Capturing the sound of the ’70s for ‘Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist’ – with Brian Armstrong and James Gallivan

PEACOCK’s new series Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist – streaming new episodes on Thursdays – embodies the spirit of the ’70s, from licensed music by soul and R&B artists like The Spencer Davis Group, Otis Redding, Barrett Strong, Sam & Dave, and The Temptations to big, gas-guzzling cars like the Cadillac Calais and Chrysler Imperial to wide-collared shirts, flared pants, and polyester leisure suits.

Supervising sound editor Brian Armstrong and sound designer James Gallivan were tasked with bringing that nostalgic ’70s vibe to the sound of the show. Set in Atlanta, Georgia in 1970, the story centers around Mohammed Ali’s comeback fight against Jerry Quarry. Sound helped to portray their mostly off-camera boxing match, communicate the social/political issues surrounding the fight through crowd effects and loop group, and immerse the audience in the era through the sounds of technology, like rotary phones, vintage stereo systems, and classic cars.

Armstrong and Gallivan both recently won the 2024 Primetime Emmy for ‘Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour)’ on Shōgun “Broken to the Fist,” which they shared with Benjamin L. Cook, John Creed, Ayako Yamauchi, Mark Hailstone, Ken Cain, Melissa Muik, Matt Salib, and Sanaa Kelley. Creed was also the dialogue editor on Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist.

Here, Armstrong and Gallivan talk about sourcing retro phone sounds, recording East Coast birds, cutting sounds of classic cars and adding sweeteners like suspension squeaks, door rattles, and leather creaks to lend personality and detail to each ride, recording extensive loop group sessions to bring the locations on-screen to life, selling the idea of progress in Atlanta through transportation sounds like planes and trains, getting creative with sound for split-screen segments and POV moments, and so much more!

Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist | Official Trailer | Peacock Original

Getting the sound of this era right is essential to the storytelling on Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist. The licensed music helps to put you in this place and time. How did you achieve that 70’s vibe through sound design and your choices for sound editorial?

Sound Supervisor Brian Armstrong and Sound Designer James Gallivan

James Gallivan (JG): It comes down to details, and accuracy in those details. If you’re focused on those two things, it will fall into place.

We were lucky to have the ’70s as a backdrop. Having lots of gas-guzzling cars driving around – putting a chuggy car-by in the background in between a line of dialogue – just sounded so beautiful to me. If you’re working on a modern show, putting something like that in there would seem a little out of place. So, this was a chance to go nuts with sounds that we don’t get to use regularly. The traffic set the tone of the city of Atlanta in the ’70s, especially when we were up in Frank’s hotel room. Since he’s high up on a balcony, we’re playing distant, recognizably old horns and low, growly cars. Myron Nettinga, our effects re-recording mixer, did such a great job of treating those sounds and making them feel natural within the world we were creating.

Also, cutting in the sound of kids playing outside in some residential scenes felt nostalgic to me, even though I didn’t grow up in the ’70s. It fit that era. I also cut in the sound of East coast birds. And I got lucky a few weeks before I started working on the show. I went out and recorded some birds in a park and the recordings were quiet enough that I could use those birds in the show.

Another important element was the telephones. I purchased a library called “Retro Telephone Rings” from A Sound Effect. I wanted each phone to have a different sound, especially in the first episode where there’s a montage of Chicken Man (played by Kevin Hart) calling all the gangsters. There’s four or five phone rings sequentially, so to have that variation was important.

The best-laid sound effects are only as effective as what you’re looking at.

Brian Armstrong (BA): The showrunner, Shaye Ogbonna, did such a great job of visually capturing that time as well. The best-laid sound effects are only as effective as what you’re looking at. So to have all of those visual cues — costumes, set design, and so on — just made it easy to buy the sounds that Jim [Gallivan] put in.

JG: Yeah, that’s huge.

Shaye liked trains a lot, too. So we put in some train horns here and there, which probably were more frequent in the ’70s anyway. It was a cool thing to add to the palette.

