Sculpting the Supernatural Sound of ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ – with Rich Bologna

Director David Gordon Green introduced Michael Myers to a new generation of horror fans using a retroactive continuity (retcon) storyline for his take on the Halloween franchise that brought it back to the roots of John Carpenter’s 1978 film. For his next big trilogy, Dir. Gordon Green is tackling The Exorcist in much the same way – taking the story back to the first film in 1973, so that The Exorcist: Believer acts as a sequel.

Once again, Dir. Gordon Green tapped supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Rich Bologna at Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services in New York, with whom he successfully collaborated on the Halloween trilogy.

Working on a slasher film is a bit different than working on a supernatural film. For one thing, Michael Myers was rather tight-lipped, whereas the possessed girls in The Exorcist: Believer both speak in a demonic voice – the same demonic voice, in fact. So one of Bologna’s first big challenges was getting that possessed demon voice just right.

Another difference is the use of rituals and seances to bring forth supernatural elements. For instance, the kids perform a séance that opens up a realm between two worlds, allowing a demon to take possession of them. This affords the potential use of supernatural or subjective sounds that aren’t completely realistic. There’s more opportunity to ‘make it weird,’ as Gordon Green often says to Bologna.

Here, Bologna talks about how he used atmospheres and tones that worked with droney elements in the music to create a subliminal feeling that ‘something’s not right’ – a direction that Gordon Green wanted to pursue during the lead-up to total demonic possession. He talks about the sound for each phase of exorcism, what went into the sound of the demonic vocals, how he handled the subjective/psychological moments, and much more!

The Exorcist: Believer | Official Trailer

When did you get started on The Exorcist: Believer, and what were some of the first sounds or scenes that Dir. David Gordon Green wanted you to tackle?

Rich Bologna (RB): The first thing we did was talk about the demon voice. We talked about it even before they shot the film. David was very interested and concerned about getting it right.

We could obviously have done all sorts of wild stuff with plugins and manipulating some of the production sound because the girls – actresses Olivia O’Neill as Katherine and Lidya Jewett as Angela – did an amazing job. But to me, it made the most sense to cast the right voice actor.

The demon in the film is a woman, so David found this great voice actor, a Welsh woman named Helen Leahey, who lives in Cologne, Germany. So we did a preliminary recording session with her even before there was a working cut of the film. She recorded some amazing stuff. Because she speaks Welsh, she did a version of the Welsh National Anthem backward. She transcribed it backward phonetically, and then performed it. We were all blown away. What a first impression!

We used most of her performance for the demon voice, and David also hired an additional voice actor J. Moliere. But her voice is the primary source.

Paul Urmson (who mixed the dialogue and music) did all this really cool effects processing on the voice, adding reverb and pitch shifting…

Taking that a step further in the mix, Paul Urmson (who mixed the dialogue and music) did all this really cool effects processing on the voice, adding reverb and pitch shifting, and sending it through the sub channel.

It sounded great, but the more we worked on the film, the less of that we used. David really ended up going with a pretty bone-dry version of what those voice actors did. I think that also nods to the original film because it’s essentially the same type of approach. In the original, they used the voice actor Mercedes McCambridge and didn’t really manipulate her voice too much.

To me, the big thing was to get the right talent and a great performance for the demon, so that’s what we tried to do.

 

The film opens up in Port au Prince Haiti. How did you use this opening sequence to set the sonic tone for what the audience will hear in the rest of the film?

RB: I love the Haiti part of the film; it used to be a little bit longer, but unfortunately we had to cut down that section in Haiti. I love it because it’s beautifully shot and it’s such a rich environment sonically. It was important to use this section as a stark contrast from the rest of the film. We did a lot of custom loop group with actual Haitian speakers, especially in the market scenes. And there are a lot of lush backgrounds with native birds, traffic, and beach sounds. We wanted to make it feel warm and inviting, tropical and vibrant.

That was also a fun sequence for Dolby Atmos because you’re in a building and the ceiling is falling in and there’s all sorts of wild panning happening…

Then the earthquake happens in Haiti, and that was a lot of fun to sound design. It was something I worked on pretty early on in the process because I wanted to be able to iterate on it and make it really powerful. That was also a fun sequence for Dolby Atmos because you’re in a building and the ceiling is falling in and there’s all sorts of wild panning happening throughout the sequence. Hopefully, it came off as terrifying. I wanted the audience to feel like they were inside the action; to make the earthquake feel big and bad.

