Designing the Astounding Sound of ‘Dune: Prophecy’ – with Tim Kimmel and Ann Scibelli

Sound supervisor Tim Kimmel and sound designer Ann Scibelli share details of their sound work on HBO original series Dune: Prophecy , which was renewed for a second season on Max. Here, Kimmel and Scibelli talk about creating sounds for Shai-Hulud (the sandworm), the spaceships, and the Benni Gesserit 'Voice' and truth-sense that pays homage to the Dune films, designing new sounds for the 'thinking machine' tech, the agony ritual, and Desmond's immolation ability, weaving sound and music together, developing sounds to match the evolving VFX, and so much more!

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery/HBO; Formosa Group

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Right from the opening scene of the HBO Original series Dune: Prophecy on Max, it was clear that sound was going to play a huge role in the series. The show is a feast of prophetic visions, mystical abilities, futuristic sci-fi tech, and distant planets.

Since the series is set 10,000 years before the Dune films, the showrunners and sound team could venture beyond what’s been established. However, certain sounds are akin to those established in the films — e.g., the sound of Shai-Hulud (the sandworm), the smooth yet powerful sounding magnetic-driven “suspensor technology” engines for the ships, and the set of sounds related to truthsaying.

Here, Emmy and MPSE Award-winning supervising sound editor Tim Kimmel and MPSE Award-winning sound designer Ann Scibelli at Formosa Group talk about creating a fuller sound for ‘The Voice’ used by the Bene Gesserit since this technique was just being developed. They talk about designing novel sounds to fit the full scale of thinking machines, from Pruwet’s toy lizard to the massive war machines in Ep. 1 and for the Bene Gesserit’s secret AI system called Anirul. They also discuss developing sounds as the VFX developed, weaving sound design and music together, designing sounds for Desmond’s immolation ability, the agony ritual, Sister Theodosia (a Face Dancer) transforming into Griffin Harkonnen, and much more!

Dune: Prophecy | Official Series Trailer | Max

Sound Designer Ann Scibelli

Just from the opening scene of the Dune: Prophecy series, it was obvious there would be lots of interesting sound work in the show. What was your schedule like?

Ann Scibelli (AS): It was crazy. It was just a lot to do.

Tim Kimmel (TK): Ann started early but there was minimal VFX. Of course, it was a massive crunch as we got new VFX. We had to completely update the sound and make it all work to final visual effects. It seemed like a nice timeline at first and then once it got going, it was a major crunch.

AS: Yeah, it was definitely busy. I think because it was the first series, the showrunners didn’t have all of the concepts of what the visual effects would look like and so the VFX came in really late because they were still trying to work on them and improve them. It was just a lot of visual effects at the very end.

How did showrunner Alison Schapker want to honor what’s been established sonically in the Dune franchise, in the films? And what did she want to bring to the sound of Dune in her series?

AS: Initially, when I started, Alison wanted the show to sound different because it was set 10,000 years before the Dune films. As we started going, we found there were some things you wanted to keep the same, such as Shai-Hulud (the sandworm) sequences. Those wouldn’t change much in 10,000 years. We were thinking in those terms, but we came to a bit of a compromise in some areas.

Supervising Sound Editor Tim Kimmel

TK: There were things that Alison definitely wanted to stay more true to, like ‘The Voice.’ That was one thing that in some ways stayed true, but because it was the earlier discovery of ‘The Voice’ — they’re still honing their abilities with it — there are some subtle differences that they wanted us to get into.

AS: When I started designing it, I listened to the Dune films, and studied what they were doing. I did a few versions but felt it wasn’t powerful enough. We needed to make it bigger. So it has way more layers than the Dune film. You can justify it in the sense that after so much time it gets more perfected and it doesn’t have to be that dense.

TK: Because we had these different layers to it — when she was using it the first time or the first few times — we would mess with what layers poked through. It always had that weight to it, but I feel like some of the earlier versions had less weight, and had a little more gravel and a bit more grit to it.