BA: He was very big on trains and very big on airplanes. He saw airplanes as a metaphor for progress. Frank Moten’s character (played by Samuel L. Jackson) was there to build this empire in Atlanta. So having sounds of the airplanes was a huge part of that, expressing that progress through technology.

JG: We’re normally not encouraged to edit planes in the backgrounds. You and John [Creed, dialogue editor] spent so much time removing those sounds.

BA: We certainly did. The shooting location wasn’t too far off the beaten path in Georgia, so there were airplanes, construction, highways — all sorts of crazy noise. We don’t necessarily want to shy away from that because the show is set not that long ago. Yet we wanted to intentionally give those sounds the space to be added in selectively. No single shot was long enough to get an entire plane-by successfully recorded, so it required a lot of cleanup and then putting it right back in but in a controlled way.

We had a fantastic loop group that really had the right feel for that time and place, with a lot of the lingo.

The loop group played a huge role, too. We had a fantastic loop group that really had the right feel for that time and place, with a lot of the lingo. Many of them were very familiar with Georgia. And again, like the visuals, it put you in that place.

In the show, they go to some classic old restaurants, many of which are still there. The strip clubs that are still there, etc. People are familiar with those places. Filling those places with life using loop group really helped to put that in the right place in time, too.

Typically, loop group is almost treated like a background. But in this show, there were so many instances where they were just as loud or even louder than the principles. The best example is in Ep. 4 when Detective Hudson (played by Don Cheadle) is pulling up to the crime scene. We shot loop group for the frustrated party guests standing outside in their underwear because the robbers made them strip. They’re yelling at each other and yelling at the police on the scene because they don’t see the police as being there to help. The loop group is right there on top of everything, and it played so well.

JG: The lingo the loop group uses throughout just sends you back to the ’70s. Even if it was played low, it’s subliminally there and you feel like you’re in another place and time.

And the loop group was essential for recreating Ali’s comeback fight against Jerry Quarry. The crowd helps to tell the story of the fight and keeps the excitement going, even when we’re in the corridors and not ring-side. Can you talk about your sound work for that event – using loop group, and how you handled the timing of the punches and reactions?

BA: The fight was especially intricate because not only did we need to feel the different locations in the building, but within the arena, there was a lot of discussion about the social class breakdown. The floor near the ring had a lot of rich, white folks and up above in the higher balconies was more of a black crowd. Portraying why each side was there and how they were hoping the fight would go was a lot of story to try and tell within a single episode.

Portraying why each side was there and how they were hoping the fight would go was a lot of story to try and tell within a single episode.

This was Ali’s first fight after a three-year ban from boxing for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War. Nobody in the country wanted to host this fight because it was seen as such a politically hot topic. Ali didn’t just refuse, he condemned the US for their role in the war. When Atlanta accepted, it was not loved by all, as one can imagine. Trying to portray all of that was definitely some heavy lifting for loop group, but they did a great job shining a spotlight on the importance of the event.

Jim cut effects crowds — angry voices, cheering, booing, and all the different flavors of crowd – and the loop group pokes through that giving the crowd specificity. The effects crowds are the glue that held the loop group together.

JG: This crowd was challenging to cut. First, it was tough to nail down the exact number of people. It was somewhere between five and ten thousand — closer to five but they probably packed more people in there than they’ll tell us. So, that was tough to determine.

Coordinating the hits and the cheers to have everything play together and to sonically tell the story when the fight was off-screen was a tall order.

Also, I studied the real Ali vs. Quarry fight a lot. I noticed the crowd wasn’t ever unanimously in favor of something or against something. It was all a mixed reaction most of the time because the crowd was split. I wanted to keep that going, but at the same time, this is a TV show so you need the cheer or the boo to tell what’s happening since 75% of the fight takes place off-camera.

Coordinating the hits and the cheers to have everything play together and to sonically tell the story when the fight was off-screen was a tall order. I brought the actual Ali vs. Quarry fight into my session and lined up the most exciting part of round one with my timeline and just matched the hits in the real fight to the off-camera fight in the show. Then, I had the crowd effects follow the hits and Brian followed suit with loop group. So, basically, every round in the show is a representation of the actual fight in 1970.

