Designing Disquieting Sound for ‘Black Mirror’ Season 7 – with Tom Jenkins, James Hayday, James Ridgway, Poppy Kavanagh, and Alex Sawyer

Now in its seventh season, Netflix’s Black Mirror series continues to be one of the most disturbing steaming shows, and not because it’s gory, or there are jump scares like a classic horror story. In fact, there’s very little blood (or jump scares) in the show. What’s disturbing is its reflection of humanity. Each episodes explores the dark side of human nature and how technology facilitates the self-serving tendencies of the individual. As our society’s connection with technology grows stronger, our human connections become diminished.

Season 7, while disturbing, feels a bit different somehow. As supervising sound editor/sound designer Tom Jenkins pointed out, “Ironically, in some ways, this is one of the warmest Black Mirror seasons emotionally, so the technology needed to feel real while supporting the characters’ emotional range.”

To bring the human aspect into the sounds of technology, Jenkins used recordings of his son as an element in his sound design for the Nubbin in Ep. 5 “Eulogy,” and the spaceships in Ep. 6 “USS Callister: Into Infinity.”

Here, Jenkins, re-recording mixer James Ridgway (at The Farm), supervising dialogue editor Alex Sawyer, music editor Poppy Kavanagh, and sound designer James Hayday dive into the details of their sound work on “USS Callister: Into Infinity” and “Eulogy,” as well as Ep. 3 “Hotel Reverie,” and Ep. 4 “Plaything.” They talk about creating relatable near-future technology sounds, explain how the sound of the Thronglets was created, discuss their approach to creating a black-and-white film inside the “Hotel Reverie” episode, share insights into designing and mixing “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” and much more!

Black Mirror: Season 7 | Official Trailer | Netflix

What were the showrunners’ goals for sound for Black Mirror Season 7? How did they want to approach the sound of the show this season?

Sound supervisor/sound designer Tom Jenkins

Tom Jenkins (TJ): Charlie Brooker, as creator, writer, and showrunner, shapes the overall vision of Black Mirror. Each episode typically features a different creative team, but on this season, Toby Haynes and Richard Webb directed and produced both “Bete Noir” and “USS Callister: Into Infinity.” Charlie ensures that the voices from every creative team are heard; however, he is the final arbiter of how the episodes and season will sound.

Besides Charlie, the sound and VFX departments were the only consistent creative influence throughout this series, so there was a responsibility incumbent in that position to help define the sonic and visual language of the show. Whilst this season still has big conceptual episodes, at its heart, each episode depicts raw emotional stories about the human condition; this meant the sound of each episode needed to be rooted in a relatable, tactile, and very real world. There were obvious episodes where we could embrace a much larger sound aesthetic, but ultimately, it was about linking all of these worlds with a thread of humanity.

Charlie Brooker, James MacLachlan, and Tom Jenkins discuss the sound editing and VFX on Black Mirror’s ‘USS Callister’ and ‘USS Callister: Into Infinity.’

Black Mirror’s USS Callister: Into Infinity with Charlie Brooker and Team | Netflix

Black Mirror has consistently shown the dark side of human nature and technology, and the unsettling link between the two. For example, this season, Robert Daly uses illegal DNA cloning technology to make replicas of co-workers to crew the USS Callister in the Infinity game, and Tuckersoft’s Colin Ritman creates fully sentient digital creatures called Thronglets in this ‘game’ that end up taking over the consciousness of humanity.

How did you use sound to subtly reinforce the sinister aspect of technology? Or the opposite? How did you use sound to make the tech feel innocuous, even as its impact on humanity is revealed through the story?

Re-recording mixer James Ridgway

James Ridgway (JR): It’s important that the technology in Black Mirror feels relatable. The stories take familiar aspects of our lives and push them down a darker path. So, from a sound perspective, we need to reflect that recognisable, contemporary world. The audio shouldn’t feel overly sci-fi or futuristic, unless, of course, we’re in the middle of an epic space battle!

TJ: Ironically, in some ways, this is one of the warmest Black Mirror seasons emotionally, so the technology needed to feel real while supporting the characters’ emotional range.

In “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” the challenge was giving technology emotional weight within a sci-fi context. Our characters are fighting for their lives on a cloud server in a digital world, so it was really important to us that all of the more sci-fi leaning sounds each had their own emotional resonance that we could use to score the scenes with.

all of the more sci-fi leaning sounds each had their own emotional resonance that we could use to score the scenes

For example, the characteristics of the interface sounds on the deck of the USS Callister would shift from warm and playful during light moments to cold and harsh when we needed things to feel tense. Similarly, Pixie’s pink gun evolves between fierce blasts and more playful tones depending on what’s happening. This approach to sci-fi sound design becomes a really useful tool to help score the emotional narrative of the episodes. Our sound designer, James Hayday, did a brilliant job of making these elements come to life.