Once they mastered it, then it had that weight, you could feel it, especially on the mix stage. It would shake the stage. If you have a subwoofer in your home surround setup, it’ll hit you.

So what went into the sound of ‘The Voice’ for this series? Was it layers with different vocal processing? Or, how did you achieve that effect?

AS: It was definitely a challenge — probably one of my most difficult challenges because I did so many versions of it.

Tim recorded young Valya and she did all different performances. When she first used her ‘Voice,’ she looked like her lips were puckered up and it should have a little raspiness and edginess to it.

We did some takes of that and other performances that were similar to her production read.

I got Charlie Campagna involved; he had worked on both the Dune films. We set up a Neumann U67. It’s a large diaphragm tube mic and it sounds awesome because it picks up all the detail in your breath, in your voice, and all the low end.

I got Charlie Campagna involved; he had worked on both the ‘Dune’ films.

Then, I had two different processing chains for Charlie’s voice. One with FabFilter Pro-Q 3 and a pitch shifter down about five semitones. Also Lowender (by reFuse Software) feeding a little low sub energy into it.

I had a second chain with Soundtoys Little AlterBoy and Avid’s Pro Subharmonic.

I went between those two chains with his voice and added in pitched layers of Valya’s voice with the growly performance. I liked that one the best. That one was the prominent voice element.

Other layers of her voice were pitched down and mixed lower. Charlie and I each did a whispery version with it that was airy and whispery. I added those in as well.

There’s a lot of stuff in it but it was all synced up tightly so you couldn’t hear all those layers.

TK: The tricky part was making sure that it sounded like one specific voice, even though it’s so layered.

you could hear the quality of Emily Watson’s voice as Valya yet it still had that same gravelly tone to it that young Valya had

As Ann was saying, we recorded the actress who played young Valya (Jessica Barden) and her gritty, gravelly voice was great. She did such a great job with it to where, when present-day Valya and Tula use ‘The Voice,’ we had them do the same type of layers. But they couldn’t hit that gravelly voice as well, so it didn’t have the same impact.

We ended up having to get a sound-alike — someone who could do that gravel voice — and we used that as a layer. The loop grouper did a phenomenal job with it. They listened to the gravelly voice that Jessica did, and then did that for all of Valya’s and Tula’s Voice, and then for anybody else who might use ‘The Voice.’ That way, you could hear the quality of Emily Watson’s voice as Valya yet it still had that same gravelly tone to it that young Valya had, just to make sure that it all matched across.

The sound of the transport ships in the series is also similar to how they sound in the films. It’s a smooth engine sound — not crackly or fiery like a rocket. But you can certainly feel the power of the ship engines through that low, bass tone. So this technology is supposed to be 10,000 years older than what’s in the film. Can you talk about your approach to the transport ship sounds?

AS: The technology during that time is what they described as ‘suspensor technology,’ which is like a magnetic-driven energy type of sound. The transport ship was very smooth and more tonal sounding.

The tonal elements are processed electric vehicle recordings as well as some low-banded metal elements.

The other ship looked like it had a thruster propulsion-driven engine although they didn’t want it to totally be propulsion-based. That ship had a variety of elements. The tonal elements are processed electric vehicle recordings as well as some low-banded metal elements. Some of the elements for that ship are jets that have some pitch stretching, phase shifting, and amplitude modulation to create a more rhythmic feel. I used Tonsturm Traveler and Doppler Pro to create the movement. I also created a series of sweeteners for both ships using NI Reaktor.

TK: They wanted to make sure that it didn’t have a rocket-type feel. They wanted to make sure to hit the suspenser technology properly, which was tricky because it had to carry the weight and power of such a big ship. Ann did such a phenomenal job of creating these sounds that gave it that weight but avoided the typical rocket engine feel.

The hard part was getting the sounds of the ship to play along with the music.

The hard part was getting the sounds of the ship to play along with the music. The score in this show is beautiful, but it’s very up front. The great layers that Ann created for the ship helped push that sound through the music when needed.