BA: I didn’t really know the shape of the fight when we were shooting loop group, so we just recorded wild reactions — the whole spectrum of reactions — and cut those later on to follow the story that Jim had choreographed off-camera.

…every round in the show is a representation of the actual fight in 1970.

Part of the challenge too was that although the fight was politically heated, the fight itself ultimately wasn’t that exciting. It was super hyped up. In the third round, Quarry got cut and was bleeding a lot so the fight doctor called it before the fourth round even started.

In real life, it was arguably anticlimactic, but in the show, it’s used as an emotional arc for Don Cheadle’s character, Det. Hudson. This is when he turns the corner and realizes this is bigger than just a job of guarding Ali. This is a society speaking right now. It’s time to decide which side of the fight he wants to be on. With that in mind, we had to amp everything up and make it a much more “interesting” fight, I guess I should say.

JG: When cutting the sounds of the fight, one thing I noticed from the real fight was that the biggest sound you hear is the exhale of the boxers. That was something I wanted to keep in my build.

… one thing I noticed from the real fight was that the biggest sound you hear is the exhale of the boxers. That was something I wanted to keep in my build.

Mostly, my build had a variation of boxing hits, and each hit was a combination of a breath element, high-end hit, mid-range hit, and low-end hit. All the specific elements were consistently on the same track, so that Myron (re-recording mixer) could easily dial each hit in the way he wanted to on the stage. Myron has a lot of experience mixing fight scenes and especially boxing matches. I wanted to give him the flexibility to shape these impacts and I tried to be as organized as possible so he knew where each file was every time.

BA: The sound of the hits supported the emotional journey we’re trying to tell. In the beginning, Ali is struggling and his hits don’t land quite as well. You hear more of the cloth of his glove and his exhale. And then, when he really lands a hit, it sounds beefier.

During the boxing match, as a singer in the boxing arena is singing the National Anthem, we’re taken to Chicken Man’s house party, which has just been ambushed by the thieves. There’s the use of split-screen to show what’s happening simultaneously at two different locations. You have the singing, the sounds of weapons and mayhem at the house, and score! Can you talk about some of your challenges or opportunities for sound here?

BA: We ended up treating the score and the National Anthem almost like score together. We didn’t go too much into the ambience behind the singing because we figured everybody was just standing there with their hands over their hearts. It’s not super exciting, especially when you have all this crazy stuff going on at the house.

…the shot was a oner. Those are always a lot of fun to work on because you have to feel the movement from one location to the next.

During the initial break-in, the shot was a oner. Those are always a lot of fun to work on because you have to feel the movement from one location to the next. You have to hit the specifics of hearing the people in this room and then going into the next one, pumping it up with whooshes and bigger-than-life sounds that help take you through the whole journey.

JG: For me, it was mostly “see it, hear it.” I knew that sequence was going to take more shape on the stage so I was just supplying sounds for what we saw yet trying to be stylistic about it as well.

Can you talk about your approach to the sound of the fun, highly-stylized split-screen moments? There are so many ways you could have approached the sound for these…

JG: For me, I was just going by what was in the production tracks. It was showing what the story wanted to tell. If we were staying with Chicken Man at the split-screen, I made sure to stay with Chicken Man sonically. Sometimes we’d flashback to the boxing match, so I’d put in a crowd effect or something to highlight a specific split-screen visual. But I didn’t want to have a sound for each split-screen box if it wasn’t necessary. I wanted to maintain the focus on the story.

I didn’t want to have a sound for each split-screen box if it wasn’t necessary. I wanted to maintain the focus on the story.

BA: Which is exactly how it shaped out on the stage. There was never a time where anyone said, “Oh, we want something for that box up there that nobody’s really looking at.” Jim did a great job of helping to make those selective choices because there’s never enough time for that on the stage. Our goal is always to give the mixers a clear path to where the soundtrack is supposed to go. Jim’s work, as always, was immensely helpful.