Another example of this is the Nubbin, which is one unifying bit of technology across a few of the episodes: “Eulogy,” “Hotel Reverie,” and “Callister.” The sounds for the Nubbin technology needed to be uniform but also subtly different depending on the emotional quality expressed in the episodes.

The “Eulogy” Nubbin is softer and less overtly digital. It is made up of a processed sound of my little boy cooing in his sleep. I was trying to think of a sound that would help with the transitions in the Eulogy photographs. One day, as my son was drifting off to sleep, he made this sort of cooing noise. That felt like the sort of feeling the “Eulogy” Nubbin needed.

Within the uniform Nubbin noise present across each episode, there is a granular processing of that recording, which helps to keep it rooted in something emotional.

What went into the evolving sound of the Thronglets (or “Throng”) in “Plaything”?

TJ: A lot went into the sounds! It started at the script stage. I do a lot of sound work on outboard gear away from the computer when I start the initial design phase of any series, so the initial Thronglet sounds were conceived independently from any visuals.

These were shared back and forth between me and director David Slade. David really is a sound designer in his own right, so he was also creating some amazing sounding sketches for the Thronglets in Apple’s Logic Pro. It was a really exciting period of sharing things back and forth.

we needed to work out what was going to lead the creation of these creatures — the sound or the visuals.

The early versions of the Thronglets sounded very different from what we ended up with; they were more synthetic and overtly musical. As the visuals of the Thronglets started to develop, Charlie brought his vision into the process. We ended up in this sort of chicken-and-egg situation where we needed to work out what was going to lead the creation of these creatures — the sound or the visuals.

It was decided that sound would lead the animation, and we realized it would need to be a more obvious and simple melody. I came up with a few different melodies I thought we could use, and once we decided on one, we could then block out the progression of this melody through the episode for James MacLachlan (VFX Supervisor) and his team to animate to. It was a long process, but a really exciting way of working.

I asked James, Alex, and some friends and family to send recordings of themselves singing the melody of the Thronglet song.

We did a lot of versions of the Thronglets, but eventually, as with so many of the bits of technology in the show, we ended up going down the human route. I asked James, Alex, and some friends and family to send recordings of themselves singing the melody of the Thronglet song. That was then processed and put into a granular sampler patch I made in Kilohearts Phase Plant.

The technology of the time was a big deciding factor in how the sounds were created. As an extra layer, I mimicked a soundfont from the SPC700 Nintendo chip, which felt accurate to how these games would have sounded in that era, and it’s a little nod to video game sound history.

The Phase Plant patch lets us gradually change the frequency response, quality, and bit depth. So, as the technology developed within the episode, our Thronglet sounds and their fidelity developed as well. We went from these bit-crushed, simple recordings of the individual Thronglet melody to a choir of harmonizing Thronglets all singing and harmonizing at different speeds and intervals, creating this tapestry of Throinglet sounds that would then all get faster and faster and faster until they became this piercing singularity at the end of the episode.

Also, can you talk about your mix for this episode, particularly near the end, when Cameron shows the ‘code’ to the camera in the interrogation room and the ‘signal’ gets disseminated?

JR: Once the QR code has been received and the progress bar starts, we didn’t want to give anything away about what was coming next. It was about giving as much tension and anticipation as possible with the beeps increasing in both pitch and frequency, marrying with the Shepard tone-like score.

High-frequency tones and classic interference textures were layered with Tom’s brilliant chorus of Thronglets

For the “signal” itself, Charlie was keen for it to feel analogue — something harsh and jarring, designed to make the audience physically flinch. High-frequency tones and classic interference textures were layered with Tom’s brilliant chorus of Thronglets, creating the unsettling sense that their singing is somehow re-coding our brains. Not sure I’ll be lining up to hear that one live in concert.

TJ: Ha! Yeah, it’s certainly a challenging listen at the end! The end of the episode was actually pretty different right up until the final review. We initially had it as a much more melodic, throbbing tapestry of sound. Ultimately, it needed to feel simpler and more brutal. Charlie’s vision was this singular pure sound burrowing into people’s minds. So we eventually ended up with just this high-pitched tone, purposefully shocking, loud and abrasive. Charlie really wanted people to jump out of their skins when they heard it, which I think definitely happens.