AS: It felt like the music was driving a lot of those scenes, so a lot of the ship sounds got mixed lower although the amplitude modulation helped them read through the music.

In Ep. 1, what went into the sound of Mother Superior Raquella’s vision of the future – ‘the burning truth’?

AS: The vision is a prediction of what’s to come in the series, and has pieces of scenes from episodes that we haven’t seen at this point. So when I got Ep. 1, a lot of the other episodes weren’t complete and the visual effects were not there. So that was a bit tricky. I just basically hit all the visuals that were happening in a rhythmic sense. It ended up being mostly music-driven.

As the visuals came in on the other episodes, I went back and referenced what I’d done in the vision and expanded on that

As the visuals came in on the other episodes, I went back and referenced what I’d done in the vision and expanded on that, especially in Desmond’s immolation ability.

In the vision of the sandworm sequences, it looked very similar to the Dune films.

The thumpers were simplified because they didn’t have the mechanical mechanism that you saw in the feature films. It looks more like a cylinder or piston-type device and has a “thump” sound. That one wasn’t too difficult to do because the visuals were really good.

How did you handle the “truth-sense” sound design? (Each application of truth-sense is a bit different. Were there basic guidelines for what would go into the sound – like the finger clicks, the whisperings, the whooshy sounds, etc.?)

AS: The truth-sense starts with the fingers coming together, so there’s the impact of the fingers and there’s also the breath in. It’s almost meditative like the Truthsayer is getting into the truth-sense state of mind. Then, there are a lot of fluctuating tonal elements that build as she’s trying to process whether it’s the truth or a lie.

there are a lot of fluctuating tonal elements that build as she’s trying to process whether it’s the truth or a lie.

Coming out of that truth-sense, I did a reverse sound. In Ep. 1, Kasha’s truthsaying for Desmond was scaled back a little. I had a lot more elements but it started to distract from what he was saying in his story. So we scaled back on those elements.

For some of the later truthsaying scenes, we went more into their head, so there’s an internal heartbeat. And then as they started having visual flashes in it, the sound evolved as the visuals evolved in the later episodes.

TK: Alison wanted there to be similar elements to tie things together from one truth-sense sequence to another. As Ann was saying, as things evolved, each character might have some different elements to it just to give it a different feel. With the different visuals, there were specific sounds that helped trigger each truth-sense sequence.

We were given specific scripts for each sequence that had any whispering

We did a lot of loop group sessions of whispers. The first session we did was for “the agony,” which was the first sequence they wanted us to tackle. We were given specific scripts for each sequence that had any whispering — most of it being the ancestral whispers since the concept behind it is they’re hearing their ancestors telling them things and we can hear their voices.

The loop group had about 6 or 8 women and a specific script. I would have them do all of the lines, whispering over each other just so it’s a bed where you couldn’t understand what they were saying. They would do soft whispers, medium whispers, gravelly whispers, and menacing whispers that had an evil feel.

They would do soft whispers, medium whispers, gravelly whispers, and menacing whispers that had an evil feel.

Then they would perform them individually as well, so we could place them. And if we wanted just a bed where we just felt whispering but didn’t know what they were saying, we had that as well.

Allison would sometimes want a specific whisper to poke through so we knew what they were saying, so we could place those. There were a lot of layers and a lot of panning with some nice reverb added to give it that feel.

And what went into the sound of “the agony” ritual?

AS: The agony was definitely a challenge. There was so much going on. I ended up running the whispers that Tim recorded through a processing chain to create the cavernous space sound when she was in agony. I used long delays in The Cargo Cult’s Slapper and I used Stratus 3D and ReVibe and bounced that around and panned everything. That was a fun sequence.

The show has so many visions and dream sequences — so much opportunity for sound! Can you talk about some of your favorite vision/dream scenes, and what went into your sound work for it?

AS: The Agony had a lot going on. It started at the molecular level, with the cells and how her body was transforming as the poison went into it. For that, I used a lot of underwater hydrophone recordings.

Those ended up being design impacts that I processed, using sounds of electricity, thunder, and water impacts.

