Behind the Terrifying Sound of ‘Smile 2’ – with Dan Kenyon

The recent holiday season may have brought on the smiles, but what if smiling wasn't a sign of goodwill and cheer? In Director Parker Finn's Smile films, smiling is a very bad sign indeed! Here, supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Dan Kenyon delves into the details of his work on Smile 2, talks about his approach to specific scenes, working with the sound design-esque score of composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, and so much more!

Please note: SPOILERS AHEAD!

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of © 2024 - Paramount; Dan Kenyon

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Director Parker Finn’s horror hit Smile 2 – now streaming exclusively on Paramount+ – takes the Smile franchise to a whole new level. The film follows pop star Skye Riley who becomes possessed by the demon entity from the first Smile film, and her possession plays out in front of her family, her entourage, and her fans.

Finn once again collaborated with MPSE Award-winning supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Dan Kenyon, who worked on the first Smile. Here, Kenyon talks about building on what they achieved sonically in Smile, and breaks down his sound work on specific scenes in Smile 2. He talks about the vocal processing on the possessed voices, working with composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score, designing effective transitions, and more!

SPOILER ALERT!!! We discuss the sound for specific scenes in the film. If you missed Smile 2 in theaters, check it out on Paramount+ before reading the article.

Smile 2 | Official Trailer (2024 Movie)

This is your second Smile film. How did you want to expand on what you achieved sonically for the first film?

Sound supervisor/re-recording mixer Dan Kenyon

Dan Kenyon (DK): In Smile 2, we follow Skye Riley, a pop star who lives her life in the public eye. She’s constantly on edge as she tries to navigate her career and come back from a traumatic past that the whole world watched happen. She faces an entirely different set of challenges than Rose from the first film. The tension is higher and the stakes are higher. I remember rewatching the first movie and thinking there were some moments in the film where I could have gone bigger with sound and taken a bigger swing with the design. It’s hard not to over-analyze your work and I’m always trying to find ways to improve and bring something new to the films I’m working on.

Fortunately, when working with Parker on a Smile film, his style of filmmaking combined with composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s musical score allows plenty of room to get experimental with sound. I knew I wanted to go bigger, creepier, louder, and more unsettling to elevate the experience of Smile 2. Every aspect of the second movie is bigger and bolder, but at the same time, more intricate than the first one – this starts from the very first 8-minute opening one-shot. You are immediately propelled into the story, picking up 6 days after the first film left off.

The handshakes between the sound design and score were incredible, especially with how the sound subtly builds up in the moments of Skye’s hallucinations. It gets so intense and then it’s gone when she snaps out it. You don’t notice the building intensity until it’s gone and then it’s like, “Whoa, that was intense.” Can you talk about how you made that happen with the sound edit and mix?

DK: That really starts with Parker. He’s great at transitional moments and he’s always thinking about how to make them more impactful, catch the audience off-guard, or get under their skin.

Parker loves post-production. It’s his favorite part of making movies. His enthusiasm for sound design is very apparent when you read his scripts. Lewis’s character is a perfect example of this. He falls victim to the entity and then returns in Skye’s mind cued by a grotesque, offscreen jawbone snap and blood spill. It still grosses me out when I hear it!

When it comes to the transitions, they’re almost always built for sound, and we play with how they work throughout post-production, right up to the final mix. Parker and picture editor Elliot Greenberg will work on their initial ideas in the Avid, and then I’ll get my hands on it and expand on what they’re doing.

When it comes to the transitions, they’re almost always built for sound, and we play with how they work throughout post-production, right up to the final mix.

The transition from the “Music Inspires Hope” fundraiser to Skye’s apartment was one that we changed during the final mix. For months, we faded out of the chaos of the crowd after the presenter crashed through a dinner table and let the score take us into the aftermath and eventual slow panning shot of Skye’s apartment. This was an elegant transition, but it’s a Smile film. Instead, Parker had the idea to build the crowd in volume, size, energy, and anger to an exaggerated level and then cut out hard on the next scene. It’s a perfect reflection of what’s happening in Skye’s head – a build of overwhelming anxiety, confusion, and loss of sense of reality. It was perfect.

Cristo’s music is so different and interesting and blurs the line between sound design and score. There’s a lot of opportunity for me to play off what he’s doing.

