Designing & Mixing Fierce Fights for ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’

Deadpool & Wolverine (distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures) is the third Deadpool film in the franchise, but the first for Director Shawn Levy, who showcases his affinity for a playful mix of music and sound effects in the film's energetic music-driven fights. Here, supervising sound editors Craig Henighan (also effects re-recording mixer) and Ryan Cole, re-recording mixer Lora Hirschberg, and sound designer Eric A. Norris talk about crafting the music-led fights, designing sounds for the void and signature weapon sounds for the adamantium katana swords and claws, recording tons of loop group for the '100 Deadpools' fight, and so much more!

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

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Even Deadpool can’t believe he has a trilogy, but, here we are. Deadpool & Wolverine (in theaters now) is the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history, according to a Walt Disney Studios press release. The film is a masterclass in action-comedy filmmaking with creative fight choreography that hits with comedic timing, and is set to the most ridiculous ‘fight’ songs – like Grease‘s “You’re The One That I Want” for the minivan fight scene between Deadpool and Wolverine. The action and comedy are in lock-step with the music and effects, making each fight unique, energetic, and hilarious.

Here, supervising sound editors Craig Henighan (also effects re-recording mixer) and Ryan Cole (dialogue), re-recording mixer Lora Hirschberg (dialogue and music) at Skywalker Sound, and sound designer Eric A. Norris talk about crafting the music-led fights, designing sounds for the void and signature weapon sounds for the adamantium katana swords and claws, recording tons of loop group for the ‘100 Deadpools’ fight, and so much more!

Deadpool & Wolverine | Official Trailer

What did dir. Shawn Levy want to bring to the Deadpool franchise in terms of sound? Did he have specific references for how he wanted the fights or weapons to sound, or how the superpowers should sound? What was he most excited about in terms of sound for this film?

Sound supervisor/re-recording mixer Craig Henighan

Craig Henighan (CH): Having done a number of films with Shawn, I have a shorthand and a pretty good grasp of what will resonate with him. He likes sounds that are full, not too harsh, and above all he likes dynamics and a playful mix between music and sound effects.

We always send in sonic ideas very early. I was fortunate enough to be on while they were shooting. I would work on early assemblies and send back potential ideas to our Picture Editors Dean Zimmerman and Shane Reid. I’d get notes back on what worked, and what needed refinement. We carried this workflow into the preview process as well, always refining the track as we went along – all the way through the final mix.

There are so many fun, music-led fight scenes! The film starts with one – Deadpool is using Wolverine’s bones to fight TVA soldiers to the tune of “Bye Bye Bye.” Can you talk about the music and sound effects edit for this scene?

CH: With “Bye Bye Bye,” we were able to hone the sound effects around it knowing it would obviously lead. The trick was making the impacts feel powerful and somewhat musical. Instead of perfect sync with the image, we would move a sound to land in sync with the rhythm of the song. A lot of the sounds needed to be felt but not necessarily heard all the time. I worked with sound editor J.R. Grubbs through this scene a number of times, he’d add some flavors, I’d add some, take some away, play the mix loud, and play it quiet to understand what really needed to be there just underneath the song.

What about the music and effects mixing for this scene? What was your approach to keeping it fun with the music but still feel like a brutal fight?

Craig Henighan, Dean Zimmerman, and Lora Hirschberg

Lora Hirschberg (LH): It’s super important to find the right level for a scene like this; it has to be big and fun but not blow out the audience’s ears before the movie starts. It also sets the vibe for the balance between comedy and action for the rest of the movie, so I was sure to revisit it a few times during the mix to make sure it still felt right after mixing the other big set-piece scenes.

There’s the minivan fight scene, with Deadpool and Wolverine, to the tune of “You’re The One That I Want,” from Grease. Can you talk about the music and effects editing here? How did you have fun with the music and effects for this scene?

CH: For a scene like this, we needed to keep all the fight sounds and stabs short, staccato-like, and leaned into more low mids and midrange. When I tried to add real low-end and LFE to the punches, it would take away from the fun factor. The precision of the editing helped focus the fight. There’s not a lot of layering going on; it was more about the right sound in the right place with the right frequencies.

…Emma Present, our dialogue editor,…did a great job of building and tightening up all of their efforts so that their rhythm syncopated well with the effects and music.