In “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” there are so many references to other media (i.e., games, films, and series). This must have been so much fun for the sound team! There is this lightsaber-esque staff, Star Trek-esque teleporting technology, a space battle, and different planets! Can you talk about your favorite sounds to create for this episode, and what went into them?

TJ: This was such a gift of an episode to work on; Toby and Charlie created such an incredible world. There are so many references to iconic films and games, so having the opportunity to play a small role in adding to the canon of sci-fi sound design was really exciting. Even before we started working on the episode, just talking about sci-fi film references with Toby was so much fun and got us excited to dive into the episode.

Black Mirror | Season 7 “USS Callister: Into Infinity” Transporter Sound Design Layers

The transporter sounds were a particular favourite. We knew we wanted to reference the sound of the transports from the early Star Trek films and the original “Callister” episode. They were inherently very musical sounds. We had early chats with Toby Haynes (director), Richard Webb (producer), and Daniel Pemberton (composer) where we all agreed that the sound of the transporters would have to be in harmony with the score. Many of the transporter moments are big musical moments. We wanted these transporter sequences to read as one cohesive audio event — not to feel like two things plonked on top of each other.

We wanted these transporter sequences to read as one cohesive audio event — not to feel like two things plonked on top of each other.

We were developing our sounds to temp VFX and reworked and augmented them to fit the new visuals. James MacLachlan and his team created these amazing unique unique-looking transporters with so many textures and details for sound to attach to. James Hayday did fantastic work on this, which I then augmented using a Make Noise modular system and Ableton Live. This added an additional harmonized musical layer, which created a choral element to harmonize with Dan [Pemberton]’s score, offering a bit of a call and response to Dan’s work.

Nannette screams as she’s being transported back up to the Callister. That gave us a great opportunity to manipulate her voice using a bit-crushing-style effect, adding a digital, glitchy texture.

JR: I’m a huge fan of the teleportation sounds, too. Tom and his team created such beautiful layers for it. We were able to adapt each instance of the teleporting to the visuals. Sometimes it was far blockier; other times the transition was smoother and more fluid. It gave us room to play.

One standout moment is at the end of the jungle run, when Nannette screams as she’s being transported back up to the Callister. That gave us a great opportunity to manipulate her voice using a bit-crushing-style effect, adding a digital, glitchy texture.

TJ: I also loved the laser dopplers on Pixie’s gun from the jungle run battle. I recorded the sounds of my old geriatric bulldog and heavily processed them with the sounds of Tasmanian devils screaming. Because Pixie was Australian, it felt fun to have a little bit of an Antipodean flavour to it. These were layered with James’s more synthetic elements from his vintage synths, which were all then run through various outboard gear, including a Thermionic Culture Culture Vulture and some other saturators to fatten them up.

The space ships were also a favourite, and something else I managed to sneak recordings of my son into. This was another late-night inspiration. He was having a particularly bad teething episode one night where his screams hit a certain heartbreaking pitch I hadn’t heard before. I kept a mic handy for the next time it happened and managed to get a recording of them, which was then heavily processed and became a layer of the sounds of the spaceships zipping by. It can’t help but break my heart a bit every time I hear them! James [Hayday] also did some brilliant morphing of metallic sounds to get those ships screaming!

Sound designer James Hayday

James Hayday (JH): Building the ancient, natural world on the Pixie planet, I used loads of recordings I had made of native New Zealand birds from the Tawharanui Peninsula. It’s this incredible predator-free ecology trail north of Auckland that’s home to many Tūī and Korimako. Being there is like stepping back in time, a save point from a previous iteration of New Zealand Aotearoa! There are really expressive birds that sound absolutely wild when you pitch them down. Those birds are talking through time, no doubt.

On the battle front, there was this particularly gnarly metal screaming sound that the Liverpool Street Station elevator was making one night that I captured and then mangled around in all directions to help shape various metallic impacts and ship damage elements during the battle. I also made this recording of my friend Dan Kircher’s garage door, which may in fact be a portal to another world; it’s so expressive and pained. That door talks.

What was your approach to the mix on “USS Callister: Into Infinity”? (I love the epic sound of the energy blast sequence that destroys the entire game!)

JR: Yeah, the last 10 minutes of the show were hugely fun to mix. We must give a shout-out to Daniel Pemberton’s fantastic score too; it complemented the action so well whilst also instantly pivoting to the tense standoff between Nanette and Robert Daly. It was important for me to give the Infinity Rings a huge amount of weight, too. Every flyby needed to feel like a near miss with a planet.