JG: I realized that we only needed maybe a sweetener or little sound for some of the split-screen boxes.

BA: Sometimes it was a little sonic callback, like the fight bell, or some little sonic trigger. We wanted to find that balance between the easy choice (the trite choice) and some interesting design choice. I think we were pretty successful in doing the latter.
 

Did you get to record the set cars? Were there any helpful indie libraries of car sounds that were useful for the show?

JG: I wish we had the time to record them. But we did get a lookbook of the cars. They gave us a photo and the name of each car so that way we were able to source the sounds and be as accurate as possible with them.

For example, Det. Hudson’s car was a Galaxy 500 and I happened to have one in my sound library.

These cars are so fun to cut. I realized that it’s my favorite thing to do now because the engines are always present and right there for you to cut. You don’t have to look too hard for a powerful-sounding engine.

BA: Just starting it up sounds powerful!

JG: I had some pretty accurate Cadillac sound files and they were older recordings so they sounded a little thin, but they still sounded powerful. I used The Cargo Cult’s Subquake to add the low end back into the sound so it had that beef I was looking for.

The little details put into the cars really sell it for me…

I also comp’d a lot of sounds together to create each car’s unique character. So there are little squeaks and suspension groans when they get out of the car. The cars have so much movement to them. Det. Hudon’s car mirror had a little wobble to it each time the door closed, so I put in a sound for that. The little details put into the cars really sell it for me – even just the tire pull-ins. I found that cutting the cars was my favorite thing to do.

BA: There’s no rubber seal around the car door, so when it closes it’s just metal on metal.

JG: When you hear that door close in real life, sometimes it’s shockingly thin sounding, too. I wanted to honor that but at the same time, put some really solid elements in there.

BA: I love looking over the mixer’s shoulder to see something as “simple” as a car door close but there are, like, six elements to it – everything from the ring-out to the door squeak. It’s all there to paint a cool picture.

I love looking over the mixer’s shoulder to see something as ‘simple’ as a car door close but there are, like, six elements to it…

Shaye is in love with cop shows from the ’70s and ’80s, and we could have gone that route and tried to make it sound like a show from that time. But it feels like we’re in a new era of TV where we can let the visuals provide that ’70s TV show aesthetic while the sound provides something more realistic (as opposed to “Hollywood” or exaggerated). It was a nice balance where we have these accurate, beautifully built cars and then when the camera pans real quick, we hear a whoosh. To have a combination of those things and to be able to play in that palette and dip your toe into both worlds was a lot of fun.

Sometimes we got into Chicken Man’s POV or headspace – like at the fight when he sees Det. Hudson and remembers his “hoodlum” comment, or later in the basement after the gunshot… Can you talk about your approach to sound for these subjective moments?

BA: The “hoodlum” scene is coming out of a flashback. Chicken Man sees Det. Hudson down by the ring and we bubble up that memory and focus it a bit more because he’s up in the 2nd tier and it’s a bit more raucous – it’s more lively up there than down near the ring. So we take all of that background chatter and push it back so that he’s just hearing the memory of Det. Hudson calling him a “hoodlum.” We later see him in the courtroom, and see the history between them. That “hoodlum” comment echoes over a couple of times. That was a dance in the mix, for sure, to find the right balance.

…the gunshot shatters a window and I used the window breaking sound to morph into the tinnitus sound…

JG: Yeah, the mixers did a good job of bubbling that out for the headspace.

For the gunshot, the temp track featured tinnitus in that moment. I always try to avoid that trope when I can, but sometimes you have to use it. So, the gunshot shatters a window and I used the window breaking sound to morph into the tinnitus sound, to approach the trope in a way that steps out of the box a little but also calls back to the temp track.

What were your biggest sound editorial and design challenges so far in the show?

JG: I think the crowd work in the fight was definitely the biggest challenge — trying to honor the split perspectives, the size of the crowd, and then having everyone react to an off-camera fight that we had to build was definitely the biggest thing for me.