Another fun sequence was after the building essentially collapses, we go into a more impressionistic place that’s our take on hearing loss. It gets pretty surreal, and we’re in Victor’s head. David referenced the “Jaws effect” for this moment, as though you’re below water and you pop up and get little spurts of sound coming at you before you go back underwater.

 

What went into the sound of the earthquake? Did you record any custom sounds for the buildings crumbling and collapsing?

RB: I didn’t do any custom recordings for the buildings collapsing, but for the interior shots, we did shoot some custom foley for the staircase in the building. We recorded foley on location in the WB NY stairwell for people falling and their footsteps. There’s a shot of the railing that gets separated from the stairwell, and we recorded a big clunk for that.

The exterior shots were pretty stacked with big, concrete debris sounds that I like.

 

The film doesn’t really introduce spooky sounds until Victor finds his daughter’s pendant and the shoe in the woods, in the stairwell for that underground tunnel. This was your moment to get scary and weird; what went into that?

RB: That scene ended up changing a lot because at one point they did reshoots.

Originally, we didn’t have many shots of Victor in the underground tunnel. But they did a reshoot to show him finding the pendant and then the snake jumps out at him. That came in later, and it was definitely something that was continually being fleshed out.

Interestingly, in the final mix, David always has requests, like, “Make it weird.” We reverse a bunch of sounds, slow it down, etc…

…David always has requests, like, ‘Make it weird.’ We reverse a bunch of sounds, slow it down, etc…

And then he’ll walk out of the room and we have to interpret that and make it happen. So I did a whole pass of super strange, in-your-face sound design. It almost sounded like a bee swarm; it had a buzzing effect and there were a lot of pitch ramps. There was music there, but it was pretty droney and minimal. This was definitely a sound design feature moment.

And then he’ll walk out of the room and we have to interpret that and make it happen.

But on one of the last days of the mix, one of the producers from Blumhouse offered up the idea of completely taking out the sound right when Victor is underground. We tried it and it definitely had an effect on us. It was going in the opposite direction and leading the audience into anticipating something. Silence is always scary in that way.

So, that’s where we left it in the mix. It’s one of those opportunities to focus more on the character’s mindset rather than the environment. Pulling out most of the sound initially when we’re with Victor puts you in his headspace of ‘what the hell is going on here?’ Then we build up as we go. I always like those opportunities to play more on the psychological level rather than just being overly realistic or conventional.

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So once things get spooky, how did you use sound to help escalate the tension leading up to the exorcism? For instance, Angela remembers the trance moment with her friend Kathrine. It’s a super spooky flashback as she’s telling her dad that nothing happened and there were no spirits there…

RB: That was another fun David Gordon Green-type directive of, “Make it weird.” It’s a pretty quick stylized moment, but it’s fun for sound. He had us take some of the giggles from the girls and slow it way down. The camera flips up and swirls around to a pretty spooky shot of Katherine and the candle.

He usually points us more in a surrealist direction. We never really have to hold back.

It was a dual effort with the music because the sound design starts the action, and then it hands off to the music. And there’s another very quiet moment right at the end with the shot of Katherine, where we just pull out all the sound and it snaps back into reality.

Those are always the fun opportunities that David gives us. He usually points us more in a surrealist direction. We never really have to hold back.

…he wanted us to watch the first part of ‘Lost Highway.’ In that, Lynch does such a great job of creating that tone that something is not right here…

I like that part of the film where the girls are back but you’re not really sure what’s going on with them. It’s definitely not the conventional horror soundtrack where we have all sorts of jump scares. It’s more of this slow build. Something’s off. There’s a lot of subliminal sound design and music-type textures throughout that section of the film that lends a creepy undertone to everything.

David is a huge David Lynch fan, so he wanted us to watch the first part of Lost Highway. In that, Lynch does such a great job of creating that tone that something is not right here, and blurring the sound design and music together. In this part of The Exorcist: Believer, it’s hard to discern whether it’s music or sound design and there’s a nice dance that we achieved of blurring those lines. This part of the film definitely features a lot of impending doom but not in an overt way.