Cristo’s music is so different and interesting and blurs the line between sound design and score. There’s a lot of opportunity for me to play off what he’s doing. I similarly approached the sound design, using elements and sounds that could be interpreted as score, but in a way where everything seems to be interacting and speaking with each other.

The process is great in so many ways because Parker, Elliot, and I worked together before on the first Smile, and before that Parker and I worked on his short film Laura Hasn’t Slept. There’s trust there. They’re always open to ideas and how we can make something more effective, and more impactful. When you combine their style of filmmaking with Cristobal’s unconventional approach to score, that works together in a really interesting way. We’re all experimenting and finding the film together. We used those experiences from Smile to immediately jump into Smile 2, knowing where we could push things. It was a confidence that wasn’t there at the start of the previous film.

Let’s look at the concert ‘lighting and prop test’ scene. Skye is on the stage but she’s not singing. The dancers are there and the big set piece (that egg-type prop) flies in. Skye has a hallucination, and the lights are buzzing and glitching and the song playback gets warped and weird. Can you talk about that scene?

DK: That sequence was designed to not have any dialogue or diegetic sound. It’s purely in Skye’s head and everything in her mind is unraveling. She experienced very strange things before this hallucination, so she’s in a completely unfamiliar headspace. That sequence is supposed to feel heavy, like an overwhelming feeling of dread creeping into her life and her mind. Parker wanted that to be very unsettling and uncomfortable but in a subtle way that also works with the score and saves room for more impactful sequences and sounds that are yet to come. The way it was blocked and shot throughout and the stage lights at the end were very cool. I leaned into all the details in the picture – what’s on screen and how each shot flowed into the next – using sound to give a sense of movement, confusion, and the feeling that Skye is beginning to question her sanity. We didn’t use any literal sounds for that sequence, except for the clacking of the egg doors opening. This ties into what we’ll see later in the film.

I leaned into all the details in the picture…using sound to give a sense of movement, confusion, and the feeling that Skye is beginning to question her sanity.

A lot of the sounds have the high frequencies filtered out and contain a lot of low-end. There’s a very ghostly female breath that happens when the egg opens and the smoke hisses out. I also played with a lot of different metal scrapes, squeaks, groans, and sharp, harsh sounds. I spent a lot of time making strange sounds by layering things in Soundminer’s Radium and changing plugin settings and rearranging their order in the processing chain. I experimented with Thomas Rex Beverly’s Bowed Cactus recordings layered with other metal scrapes and made something that sounded like an evil laugh, which felt perfect for this movie.

Now I have a set of custom sounds that instantly make you think of a ‘Smile’ movie.

I used these and similar variations when Skye is packing her bags and leans over, triggering the back pain from her accident, and also later in this scene when the Smilers appear and stalk her.

We discovered that the sound of Smile 2 was sharper, harsher, and more shrill than the first film. To facilitate this motif, I did a lot of experimenting with a variety of sounds to create a unique palette of random, strange, and different sounds. I love having that opportunity. It doesn’t happen on every project. Now I have a set of custom sounds that instantly make you think of a Smile movie. They’ll be great to revisit if there’s ever a Smile 3 or just to listen and remember this movie.

That scene in the bathroom with Skye packing her bags, she smashes the glass shower wall. I love the sound of breaking glass. Was that something they actually did on set?

DK: It was practical. Parker likes to shoot as many practical effects as he can, which is another great thing about the Smile movies. There’s a bit more VFX in this movie than the first, but in general, he likes to do everything practical when possible. That makes a huge difference in the experience.

I think ‘Smile 2’ has one of the loudest shelf crashes in cinematic history!

The glass-breaking sound was a combination of production sound but also a lot of layers to support it. It’s a punctuation of Skye’s building frustration so it needed to feel heavy. The initial impact is big and so is the final slab crashing down before it shatters. I loved the sound of the glass debris settling that came from production. That glass break and the metal shelf being tipped over in the drug house were two of the sounds Parker specifically honed in on and we worked on a lot. I think Smile 2 has one of the loudest shelf crashes in cinematic history!

Did foley contribute to that glass-breaking sound?

DK: They did the detailed parts of it. That definitely helped in combination with the effects, production sound, and the low-end impact.