And then it goes into these flashes. The poison was entering her nervous system. Those ended up being design impacts that I processed, using sounds of electricity, thunder, and water impacts. I used a chain in Soundminer 6 to do that. Then there were sharp feedback impacts — guitar feedback with percussive impacts.

The ancestors’ voices were swirling around and building in intensity. There was also an intense swell of insects swarming to a crescendo.

TK: There were certain whispering sequences where we ended up layering some cicadas and locusts. It gave the whispering a swarm kind of feel…

There were certain whispering sequences where we ended up layering some cicadas and locusts. It gave the whispering a swarm kind of feel

AS: …especially at the end of the last build-up as it comes out to Lila, who’s considered dead at this point. As the insects are getting more intense, there’s this very fast, rhythmic pulse I did with my breath to transition out of it which also builds in speed and dynamics.

TK: That one took a lot of work and there was a lot of back and forth with Alison and Jordan (one of the executive producers). We recorded all the whispers and Ann put it all together, creating this amazing sequence that we’d send to them or show to them. They’d give notes and their thoughts on it evolved as it started to come together. It inspired them when something worked well. They’d make suggestions based on that like, “What if we hit this moment with this kind of sound – have the electricity feel in one sequence and go quieter here to make the jump scare bigger.”

There was a lot of back and forth to get where they were happy with it.

AS: I really like the notes they gave for that. They gave really good notes.

TK: I agree. Their notes were great. That sequence sounds phenomenal.

Was this one of the sequences where the visual effects were continuing to evolve as the sound was evolving?

AS: Totally. We had zero visual effects; there were no ancestors. It was a black hole pretty much. Jordan and Alison told us, “There’s going to be someone here and it’s going to do this. It’s going to jump scare here.”

It evolved because it’s a creative process. The sounds I cut initially were just a placeholder.

When we finally got the visuals, it wasn’t exactly as they described. It evolved because it’s a creative process. The sounds I cut initially were just a placeholder. When I cut, I like to attach the sound to the visual. If there’s too much happening visually in the scene, I like to make room for one moment and not have the sound get too crazy. For instance, I had way too many voices in the initial cut for the scene (when there weren’t visuals of the ancestors). So, that got scaled back because it’s nice to create space and moments for specific sounds.

What about working against the score? Did you get to collaborate with the composer?

AS: The composer was Volker Bertelmann. Originally, I was supposed to work closely with him, with his score, because they wanted music and design to intermingle. I did a ton of tonal elements that crossed the line into music, which I do sometimes but not to this extent.

So, Volker started very early on and we were supposed to trade tracks; I’d give him my effects and he’d give me his music.

they wanted music and design to intermingle. I did a ton of tonal elements that crossed the line into music

But, it ended up that my work got pushed back because of the VFX, so I didn’t start until much later. I had his AAF as a reference, and then we got updates on it. I’d listen to make sure that, pitch-wise, the sound design wasn’t clashing with the score and wasn’t conflicting with it.

In his score, Volker left me a lot of room for design opportunities, which I thought was really cool. His score was awesome.

So, there was kind of a trade-off. If you listen to the tracks, there are a lot of tonal, pulsing elements such as the guitar feedback modulated sounds for Desmond’s scenes. There are a lot of tonal builds.

Some of Volker’s tracks had tonal elements, too.

TK: He definitely had some design-type elements in his music. Luckily, they gave us stems so at times, when he went a bit harder on the ‘design’ stuff for sequences where our design was working a bit more, we could pull the design side of his music back and leave the more musical elements up front, and that would work better with our design in those moments.

What went into the sound of Desmond’s power of immolation?

AS: There was a lot of music in those moments. On the sound design side, when Desmond puts his hand to his face, you can tell there’s a mind-power thing happening. The sounds I created had to work with the score, and sometimes the drones I made clashed so I had to take it out or go in a different direction.

The sounds I created had to work with the score, and sometimes the drones I made clashed

One element that did work was a high-frequency sound for when he touches his head, and I modulated that sound so it wasn’t just one pitch that clashed with the score.