 

What did you do sonically to help achieve that mood, so that it wasn’t overt but you felt something was wrong? Was it a lot of work in the ambiences and tones?

RB: Yeah, for instance, there’s this scene with Victor in the bathroom and Angela is turning on and off the lights. For a long time, we had to live with this really noisy production sound. It might have been from a generator on set, or something, but there was this sound in that scene and we couldn’t pull it out completely because there were some really nice footsteps and movement sounds in the track.

David really likes the ‘messiness’ of the production track…

David really likes the “messiness” of the production track, so we had to use this noisy production sound to our advantage. There’s a moment when Angela walks back into her room after flipping on and off the lights. It almost sounds like sound design, but it’s real. It’s from the production track. So I used that sound as a springboard and put in some haunting, rumbly wind that I pitched correctly to match that sound from production. And on the music side, composers David Wingo and Amman Abbasi had a nice drone that helped glue everything together.

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I always look for those serendipitous things, like noisy production sounds. Those are usually the first things you want to get rid of, and EQ out, but I wanted to keep at least some of that flavor in there, and work around it rather than just building it up from the ground floor. So it ended up being part of the sound design.

 

The exorcism happens in stages; there’s an evolution to it. The first part is “scientific” with lots of medical equipment and the sounds of the heart monitors. Ann, the neighbor/nurse, starts reading from the Bible, and the girls growl and wheeze. They fight against their restraints. The house shakes…

RB: I started by throwing a lot of sounds at that scene. The house is shaking and the windows rattle. The ceiling starts to crack and the lamp is swinging. Whenever the demon shows up, we’re harkening back to the earthquake, so it’s this rumbly, shaky environment albeit a bit more filtered and subdued.

When the girls were strapped in together in Victor’s house, it was really loud. I threw the whole kitchen sink at that sequence. There was tons of cool music too, but with everything playing together, it became a bit convoluted. It was negated because everything was playing at 11.

I threw the whole kitchen sink at that sequence. There was tons of cool music too, but with everything playing together, it became a bit convoluted.

David is keen on focusing the ear on something specific and presenting his own style. He had me turn down and filter the effects and sound design for that first part of the exorcism. Even the dialogue in that scene is pulled way back and the music takes charge. It worked. It wasn’t an overwhelming assault on the audience. It was a bit more tasteful.

The exorcism part of the movie is almost two reels of the film. We wanted to craft it in a way that wasn’t monotonous in terms of style, so each part had its own character and focus. There was a lot of subtractive mixing, where we fleshed out so much stuff in editorial and had so many tracks of sound happening, but during the mix, we pulled stuff out and figured out where we wanted to lead the audience.

Playing it more minimally…worked rather than having this overwhelming, saturated sound design and music environment.

At one point, we pulled out the music completely and focused on the foley of the straps – these leathery, creaky sounds. The demon voice is coming through the girls. Playing it more minimally ended up being the thing that worked rather than having this overwhelming, saturated sound design and music environment.

I paid a lot of attention to the sound of the restraints. There are a lot of horse saddle leather sounds. I just wanted to make it seem really visceral and creepy and oppressive.

I will say that the heart monitor was the bane of my existence because we did six temp mixes on this film – tons of previews. If you ever want to go crazy, try conforming beeps because every time you make a cut, the rhythm of the beeps moves. I just had to give up at a certain point and choose not to cut that heart monitor sound fully until we actually locked picture. It was going to drive me nuts.

 

The second part of the exorcism starts with Doctor Beehibe. This is a more spiritual but non-Catholic approach. She pours a concoction on the girls, and a stream of vapors escapes them. Beehibe built a fire and the flames burst forth and battle the vapors…

RB: The smoke/vapor fight was a lot of fun for me because I used all sorts of pitched scream sounds that we mangled and swirled around the room. It’s one of those classic examples of the visuals not fully representing what’s happening because it’s a fairly esoteric thing to nail down visually, and so the sound design was an effective (and cheaper) way of selling the idea of that fight. That was a pretty big featured moment for sound design, with the swirling, smoky, fiery screaming sounds of the fighting spirits.

 

The third part is when the Priest finally comes in. The demon is forcing the parents to choose one girl over the other. The priest begins his prayers, and surprisingly, the demon breaks his neck…

RB: That’s a fun twist on the original, that the priest ends up being the one whose head turns!