…I had recorded myself throwing the grenade against my 1920’s Hollywood apartment wood floor. That sound was perfect for Skye’s trophy…

I bought this old decommissioned World War II grenade back in college for a short film. (I almost got in trouble for having it when a resident advisor saw it on my desk and didn’t yet know it had no explosives in it!) Years ago when I first moved to LA, I was working on a found-footage horror film and I had recorded myself throwing the grenade against my 1920’s Hollywood apartment wood floor. That sound was perfect for Skye’s trophy and bouncing off the tub and the floor in her bathroom. It’s one of those sounds I like to go to now and then because it has a really specific weight and sound to it.

What went into Skye’s zoned-out trance as she was getting her makeup done? At this point, she doesn’t know that she’s demonically possessed. Did you treat that moment differently since it’s early in her ‘possession’?

DK: Exactly. In the scene before this, she experiences her first hallucination after Lewis kills himself with the weight. As she’s catching her breath, it starts to reverberate and grow into the room and carries us to the next day when she’s sitting in the makeup chair. It’s the first time she’s starting to wonder if she’s losing her mind. We’re in her headspace.

It starts as a low, muffled underwater rumble that builds with other strange sounds to convey the disassociation from what’s happening around her.

It’s like she’s underwater. We can barely hear her mom, Elizabeth, talking to her in the background. It starts as a low, muffled underwater rumble that builds with other strange sounds to convey the disassociation from what’s happening around her. Then, we get sucked out of that as her chair spins around and she’s in a busy dressing room surrounded by people. There’s this cool juxtaposition of what’s happening in Skye’s mind compared to what’s happening around her. It was designed that way in the script. We’re hinting at the weight of what she’s only just starting to experience.

Let’s talk about Lewis’s death. He hits himself in the face with a 35lb weight over and over until it’s all bashed in. What went into the sound for that scene?

DK: Everything with Parker is all in – as shocking and as gross and as big as you can make it. We continuously revised these weight smashes, constantly making them bigger, heavier, gorier, and sharper.

He really wanted to hear the sound of metal on bone. The primary sound is a heavy, sharp metal clunk.

Parker would say, “Is there anything else you can get out of that?” He really wanted to hear the sound of metal on bone. The primary sound is a heavy, sharp metal clunk. That was the aesthetic Parker was going for and it’s pretty effective. It’s shocking – literally, an impactful sound. With horror movies, especially with gore, the sound has to transcend reality. It’s got to be heightened and it’s got to be bigger and more grotesque than it would ever be in real life. It was fun, gross, and painful but we landed with a sound that I hope is iconic of the film.

I liked how the impacts get juicier as he hits himself more…

DK: It does get juicier. VFX added his teeth falling out after the second and third smashes. That’s just one of the details sonically that make this extra gross. Parker wanted to hear blood and flesh and gore after each smash as Lewis peeled the weight off of his face. That sound builds and gets more complex as his face gets more bashed in.

…you can really feel the progression of gore, weight, and bones breaking. We spent a lot of time getting that right.

There are a lot of layers that go into every detail of that sequence so you can really feel the progression of gore, weight, and bones breaking. We spent a lot of time getting that right. On the dub stage, Parker would ask if there was anything else we could do to just level it up a bit more. He’s always looking for more. It’s a challenge, but that’s why I love working with him. In the end, he’s always right!

For Skye’s final performance, I love that the story is told through sound. We don’t see what’s happening. We just hear the thumps of the mic and the sound gets crunchier and juicier with every impact. The reveal of her face is perfect…

DK: That was such an interesting choice, and it goes back to Parker’s love of sound. It’s a completely sound moment. It’s all off-screen and it’s the climax of the movie and Skye’s journey.

I really got in my head about this, constantly questioning: how do you sell this concept that we don’t see? Is an audience going to understand what’s happening?

Sound designer Tobias Poppe played a big part in designing these final sounds. There were layers of thick, heavy punches, blood, sword chops, mic rustling and handling, and gore.

Sound designer Tobias Poppe played a big part in designing these final sounds. There were layers of thick, heavy punches, blood, sword chops, mic rustling and handling, and gore. The mic rustling was a perfect element, acting as the microphone being dragged through flesh and blood, but it also had a guttural quality that was similar to the vocal sounds of the monster. We stripped that out in the end which made the sound cleaner, and made it more about the thick juicy impacts.