For the burning flesh sounds, I used grease sizzles and dry ice recordings, water sizzling on a hot plate, some oatmeal bubbling sounds, and fire sounds. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary; it just matched what was happening on screen.

TK: There was a lot of discussion about the people this was happening to, and how their screams and reactions would change as they burned from the inside. Alison and Jordan wanted to capture the feeling that, by the end, their vocal chords were frying so the quality of their voice would start to deteriorate. They didn’t want it to be over the top, but just enough so that you felt that everything was burning inside them.

their screams and reactions would change as they burned from the inside.

Some of that was layers of the actual actor or actress, and some of it was loop group. We had various little screams — just little hints of these gravelly, cut up screams — that we were recording and tweaking using plugins to try and distort it just a little bit to give it that feel.

Antares (makers of Auto-Tune) has a weird, vocal-shifting plugin that doesn’t just make tonal shifts; it can morph it a bit and provide weird saturation to give the vocal a slightly gritty feel. I used Throat, Aspire, and Mutator to achieve what they were looking for.

At first, I went a little too hard with the processing and it sounded processed, so I had to find that sweet spot where you felt it (you knew there was something wrong with the voice) but it wasn’t noticeable as processing. It just sounded like their vocal cords were tearing up a bit.

For certain characters, we heard it more. When young Pruwet gets burned up, we didn’t go too far with it there. He was also yelling words, so you have to make sure that’s intelligible.

But for Kasha at the end of Ep. 1, she has a lot more screams and a lot more opportunity to hear it close-up. So we went a lot farther with the processing for her. As she’s coming down the hallway, you start to hear it and then her last scream literally just falls apart by the end of the scream. That’s a morph from her scream to a loop grouper’s scream to a weird animal sound that gave it that last little help of feeling her vocal cord fry away.

Sometimes instead of finding an animal sound, I’ll just perform something myself if I have a specific idea I hear in my head. I can hear what it is I want done and I find a way to accomplish that.

What went into the ‘thinking machines’ sounds? Pruwet’s lizard sounded so cool and we got a few moments to hear it. What went into that?

AS: All the thinking machines have a common signature sound that the showrunners wanted to tie in. When we’re in Raquella’s vision those blue eyes pop up, when we’re in Anirul’s power-up, and when Pruwet’s lizard unfolds, all have the same power-up sound to start them off.

Charlie again helped out with the lizard’s vocal as it ran by. He also did a pass of the death twitches, which was hilarious

For the lizard, it was mostly little mechanism sounds as well as some small servos. Tim had foley do a pass of the feet, which helped. And Charlie again helped out with the lizard’s vocal as it ran by. He also did a pass of the death twitches, which was hilarious, so that’s in there. We had fun doing that sequence.

TK: As Ann said, all the thinking machines needed to tie together, so that was a big challenge to have a sound that plays for this small lizard yet also plays for the opening sequences of the battle against the larger thinking machines that are shooting laser-like beams.

It took some back and forth to find the exact sound that would work for that. Ann came up with such a great sound that worked in all the areas it needed to. It tied everything together, which was something that Alison and Jordan really wanted to accomplish.

That ‘power-up’ sound for the thinking machines was tonal, so were you worried about how it would play against music in these different scenes?

AS: Yeah, I did. It did have a pitch fluctuation in it so it could play against music. So it was like a power-up that rose in pitch so it didn’t clash too much with the music. It just sat in there. But, yes, it did have tonal elements to it, for sure.

It did have a pitch fluctuation in it so it could play against music.

The ‘power-up’ was created from multiple layers. At one point, Jordan contacted me to say he went to this fireworks show and this one firework had this high squeal element that sounded cool, so maybe it’ll be good for the Anirul power-up. He sent a recording to me and I put it in. I didn’t hear it in the final mix so it might have been just too out there for the show, but it was a really cool sound.

TK: It’s in there, but there’s so much going on. It’s not a featured sound, but it’s part of the layers.