Ryan Cole (RC): Echoing what Craig said, we took a very similar approach to the dialogue and efforts in this scene. Emma Present, our dialogue editor, went through and did a great job of building and tightening up all of their efforts so that their rhythm syncopated well with the effects and music. It made it a lot more fun and allowed room for the rest of the sounds to shine. She applied the same approach to their first fight in the void as well.

Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds on the dub stage

And on the mix side?

LH: The mixing challenge with scenes with a pop song score is always to keep it fun and let people enjoy the song but not turn it into a music video. Earlier in the scene the radio is playing so when the fight starts we can use a little of that radio sound to start us off and then, as the scene progresses, the song can get fuller. It’s a pretty subtle shift but gives us a way to keep the song (and scene) developing instead of just playing as a needle drop.

Another epic moment for music and sound is when Deadpool and Wolverine interrupt the flow of energy in the time ripper machine to the tune of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” Can you talk about the sound design and music editing for this scene?

CH: This scene took a while to come together. Early iterations of it always had potential but it didn’t really come together until the last week of the final mix when we had all the elements to play with. Sound Designer Samson Neslund worked with us early in the process and one task was to come up with some time ripper machine sounds. He made some really great tracks and then Eric Norris and I added layers on top once VFX started locking in.

What about the mix here? Both effects and music are so important in this moment!

LH: The choir for that scene went through a couple revisions and recordings, adding a more gospel-flavored choir on top of the angelic British boys choir. This was really important as we wanted the choir to sound big when it entered but also find a way to sound even bigger in the final stretch, so having that gospel choir to lean on more in that last section was really helpful.

What went into the sound of the fight between Deadpool and Wolverine in the void? How did you have some fun with sound here?

Eric Norris (EN): I came on board for just the last 10 weeks of post so the majority of sound design work had already been done. However, the void fight still needed some love. Specifically, Shawn Levy (director) and Ryan Reynolds wanted the sound of Deadpool’s adamantium katana swords vs. Wolverine’s adamantium claws to have a special sound. The sword hits in the cut at that point sounded too ‘normal.’ Craig suggested using something in a lower register and distorting it to come up with something unique – so that’s what I did. I searched through my sound library and found a recording of some pretty massive pipe hits. (Actual sword hits didn’t have enough power.)

…Deadpool grabbing his katana in slow motion, I took one of the particularly intense distorted hits, reversed it, and then amplitude-modulated the ring out at an accelerating rate.

I pitched the pipe hits down slightly and then ran them through multiple distortion plugins until I found something I liked. Craig combined my material with additional hits from our other sound designer, Addison Teague, and that’s what is in the film.

On one particular shot of Deadpool grabbing his katana in slow motion, I took one of the particularly intense distorted hits, reversed it, and then amplitude-modulated the ring out at an accelerating rate. The result nicely draws the listener into the action.

What went into the sounds for the Mad Max-esque vehicles and machines in the void? What was your favorite sound that you created for this ‘reality’? (Like the purple creatures…… cute!)

CH: We went with rat rod-type vehicles – things that don’t necessarily sound perfectly tuned. The flame car has 2 V8s running inline that I slightly offset sync-wise and panning-wise. Sabertooth bikes were a mix of old Harleys, a panhead and shovelhead, plus an old Indian Scout.

Early on, Addison…tossed in a riff on George Jetson’s space car from the The Jetsons. When I heard it, I was like YES!

My favorite sound is the Fantastic Car. Early on, Addison cut a couple of “normal” versions but for fun he tossed in a riff on George Jetson’s space car from the The Jetsons. When I heard it, I was like YES!…we’re playing that sound up and as a bonus, it cuts through the heavy percussion in the music without too much fuss.

I think the little purple birds are loosely referred to as “Void Turkeys.” They are from Loki, as is Alioth the Giant Purple Cloud Monster. A BIG thanks to the sound team from Skywalker who worked on Loki and provided sounds for us to use. It was important to stay sonically consistent in the Marvel Universe. Addison was a huge help in tracking all those sounds down.

Deadpool and ‘friends’ go to fight Cassandra Nova’s group. There are superpowers (like Gambit’s) and big guns (Blade’s rocket launcher that destroys the gate), and really hard-hitting super-fights… Can you talk about the fun opportunities and challenges you had in making this scene work sonically — both in terms of editorial and mix?

CH: Gambit was fun to make new sounds for. Samson, Steve Baine (foley artist) and I all recorded different card sounds, shuffling, flicking cards, and handling so I had a good grab bag of ideas to pull from. The big slo-mo unfurl is based on a card trick called “The Spring” and I added some flanging to give it a little flavor that seemed to work well with Gambit’s moves.