David wanted it to seem like, “Oh, thank god the professional has arrived.” He wanted to give it this triumphant undertone. This was definitely a time when the music needed to tell that story. It’s much easier to do that with music.

The “snap, crackle, pop” of the neck break (as David called it) had to be really punchy. It was gruesome. And the makeup they did for the veins popping out of his neck was pretty horrific. So, our big contribution to that scene was the “snap, crackle, pop.” It was a combination of foley sounds for the skin element, and some shellfish sound effects for the really gross top end, and then sweetened with fruit and vegetable squishes and snaps.

 

The final part of the exorcism is when Victor puts the scarf around Angela’s neck. Angela floats toward the ceiling and vomits black ooze all over the place. A portal opens up and Angela flatlines. Then we see Katherine’s POV of being pulled into the water by demons. There was certainly a lot of opportunity for sound in this section…

RB: That section was pretty challenging. David referred to this part as the “Opera of Pain.” It went through many iterations. It was tricky. And I’m not sure we completely got it in terms of focusing our approach so that it wasn’t a big wall of sound.

David referred to this part as the ‘Opera of Pain.’

A good place to start with giving it some focus is the panning. Paul [Urmson, re-recording mixer on dialogue and music] always has fun with panning. He would process those agonized screams and groans and swirl them around the room, and I was doing a lot of panning through that section; maximizing our Dolby Atmos capabilities.

Wingo and Abbas also did some great music for that section. It was all starting to pile up though, and so we ended up pulling out most of their low-end and percussion elements, and featuring more of the Penderecki-esk string ostinatos, and more mid to high-end type elements.

David wanted it to seem overwhelming – an intense sonic experience that matches what you see on screen.

David also had me filter out all the high-end in some of the shots of the demons that they flash on. So it gets muffled and then pops back to full range. As it gets to the big vomit scene, the music is just gonzo there.

It was challenging in the mix to try to carve that out with some focus. David wanted it to seem overwhelming, so even if we didn’t achieve the focus we wanted, we still achieved what David was going for – an intense sonic experience that matches what you see on screen. It’s an out-there, stylized, operatic-type soundtrack.

Then when Katherine dies, all the air gets sucked out of the room as it flashes to her POV of what’s happening before she dies, being back in that underground tunnel and getting pulled underwater. That part was fun because it was a nice contrast to the “Opera of Pain” section. It goes back into this creepy, underground place. It was fun to be in that echoey chamber. We play the voices from her parents in the overheads in Atmos, but they’re effected and reverbed. Paul did some great treatments to the voices in that section.

 

What was the most fun scene for you to work on? Or, what was your favorite scene?

RB: I liked working on the earthquake, and the whole Haiti section. I really enjoyed some of the more subtle bits of the film. For instance, we talked about the bathroom with the lights. That was really a fun sound thing, even though it’s pretty subliminal and subdued. I liked working on the more psychological parts of the soundtrack.

I liked working on the more psychological parts of the soundtrack.

We had opportunities to be featured. The part with Dr. Beehibe’s séance and her ritualistic approach to the exorcism, with the smoke/vapor things happening, that was fun. That came together on the stage because David is pretty improvisational with this directing. I had a fairly fleshed-out design there but we did a lot on the fly with David. It’s fun when it comes together on the mix stage because it’s like we’re all working in tandem. It’s very collaborative.

 

What are you most proud of in terms of your sound work on The Exorcist: Believer?

RB: Sound helped the tone of this movie considerably. Early on, I showed my wife a scene with Chris MacNeil (played by Ellen Burstyn) and Katherine – what it looked like without music or sound. It’s drastically different, almost like an experimental theater piece. Once you add the sound effects and music, then it becomes a movie.

There was an overall dependence on sound to help tell this story and create a mood and atmosphere that David really wanted to present…

There was an overall dependence on sound to help tell this story and create a mood and atmosphere that David really wanted to present with this film. So, creating this mood with sound helped pull everything together and to tell the story that David wanted to tell. Much of that was happening in that grey area of sound design and music, and working with an approach that wasn’t departmentalized. We had to make sure the music and sound were working together, so you don’t know what is what. It’s all working to achieve the mood that David wanted to present, and that’s what I’m most proud of.

 

A big thanks to Rich Bologna for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of The Exorcist: Believer and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

 

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