Doing the Sound on HBO’s ‘The Undoing’

In HBO’s murder-mystery mini-series The Undoing, set in modern-day NYC, the lives of an affluent family — Dr. Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman), Dr. Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant), and their son Henry (Noah Jupe) — become entangled with the struggling family of amateur artist Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis), her husband Fernando (Ismael Cruz Cordova), and their son Miguel (Edan Alexander). When Elena’s son finds her dead in her art studio, detectives pin the blame on Jonathan, with whom she was having an affair. But they also suspect Grace. Their defense attorney attempts to redirect attention toward Fernando. And then the murder weapon is discovered in the possession of a minor, muddying the waters even more.

Here, Sound 24‘s Oscar winning supervising sound editor/sound designer Glenn Freemantle and MPSE award-winning supervising sound editor/sound designer Ben Barker discuss their use of sound as a way to build tension, create immersion, and help focus the story as the plot thickens.

The Undoing: Official Teaser | HBO

What were the showrunners’ goals for sound? How did they want to use sound to help tell this story?

Glenn Freemantle and Ben Barker (GF and BB): The challenge we had for the sound design was to create tension and to feel the pressure coming from the storyline.

Director Susanne Bier and Editor Ben Lester were very keen to use sound as a focal story-telling tool throughout the series. They wanted a collection of ideas and design which gently evolved as the episodes progressed and the plot descending into a deeper place.

Director Susanne Bier

We came up with the idea to use the organic sounds of the city as the core of our sound design work. New York has such an amazing palette of sound: subways, trucks, sirens, and so on.

These tools allowed us to use the city character and let the sound design grow out of the environment.

Did you go on any field recording trips for this show? If so, where did you go and what did you capture?

GF and BB: We did manage to go on a field trip to New York and record for the show. And with a city like New York, how could we refuse?

…the field recording was integral to our sound design ideas and concepts.

We wanted not only to have the most up-to-date sounds for the show but also the field recording was integral to our sound design ideas and concepts. We managed to get a copy of the location list which took us all over the city. We were capturing everything from crowd, sirens, and subways. NYC is a real character of any show and we wanted to record as much as we could to be true to this.

How did you collaborate/divide up the work on the show? Also, did you collaborate/work on the show remotely?

GF and BB: At Sound 24, we have a core team of designers, dialogue editors and assistants so we’re very used to collaborating together and working as an in-house collective.

The project was mixed by Howard Bargroff and his team at Sonorous Post, who again is someone we are very used to working with, so our work flow was very familiar and fluid.

…this approach really allowed the team to focus on individual sounds which gave the soundscape real depth.

The project was split into two for us as we were posting as the worldwide pandemic hit, so Episodes 4/6 were finished remotely. Of course, this had its challenges but we managed to seamlessly connect and create at home. As a result of the UK lockdown, our sessions were broken down a bit more than normal into BG’s, hard FX, design, foley, etc. Then we would merge our work and bring it back together. It actually worked really well, and this approach really allowed the team to focus on individual sounds which gave the soundscape real depth. Every footstep to large sequences got extra detail.
 

The show is set (and was shot) in NYC. Did this pose any issues in terms of prod. dialogue? Did it require extensive dialogue cleaning? ADR?

GF and BB: In terms of production dialogue shooting in NYC (and other major cities), that always has its problems, but we had a great sound recordist who delivered a great production track for us.

With certain scenes that had issues, our experienced dialogue team – led by Emillie O’Conner — was able to clean up the tracks in prep for the mix. The usual amount of ADR was recorded for the show and again worked well from a remote environment.

How did you manipulate the sounds of the city to help support the mood/emotion of the scenes?

GF and BB: To manipulate the sounds of the city, we used various plug-ins to help with the design. One of the key ingredients was that our recordings were at 192khz which gave us this sonic range to make sounds larger and slower. It was something we had to build into our Pro Tools sessions but the outcome was well worth the input. As mentioned, we used the sounds of the city as our palette so we were able to morph and merge our work with a variety of samplers and tricks.

What was the most challenging scene for sound? Why? What went into it?

GF and BB: I think the most challenging scene for sound was the ending of Episode 6, since we had a lot going on there! Finales are always complex and with this conclusion we were dealing with multiple locations, car chases, helicopters, sound design tension, and the big reveal! It was a delicate process but one we think really works well.

What’s one thing you’d want other sound pros to know about your work on The Undoing?

GF and BB: I think that we’d just like other sound pros to know that we enjoyed doing the show!

A big thanks to Glenn Freemantle and Ben Barker for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of The Undoing and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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