Then there’s the final body fall that happens right before we cut to Skye on the stage. It was a fine balance of impacts, gore and microphone feedback accompanied with the crowd screaming. There’s no music in that section which helps sonically, avoiding a painful, uncomfortable experience for the audience. There was room to make the microphone impacts loud, and detailed which makes them effective.

The ending sequence was tricky and took us quite a while to mix. Tom Ozanich (music and dialogue re-recording mixer) and I did a lot of work to keep the energy up and keep the feeling of the size of the crowd and the arena but we didn’t want to blow everyone’s heads off for the last two or three minutes of the movie.

In reality, the microphone would be picking up the sound of it being jammed into her eye, and that would be feeding all the PAs in the concert arena. How did you choose to play that? Did you do a bit of futzing and panning to sell the idea that the sound is coming through all the speakers in there?

You want to keep and overplay the blood and gore of the sound to be heavy and sharp and gross. It’s all offscreen so you need those things to poke through to get a reaction…

DK: I did some futzing of certain elements, and some EQing, but you don’t want to futz everything and play it too real because it would be far less effective. You want to keep and overplay the blood and gore of the sound to be heavy and sharp and gross. It’s all offscreen so you need those things to poke through to get a reaction from the audience. We did add a bit of the mic handling sounds back in to help ground the sound in reality a bit, but leaned on the gore. It was all about finding the right balance, and panning elements more than usual to keep clarity and density. I added some reverb on certain feedback layers and panned a few of them into the room and up to the ceiling to give it size.

Overall, it was a fun challenge, deciding what to pan where and which elements needed reverb and which elements didn’t need it so they could play clean and clearly in the mix. When I first saw the film, I knew it would be a tricky sound and sequence to sell, but I think it turned out well.

What went into Elizabeth’s ‘demon voice’ when she gets her ‘smile’ in the care facility room? Was that same kind of processing used for Skye’s demon voice?

DK: All the voices were treated differently. With Elizabeth (Skye’s mom), Parker wanted to hear the actress’s performance on top of everything. That had to play dominantly in the mix. I processed a few different layers of her original performance, mostly pitching it down. I built a chain in Radium in Soundminer with a couple of plugins. I used Manipulator (Infected Mushroom/Polyverse) and a mixture of plugins from Antares.

Tobi designed Gemma’s voice, when she’s in the car driving away from the wellness center. He processed and layered her original production lines and also came up with this interesting delay effect where a couple of her words at the end of her sentences were repeated and delayed.

[Tobi] processed and layered her original production lines and also came up with this interesting delay effect…

Parker really liked the delay effect, so I recreated it for Evil Skye in the freezer. At first, I applied it to all of her lines, but we ended up reverting to actress Naomi Scott’s (who played Skye) original performance. It was so creepy and unsettling by itself. Then Tom [Ozanich] took those delayed lines and did some interesting things with reverb and panning, which made her dialogue sound like it was in that freezer location. He made it tangible, which I thought was really effective, rather than having an over-designy reverb or delay. It gave me the chills!

…our effects editor Xiao’ou Olivia Zhang processed the voice actor takes with a few different plugins, one of which was Zynaptiq’s Wormhole.

We had a voice actor record some evil takes of Evil Gemma’s and Elizabeth’s lines. We built the low-pitch and low-end layers, so the direction with these new lines was to sound like a raspy, shrill witch. I wanted something that would cut through what we already had but also make their voices extra special. During the final mix, our effects editor Xiao’ou Olivia Zhang processed the voice actor takes with a few different plugins, one of which was Zynaptiq’s Wormhole. She made these interesting, abrasive layers that were perfect additions for Gemma’s and Elizabeth’s lines. Tom mixed them in and Elliot and Parker were very happy with the enhanced sound.

I personally haven’t done a lot of vocal processing, but It’s fun to try different, weird processing techniques. That’s what I’m always chasing I guess – different and weird! With voices and sound in general, I tend to gravitate to results that are more natural and not too processed, or robotic. What Tobi and Olivia added to the evil voices in Smile 2 was really effective.

A big thanks to Dan Kenyon for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Smile 2 and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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