BA: There were a lot of notes going into that, a lot of thoughts and concerns for all of these stories that they wanted to tell in that fight that took place mostly off camera. It was definitely a tall order.

…they hear the palette that we provide and it becomes a little bit of a playground for them on the mix stage. That is exactly what we encourage and want.

It’s hard to know which direction they’re going to want to take and when. It’s not because of a lack of specificity, but because we know the game. They have a plan and they know exactly what they want. Then they hear the palette that we provide and it becomes a little bit of a playground for them on the mix stage. That is exactly what we encourage and want. We want that collaboration. We want that discovery. So it was great that Jim was able to provide all of those ingredients to hit the big moments, and to provide the layers, so that when one of the creative executives asks to hear a little more of the booing, for example, we don’t have to steal from here and put it there. It’s all there, just one fader move away. That is so incredibly helpful.

JG: We do our best to prep it and present it how we want it to sound, knowing that it’s going to change when they get their ears on it. As Brian said, they want to play with it.

In general, boxing crowds are pretty challenging because it’s cheering and booing; it’s nonstop jeering on top of crowd idols. People are yelling at their boxer, or yelling against the other boxer. It’s just nonstop energy that you have to keep going. You have to have things poke out. It can’t just be this level crowd idle across the scene. It can’t be a straight line of crowd. It has to be moving and have a lot of specificity.

What was your favorite scene for sound, so far, in the show (up to Ep. 5)?

JG: I liked using the birds I recorded because I’m a bird nerd. I knew that they were going to be accurate to the East coast and I just got so lucky that day.

Cutting the cars was such a privilege and such a fun thing to do. I constantly was thinking, “Man, I’m so lucky right now. I get to cut all these ’60s cars.” It’s just so fun.

The one thing I really liked — and I’m not sure if it made it in – was in Ep. 1 when they’re in the hangar waiting for the gangsters to arrive on the airplane. It demanded a really stylistic approach, so I just quickly reversed the sound of a private jet landing, and it landed right before a James Brown cue when the drums hit. I thought, “Oh yeah, that’s good. I can move on.” I listened to that five times in a row, because I thought it was so cool.

… I just quickly reversed the sound of a private jet landing, and it landed right before a James Brown cue when the drums hit.

BA: It’s definitely is still in there. There was some discussion on the stage about moving it a couple of frames later, or moving it a couple of frames earlier. And I was like, “You can move it anywhere you want, but I’m going to have you move it right back because the timing is so good.”

JG: That’s why I love you, Brian. Good looking out.

BA: It just sounded so right, and it was that perfect intro. It just it tickled everybody’s fancy. Often the creatives will talk in metaphors and talk in different parallel terms and to have them say, “Yeah, that’s it because that also represents this and this,” you know you’ve it. Also, it sounds cool.

For me, my favorite part of this show is just watching this cast. It was humbling looking at the cast list before we even started. The names just kept coming in. We knew Kevin Hart at first. Then we found out Terrance Howard, Sam Jackson, Don Cheadle and Taraji P. Henson were in it. It was like, holy moly. Everyone in the cast brought their A-game, so for me, it’s such a treat to be on a show that would be compelling if it was just them talking and we did nothing – to be able to clean it up and make it sound seamless and smooth. To put everything in a world that sounded like it was ripped right out of the ’70s was very cool for me.

JG: On the dialogue side, John Creed and Brian did such a tremendous job of cleaning it up and making it so that we could play what we wanted to play. They do such a great job of making clean dialogue tracks so that we have the space to do the sound design. That’s such a luxury to have as a sound designer.

BA: It all has to start with dialogue, because if the dialogue is not clean, you are going out of your way to hide things or strip things out of the sound design, working around the dialogue instead of with it.

When the dialogue is clean and on a nice even playing field, you get to build around it and support it and let everything shine together. I can’t give enough credit to John Creed and Mark Fleming (dialogue/music re-recording mixer) for creating that foundation.

A big thanks to Brian Armstrong and James Gallivan for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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