

So her two first goals for us were to get the sound of the particles right and to get the universe to sound big.

With that said, she also didn’t want the movie to sound scary or eerie, which was hard because there were a lot of lights in the documentary. There’s a lot of magic happening and a lot of reflection from the lights. As a sound designer, you try to recreate these shimmering lights with classic sounds, like cymbal swells that have a shimmery quality. But it couldn’t sound scary, so we had to be careful that we didn’t go in the wrong direction – that it didn’t sound too “Tinker Bell” but also that it didn’t sound scary.

It was a contrast between galactic and terrestrial images, and she wanted there to be a big sonic difference between the two.

Since Little Richard is everything, Lisa created montages that have galaxy images and also terrestrial images. For instance, in one montage that I call “Tutti Frutti,” there are images of galaxies and also a mom giraffe licking her calf, but then we see a big explosion right after, and particles of DNA and we go back to a meteor flying by and then to flowers opening. It was a contrast between galactic and terrestrial images, and she wanted there to be a big sonic difference between the two. So there are organic sounds for the terrestrial elements and synthy sounds for the cosmic elements.

Lisa was always very helpful with feedback. We sent drafts to her for feedback. It was a very fun project, a true experience.

Were you working with a lot of archival material for this film? Can you talk about that process, and how you prepared it sonically to fit in with this film?

AG: This movie was mostly archival material because we’re telling a story about an artist who passed away; they created this documentary using interviews of people sharing their memories of Little Richard and from archival material.

A lot of the archival material didn’t have any sound, so we were starting from scratch. We basically had to sound design it from scratch and add all the diegetic elements. For instance, if we had old footage of New Orleans, then we had to build all the traffic, and build the crowds.

A lot of the archival material didn’t have any sound, so we were starting from scratch.

There were so many crowds in the movie for the concerts and TV performances. Both normally don’t have any crowds so we had to recreate them, always making sure that they sounded accurate to the time period. Those TV shows had a particular clapping sound, a particular audience reaction of cheering and clapping.

We had to recreate the crowds for different venues, always being very careful with the size of the crowds and the type of reactions. Sometimes Lisa wanted us to add cheering, and sometimes she wanted us to add angry crowds. Sometimes she wanted us to add just claps or applause.

As a sound designer, I always try to find the right source. When I’m sound designing for old archival footage, I always try to find sound effects that sound vintage enough so I don’t have to process them too much. Sometimes, I don’t have to process it at all. I feel like when you get the right sound, it just works. The less I have to do to a sound effect, the bigger a success it is for me. So I was always looking for old vintage recordings that have a gritty sound or that sound old enough.

When I’m sound designing for old archival footage, I always try to find sound effects that sound vintage enough…

For the backgrounds in the archival footage, I always aim for getting the right sound. There were some instances where I had to futz modern recordings of crowds, car-bys, or city ambience to make them sound a little older and accurate to the time period. One plugin I used a lot for this documentary was Vinyl from iZotope. It’s free, and it’s a great one. It was always open on my third screen for quick rendering. It was so helpful for making sounds feel a little more vintage.

I also used Speakers from AudioThing. That plugin replicates the audio chain in that you can choose which microphone you want to ‘record’ the sound – picking an old vintage microphone gives you that mic’s equalization on the sound – and then you can choose which speakers to play the sound through, such as an old TV, which will also add a nice vintage mid-range sound to it.

Director Lisa Cortes on Making the Documentary ‘Little Richard: I Am Everything’

If you had to pick one scene that best represents your sound work on this film, what would that be? Can you describe the scene (in general terms) and what went into your sound work on it?

AG: My team and I feel very proud that we were able to use sound effects in a very musical way for the footage. For instance, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the interviewee is talking about how Little Richard came up with a particular rhythm for “Boogie” – that it comes from a train. They show a train as he is talking about how the rhythm was created, and underneath the train shot, they start playing the song. When I saw that shot, I knew I had to get a train sound in sync with the music, so that the mixer could play both simultaneously and they’d work nicely together.

…I had to get a train sound in sync with the music, so that the mixer could play both simultaneously and they’d work nicely together.

I looked for a specific train that I liked, that had this steam sound and the rhythm of the wheels clacking. It had to sound old enough, and have a steady rhythm. I was able to cut a few seconds of steady clacking, match that to the tempo of the music using Time Shift in Pro Tools, and loop it.