The big slo-mo unfurl is based on a card trick called ‘The Spring’ and I added some flanging to give it a little flavor that seemed to work well with Gambit’s moves.

Overall, the challenge was to be precise with all our main character sounds: Elektra’s Twin Sai weapon had a higher metal resonance, and Blade’s boomerang had a classic spinning whoosh sound with med-frequency metallic hits. We wanted everyone to have their hero moment. Kudos to picture editors Shane and Dean for cutting that sequence with enough air so we could enjoy all the different kinds of sounds going on.

What went into the sound of Cassandra putting her fingers into people’s heads in order to read their minds?

CH: We had the deeper, menacing sounds for a long time as she’s exploring minds and as VFX came in, we’d add that creepy flesh squirming in your brain sound, which can be any number of sounds from squishing fruit, vegetables, and raw meat, looking for characteristics in the sounds that would match Cassandra when you’d see her hand move around the eyeballs or poke her fingers through Paradox’s nose. Both Eric and Addison kept touching up those scenes right through all the iterations of VFX.

In the fight with Deadpool and Wolverine vs. 100 Deadpools, how were you able to have fun with sound here?

RC: On the dialogue side, we shot 50+ Loop Group cues for that scene alone so there was a lot of opportunity for having fun. Music really needed to lead the scene and the energy, and there is also so much going on on-screen. So it was about figuring out what your eyes were drawn to and picking the best effort that would stick out the most.

Sound supervisor Ryan Cole

What was the most challenging scene in terms of sound editorial or sound design? Why?

RC: The two mindscape scenes were particularly tricky for dialogue. The first one in Wade’s mind established the idea for the viewer and the mixing/flipping between Vanessa and Cassandra’s voice could be quite jarring, but in a great uncomfortable way.

…we were able to spread them around and tell the story of it in the background, all while he was being confronted by Cassandra.

Then Logan’s mindscape went through a few different ideas and ended up with what are essentially echoes of his past mistakes, in this case, the screams of the mutants he didn’t save, and his murdering of the hunters as well as innocent bystanders in retaliation. It’s all fairly subtle but because of where the scene takes place, we were able to spread them around and tell the story of it in the background, all while he was being confronted by Cassandra.

What was the most challenging scene in terms of the mix? Was there a scene that went through many iterations before you found the best way to tell the story there?

CH: What comes to mind is that our approach for some of the more challenging scenes was to not overdo it in one mixing session. Lora and I would take a scene – for instance, the opening titles – and knowing that we needed to hook the audience right away, we didn’t get that all done in one go. We’d get that scene up on its feet and move on. We’d work on some quiet scenes, and then come back with a different perspective. Every scene informed every other scene so that by the time we were in the 3rd act, we knew we could apply some of those ideas back into the title sequence and it would feel right.

…our approach for some of the more challenging scenes was to not overdo it in one mixing session.

In some ways, all the big action scenes went through variations because Lora and I could move fast enough to be able to try an idea, live with it, play it for the team, let it simmer for a bit, or dive in and try a different approach. The previews helped vet a lot of those ideas as well.

Mix Stage Crew on ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’

What have you learned while working on Deadpool & Wolverine? Now that it’s all done and in theaters for people to enjoy, what has stuck with you the most about your experience of working on this film?

RC: Making a good action-comedy is really difficult. The action and score need to be exciting and driving, and on top of that, the hero of this particular film is nicknamed ‘the merc with the mouth.’ He’s talking and joking the entire film so every single one of his quips needs to be loud and clear for the audience to hear. I don’t know if I’ve ever worked harder or faster so it was really about having to trust my instincts as I cut. And knowing that our whole crew was doing the same kept it all pushing forward. It was such a positive experience.

I don’t know if I’ve ever worked harder or faster so it was really about having to trust my instincts as I cut.

CH: It’s just fantastic that the world loves it as much as we did working on it. I’m proud of every soundie on this team, Ryan Cole, Lora Hirshberg, Addison Teague, Melissa Lytle, J.R. Grubbs, Emma Present, Samson Neslund, Eric Norris, Lee Gilmore, Doug Parker, Steve Baine, Pete Persaud and Gina Wark to name a few. Also, a huge thanks to Marvel, Skywalker, Disney, and the tireless leadership of Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds.

A big thanks to Craig Henighan, Ryan Cole, Lora Hirschberg, and Eric A. Norris for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Deadpool & Wolverine and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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