This would have previously meant relying on clip mics, but with advancements in noise reduction plugins, such as Hush Pro and Accentize dxRevive, we can now use wide booms as the predominant source

The rest of the episode is very, very funny. So yes, we were mixing a VR space opera, but dialogue clarity for jokes and making sure sound effects weren’t distracting was just as important. The location sound recordist Stuart Piggott did a really great job of capturing the dialogue, particularly with so many lead characters talking in wide shots on a large stage. This would have previously meant relying on clip mics, but with advancements in noise reduction plugins, such as Hush Pro and Accentize dxRevive, we can now use wide booms as the predominant source rather than just adding extra reverb/ambience. That we can now easily adjust the level of reverb on every recording is such a game-changer.

Black Mirror | Season 7 “USS Callister: Into Infinity” Jungle Run Mix Breakdown

TJ: The mixing process for the episode began in the editorial phase. We were sending sound ideas and passes of certain sequences back and forth to the cutting room, and we were getting some earlier bounces of Dan’s score to work against. We were fortunate to have some time on the stage before the pre-mix, so James [Ridgway] did a half day mixing a few sequences, which we could then share with editorial to get feedback on how it was all shaping up.

we knew fairly early on that we had room and frequency range to make the guns feel massive without having to compromise on tonality.

We were really fortunate to have Daniel Pemberton’s incredible score to work with. He composed in such a way that made room for sound. This informed how we designed the jungle run sequence, especially as we knew fairly early on that we had room and frequency range to make the guns feel massive without having to compromise on tonality. The jungle run is a prime example of a scene that, whilst it was a complicated sequence to mix (brilliantly handled by James Ridgway), we were already in a good place because both sound and music had been working in such a way that they were harmonious and sympathetic to one another.

The end explosion was an idea that happened fairly late on in the mix, I can’t remember whose idea it was but we decided to shift the big orchestra and synth hit onto the visuals of the crew in the callister which created this little moment of silence before the hit. Then you were smashed over the head with this huge score and this massive plasma explosive sound design element that became a really fun moment in the episode.

Music Editor Poppy Kavanagh

Poppy Kavanagh (PK): I’d like to add a bit about the music process. Since we had a full episode’s worth of music during the picture editing and temping stages, we already had a clear musical language to work from. This greatly helped in integrating the music early in the process. By the first day of the pre-mix, we had all the mixed music and stems ready. Daniel also joined us early on for the mix reviews and provided valuable suggestions on volume riding. The score was recorded at Air Studios by Sam Okell.

JR: Working with director Toby Haynes for a third time — something of a rare privilege on Black Mirror — was a real pleasure. He’s an incredibly collaborative presence, treating sound not just as a technical layer, but as a vital storytelling partner. As the director of the original “USS Callister,” he brought a clear vision to ensure we remained faithful to the tone and style of the first installment, while also giving us the freedom to evolve the sonic landscape in bold and exciting new directions.

TJ: Yeah, Toby is brilliant, and he was so much fun to work with. The freedom he gives you to flex your creative muscles is a real treat. He’s a master of creating an environment in which you feel you’re able to try things, experiment, and push and pull the material into new forms. This works because he has such a great ear for sonic storytelling and getting the most out of a scene. Alongside Charlie, he’s created this incredible sci-fi universe that you just want to get lost in and explore in and we were all fortunate to be able to work with him.

In “Hotel Reverie,” advanced filmmaking technology allows actress Brandy Friday to enter the world of an old black-and-white film and interact with the characters as though everything is real (or real-ish). How does the sound of the world inside the film compare to the real world? And, what were some of your sonic inspirations for the sound of the “Hotel Reverie” black-and-white film?

Supervising Dialogue Editor Alex Sawyer

Alex Sawyer (AS): I watched Casablanca! One thing that struck me is that the sound of the sets is more obvious in older films, presumably because the technology wasn’t there to allow its removal. And things weren’t quite so polished; you might hear distortion on the dialogue, or a set reverb on dialogue on an external scene that normally would be undesirable but worked for this. For example, in “Hotel Reverie,” during the balcony scene at the end where Claude tries to kill Dorothy, it was very obviously sounding like a set, with hollow surfaces, etc., but felt right as it matched visually what we were seeing.

TJ: The main inspiration came from watching lots of films from that era, specifically Casablanca. I ran the Casablanca mix through a spectrum analyzer to get a feel for the frequency ranges we’d be working in and to visually have a look at the dynamic range of those old mixes.