On top of that, there’s this drummer explaining how he was playing the song and he’s performing the beat. I had to re-edit his performance to match the tempo of the song and the train sound effect so that these three elements played in sync. I’m a drummer, so I’m obsessed with having things on beat.

…I was orchestrating all these archival sounds to go with the music.

There’s another very nice moment where Little Richard is talking about his memories as a child, how he remembers this woman washing clothes in the backyard. So there was this sound of her scrubbing clothes in a washtub. The music starts and we see images of people laughing, people at a bar, an old guy playing a guitar, and people dancing on the deck of a house. When I recreated these archival sounds, I wanted them to go with the music. So in a way, I was orchestrating all these archival sounds to go with the music.

I was able to loop the sound of the ladies washing clothes to get a rhythm that would be my beat for the song that was about to come in. That way the effects could keep going underneath and just poke through when you see the appropriate image, like a guy laughing or the ladies dancing on the deck. These woody footsteps of the dancing go with the rhythm of the music. So I was able to build this orchestra of sound effects with the music.

I spent a lot of time building those loops. If you want to use sound effects in a musical way, there are two characteristics to consider: the rhythm and the harmonics. So if I go with the rhythm characteristic, then the sound has to be a little repetitive in order to get a pattern that your brain remembers and starts to process more as a music beat than just a sound.

What was the most challenging (or second-most challenging, if the above scene was the most challenging) scene for sound? What went into it?

AG: The beginning of the movie is very interesting; it has all these galactic sound effects that I mentioned before. We see Little Richard is about to go on stage, and this massive crowd is cheering and clapping in a rhythmic way, in anticipation of the performance. The interviewees begin telling some stories about Little Richard. We start seeing the particles flying by for the first time as Little Richard takes the stage in slow motion. Then we go to images of this universe. I love this sequence because there’s a massive explosion of the universe and we see all these particles flying around.

We ended up doing four pre-dubs just for the explosion…

That’s a very interesting scene in terms of sound design because there were so many elements. We have this amazing explosion that we have to recreate. We ended up doing four pre-dubs just for the explosion, the environment with the wind passing by, the debris, and the fourth pre-dub was only the individual particle flybys – flying toward you in surround and then flying by. It was an incredible scene. Then there is a four-second shot of the universe and then the titles. It’s so beautiful.

Because it’s granular, you get a lot of variations from a single source sound.

For the sound of the particles, I ended up using a lot of glass. I found a very nice wind chime that I processed with a plugin called DUST from SoundMorph. Basically, it’s a plug-in made for particles. It’s a synthesizer plugin that uses real-time particle simulation, where each particle is a separate granular sound source. I like it because it has a very musical texture to it. So, you pick a source sound, which in this instance was the wind chimes. And then you can pick the environment in which the particles fly around. You pick how you want the particles to fly around. Because it’s granular, you get a lot of variations from a single source sound. And it’s automating in real-time with the volume.

I also processed the sounds using Soundtoys plugins, to add a bit of distortion sometimes.

Processing all these plugins in real time makes a huge difference if you play them with your MIDI controller. Once you are recording to a track, you can also automate as you go, playing a little bit with the volume and the signal mix. That’s how I came up with the sound of the particles, using sources like wind chimes, glass debris, and pleasant winds for the air moving the particles.

I also used reverbs to sell the whole galaxy vibe – the hugeness of the particles flying around in space. For reverb, I used ReVibe in Pro Tools and PhoenixVerb. When using Audio Ease’s Altiverb, I chose large reverb presets like aircraft hangars and other massive places.

What have you learned while working on this film that has helped you to grow your craft – as a sound artist and sonic storyteller?

AG: I learned to use sound effects and foley in a more musical way, similar to how they were used on Baby Driver. The effects and foley were used to complement the music. That was a big challenge. To use effects in a musical way, you have to consider rhythm and harmony. If you’re using effects in a harmonic way, you have to think about pitch. It has to complement the music unless you’re going for dissonance. To use sound effects in a rhythmic way, it has to be in tempo with the music. You have to make sure that every sound that you add works within a musical context, so it complements the music.

A big thanks to Andres Gonzalez for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Little Richard: I Am Everything and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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