Anirul is one thinking machine that we get to spend the most time with sonically. You hear it power up and the sound develops as these digital tree branches grow into the space. What went into the sound for Anirul?

AS: So the power-up for Anirul, and the sound of the spice gases venting into Lila’s life support pod, I did those.

Then I had sound designer Phil Barrie come in for three weeks while I was on vacation. I had originally done a pass on Anirul although the visuals changed completely. Phil ended up designing the Anirul branches powering up. He did a great job. It sounded really cool.

TK: We didn’t see visual effects on that until the 11th hour. I thought what Phil created was very cool. It had a new kind of feel to it. It matched the digital trees as they sprouted up. He did a good job of giving it a new sound that didn’t have a typical, cliché sci-fi feel. It matched where the visuals ended up and it evolved over the last two episodes.

What about Anirul’s voice?

TK: That was 100% performance. Originally, we were going to have a few different people in loop group do it, but they sent that back to production casting and found the right actress that they wanted: Tanya Moodie.

We did a lot of different versions of it — very robotic, medium robotic, and a little bit more alive. It was a question of “How alive is this AI that’s talking?”

That was 100% performance. […] production casting found the right actress that they wanted: Tanya Moodie.

We recorded all the lines for all the sequences within the series and then there were some picture changes and they wanted to make it feel different. So there was one section where we went a little bit more personal, giving her just a bit more of a hint of a questioning attitude.

We added a little reverb to put her voice in the room, of course, but used no other processing than that. It’s all performance.

In Ep. 4, what went into the sound of Tula’s spice-induced dream session that she holds with some of the sisters? (They draw what they see in their minds). Was this mostly foley?

TK: There’s a ton of foley in there. Foley went wild with that scene, giving the layers, giving the rhythm, and hitting the close-ups of different people drawing.

They do phenomenal, highly detailed work and for sequences like this, it really shows.

The foley crew is one I’ve been working with for a while: JRS Productions in Toronto. Randy Wilson is the foley supervisor. They do phenomenal, highly detailed work and for sequences like this, it really shows. They pay close attention to the details and give us layers so we have a lot to play with in the mix.

There’s a bunch of loop group in there, too. There is some production breathing but we wanted to get the feel of the room starting calm and, as they get going, it becomes more panicked. Then towards the end, they fall into a rhythm. You can feel the breathing rhythm and the drawing rhythm converge and then it crescendos to the point when they all wake up and stop.

You created the perfect sound of Sister Theodosia morphing into Valya’s brother Griffin and then back into her own form. What went into that?

AS: It was basically some recordings of skinning different pieces of meat. Then I used some very subtle vegetable gore layers in there as well.

TK: We ended up adding a bit of bone sounds in there because in the final VFX, you can see more violent movement to it so they wanted to hear the internal bones cracking and moving to change from one shape to another.

they wanted to hear the internal bones cracking and moving to change from one shape to another.

Voice-wise, when it changes from Griffin to Theodosia, the initial efforts are him and then it slowly changes into her efforts. We started with bigger screams, making it more painful, but they wanted to scale it back. It hurts, obviously, but Theo is trying to keep it under control.

What’s been your favorite part of working on the sound of Dune: Prophecy? Is there a specific sound, scene, or episode that you’re most proud of?

AS: There are so many flashbacks, and I liked doing the dynamic flashbacks with Shai-Hulud. The intercut details of all the holograms, especially in Ep. 2, were fun. Desmond’s suspensor belt when he’s in prison was fun to do.

My favorite episode was Ep. 6. It pretty much has everything in it.

TK: Ep. 6 is when so much of the story comes together, and it was great how all the sound design got to come together in one massive sequence. That was tough to put together because it’s huge and busy, and relied heavily on VFX which we didn’t see for a while. So, we did what we could and I don’t know how Ann got it all together at the end, but she did! That final sequence sounds amazing. All the layers are so great; all the different concepts that we were building throughout the season came together.

A big thanks to Tim Kimmel and Ann Scibelli for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Dune: Prophecy and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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