Another big inspiration is one of my favourite documentary filmmakers, Charlie Shackleton. I worked on a film with him a few years ago called The Afterlight. It’s this brilliant, poetic, supercut experimental film made solely of scenes of actors from old movies who are no longer alive. There was only ever one printmaster made of the film, which we did on a single 35mm film print, and every other digital version was deleted. So every time the film plays, it eventually erodes and dies like the characters from the scenes it depicts. It’s a brilliant film, and the benefit was that I got to spend a lot of time mixing and listening to printmasters of films made between 1920 and 1960, which was really helpful for this.

We had lots of early discussions about recording on set with era-specific mics and equipment, but that ended up being too limiting.

The sound of the world inside the film is pure old Hollywood. We had lots of early discussions about recording on set with era-specific mics and equipment, but that ended up being too limiting. So, we opted to leave it for post. We used various EQs, compressors, and saturators to try and embody the sound of these old films. This is another episode where we did a rough mix on a few sequences so we could share the approach with the edit.

Adam Mendez and his foley team at Twickenham, did a fantastic job throughout the series. They came on board early and experimented with some different methods of shooting foley. Foley in old films has a certain quality to it, a result of the technological limitations of the time, so sync and the quality of the recordings tend to be a little rougher than we’re used to in modern films. Adam and his team embraced that approach and did some great versions of vintage-era-sounding foley alongside modern foley, so we could have the chance to experiment with a blend of both to find the balance that evoked old Hollywood but did not emotionally detach a viewer from the emotion of the episode.

It’s also worth saying that so much of what makes those scenes hopefully look and feel like old Hollywood is down to Emma Corrin’s remarkable performance. We thought we would need to do some work on Emma’s voice in post, to sit it in the spaces and make it feel like actors of those periods, but what you hear is mostly just Emma’s performance. She perfectly encapsulated the cadence and performance of that era, and it’s such a huge part of what sells the episode.

Any helpful sound tools, or useful indie sound libraries this season? Can you talk about how you used them?

TJ: Soundminer Radium got used a lot. It has quietly become the best sampler in the world for what we do; it’s an incredible tool. It’s a boring answer, but everything I do gets shaped in some way through the Soundminer VST rack before it hits the timeline, even if it’s just subtle EQ or compression. It’s definitely something I couldn’t live without.

I’m also a big fan of outboard stuff and use the Make Noise Modular systems and Old Blood Noise Endeavors pedals a lot.

Did you do any custom recordings for Black Mirror Season 7? If so, what did you record and how? How did those sounds fit into your designs for the show?

TJ: Yes, we tried to do as many custom recordings as we could for each episode, and we cut with a combination of new sounds and sounds we’ve collected over the years.

I went down to Whitstable by the coast in the UK to gather some recordings of beaches and waves from different distances.

For “Common People,” I used some recordings made in Vancouver when I was living in Canada. The episode isn’t set there, but it was shot there, and there is something about using sounds from the specific location that always feels like it elevates things.

For “Eulogy,” I went down to Whitstable by the coast in the UK to gather some recordings of beaches and waves from different distances. There are lots of recordings of my dog and son for various things, as mentioned before. The recordings were made with a combination of my trusty Sony PCM-D100, a Schoeps MS rig, and a Sennheiser MKH 8040 rig. My iPhone also gets used a lot. We have some amazing tools now to help clean up lower-quality recordings, so even an iPhone mic captures loads of useful things.

James Hayday did some brilliant recordings for us out in New Zealand for the planets in “Callister.”
 

What was the most challenging episode for sound editorial? Why?

TJ: “Callister” was a huge undertaking, requiring a lot of bespoke design, often for large VFX sequences. We received visuals quite late in the day. But whilst all of that is a challenge, they are all known unknowns. “Plaything,” however, was a real puzzle to solve, and one that took months and months of R&D and close work with James MacLachlan and his VFX team and Charlie to come up with the end result. It all may look and sound deceptively simple, but it was not!

AS: For me, probably “USS Callister” or “Hotel Reverie.”

There is a lot of dynamics there between different actors’ deliveries, which needed preserving, as that’s what keeps it interesting and gives it character

“Callister” was tough because it’s basically wall-to-wall dialogue from start to finish, ranging from the opening, overlapping sequences on the Bridge of the Callister, two-handers with Walton and Kris El-Masry, Walton and Nanette, etc., to the fight/chase sequences on the different planets, to the all-out space battle at the climax, with lots in between.

There is a lot of dynamics there between different actors’ deliveries, which needed preserving, as that’s what keeps it interesting and gives it character, but on occasion, it needed a little bit of taming.

“Hotel Reverie” was tough because of the ‘film within a film’ concept and keeping separation on the different elements/locations. Plus, there were some slightly conceptual questions early on about whether we should hear the set footsteps/prop sounds or not in the film and between takes, and how much of the crowds/set actors we should hear (since in the 1940s – ’50s there wasn’t nearly as much detail added to backgrounds). So, that was a lot to think about. In the end, the decisions were taken based on what felt/sounded right rather than adhering to a particular concept or ideal.

What was the most challenging episode for sound mixing? Why?

JR: I think “Hotel Reverie” was by far the trickiest episode from a mixing perspective. It features so many distinct scenarios involving futz tracks, whether it was a classic film trailer, Brandy’s experience in the film, or the film itself playing on a projector. Each needed to clearly sound different to help the audience understand the shifting perspectives. Often, the film would continue playing in the background during conversations in the control room, so we had to carefully balance layers to guide the audience’s attention to the right part of the scene.

Often, the film would continue playing in the background during conversations in the control room, so we had to carefully balance layers to guide the audience’s attention

It wasn’t until we reviewed the episode in full that the decision was made to give Brandy’s experience a more classic black-and-white film aesthetic. We did a lot of experimenting with plugins and techniques, like folding the sound more into mono, adding analogue-style distortion, and mimicking vintage microphones, to give it that old-film quality.

Towards the end, we begin to subtly break our own rules, allowing the film’s score to remain full and emotionally rich as it begins to bleed into the rooftop scenes. It needed to be seamless — something the audience wouldn’t consciously notice — so they, like the characters in the control room, would become completely absorbed in the emotional finale.

Black Mirror | Season 7 “Hotel Reverie” — Creating a convincing ’40s film sound

PK: When it came to the music for “Hotel Reverie,” we approached it as an interesting blend of different music textures. Our composer, Ariel Marx, kindly provided us with both 5.1 and stereo mixes, and we intercut between the two. Initially, we planned to use the stereo mix, which was processed with plugins to mimic old microphones. We also mono’d the stereo to give it an older, vintage feel from the perspective of the characters watching the projector.

We also mono’d the stereo to give it an older, vintage feel from the perspective of the characters watching the projector.

At first, we started with full 5.1 surround sound to align more closely with the characters’ experience within the film. However, after reviewing the footage, we felt that switching so frequently between a thin, vintage score and a full surround sound was too jarring. So, we decided to commit to a primarily stereo score, with treatments applied to evoke an old, nostalgic vibe.
For the underscore that underscores the emotional drama, we kept those cues in full 5.1 to maintain their impact.

What have you learned while crafting the sound of Black Mirror S7? What will you carry forward from your experience of working on this show?

TJ: I’d say it’s the importance of early communication between all creative departments. We were fortunate that the series was scheduled in such a way that we had a lot of time to sit with the episodes. Starting early and sharing our early work gave us the space to make mistakes early and allowed the creative process time to develop. It wouldn’t have been possible without sharing early work and getting over the feeling that something maybe isn’t 100% ready.

You have to be prepared to fail and be ok with sharing things that make you feel a bit vulnerable

You have to be prepared to fail and be ok with sharing things that make you feel a bit vulnerable because ultimately, everything we do is in service of the picture and as part of a wider team, so the sooner that collaboration starts, the better.

I also just want to give a big thanks to Matis Rei and Brian Gilligan, who were our other Sound Effect Editors on the series. They did a fantastic job!

AS: It’s a great show to work on because of the quality of the writing, direction, ideas, and acting. Everything is top drawer so really, you’re just trying to bring what you can offer and match the quality of what’s already there, whilst trying not to be intimidated by the sense of respect for what’s been produced, or the rich history of the show and its success. You need to make strong, bold choices and decisions when needed. It’s literally thousands of tiny decisions being made and often with a surprising amount of latitude given, so you just have to trust your instinct at some point, and your particular taste/style, and hope that it’s right!

PK: This project was a massive team effort. The entire sound department was really aligned with our goals and vision. I found that open communication on the stage was especially helpful, particularly when trying out new ideas. When something didn’t work, everyone pulled together to find a clear path forward.

A big thanks to Tom Jenkins, James Hayday, James Ridgway, Poppy Kavanagh, and Alex Sawyer for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Black Mirror | Season 7 and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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