How Realistic Sound Makes ‘Weapons’ Even Scarier – with Luciano Vignola and Filipe Messeder

Director Zach Cregger's hit horror film Weapons — in theaters now — is more disturbing than gory, and that's by careful design. The realistic approach to horror makes the film incredibly unsettling — as if blood magic could be a real threat! Here, sound supervisor/re-recording mixer Luciano Vignola and sound designer/re-recording mixer Filipe Messeder talk about taking a realistic approach to horror sound, building believable scenes of violence using foley, using their invention, the Rumbler, to design synced-up rattle layers to add oomph and detail to scenes, panning foley and reverbs to express a sense of space and emptiness, and much, much more!

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.; Warner Bros. Pictures; Luciano Vignola; Filipe Messeder

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As a parent, there’s nothing as scary as having your child suddenly disappear. In Director Zach Cregger’s new horror film Weapons (distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures), that’s the horrific situation for the parents of 17 children who mysteriously run away one night, all at the same. How and why did this happen? Where did they go? Their parents’ collective suspicion turns on the kids’ 3rd-grade teacher, Justine Gandy (played by Julia Garner), who is searching for the real truth about the kids’ disappearance.

To make film even scarier, Cregger wanted the sound team to take a realistic, understated approach. This may seem counterintuitive for a horror film since typically over-the-top gore sounds are the go-to, but it worked! The realistic sound made the story feel real. And the reality of having 17 kids disappear at once is horrifying.

Here, Emmy Award-winning Supervising Sound Editor/Re-Recording Mixer Luciano Vignola (known for dialogue editing HBO’s limited series The Night Of and sound supervising and mixing A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies) and Emmy Award-winning Sound Designer/Re-Recording Mixer Filipe Messeder (known for sound editing Free Solo and sound supervising and mixing If I Had Legs I’d Kick You — coming to theaters October 10th!) talk about breaking free from the horror tropes and adapting to Cregger’s realistic approach, working with foley to create believable moments of violence, using complex reverbs, delays, and panning to express a sense of space and emptiness in the film’s locations, using their invention — called the Rumbler — to generate synced up vibration layers that added detail and power to scenes, and using sound to emphasize different perspectives of the same events as experienced by different characters. They dive into details for specific scenes, like Marcus’s run to the gas station, Gladys’s chase scene, and more!

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Weapons | Official Trailer

When did you get involved with Weapons, and what were dir. Zach Cregger’s initial ideas for using sound?

Luciano Vignola (LV): I interviewed with him eight months prior to mixing. Zach had a clear vision from the start, and you can see that in the script. I remember mostly talking about the end sequence. He said, “It’s crazy, and I really hope we can pull it off.” He tried to describe it to me and it did sound insane — this was before I even read the script.

I think one of the strengths of the Weapons mix is the negative space. That was something we talked about at the very beginning, and it ended up being something we really pushed for throughout the film. When Filipe and I jumped onto the film, we were doing small scene work for them while they were in their rough cut. Our focus was on how to eek out the most nerve-wracking, most tense moments in these scenes. A lot of it had to do with just starting with silence and then building up from there, and being very deliberate and intentional with what you hear and when.

Sound Designer/Re-recordming Mixer Filipe Messeder

Filipe Messeder (FM): Right after they had just finished shooting, the two of us had a call with Zach. It was a bit more of an in-depth conversation about how we wanted the sound to go. The script was already structured in these chapters. So we all came to the conversation thinking, “How cool would it be if each chapter had its own distinct voice in sound, and how could these things carry over. How can we play with that?”

Zach, coming from a musical background, already had the language to talk about sound. That was really cool. We were already talking in-depth about ideas and details that typically we’d just have to find our way through. He already had a pretty clear vision of how the sound was in his mind and how he structured it.

I love how ‘normal’ everything feels, and then there’s the gradual introduction of fantastical elements, like the blood magic. The reality of the film lends so much to the horror of it — like this could actually happen! How did you use sound to support this approach?

FM: In our initial conversations with Zach, I really wanted to know how far we were going to push this magic. How far do we want to push this dread using sound design: in a more fantastical way or a more realistic way?

We ended up crafting a lot of carefully-made backgrounds and using really rich foley to ground the audience in the world

In the beginning, I started very far in one direction — this is a supernatural film, so I’m going to build these elements a bit more heavy-handed, and they can direct us which way they want to go. Little by little, for each of these small scenes we created, we got the direction of, “No, let’s stick to reality.”

We ended up crafting a lot of carefully-made backgrounds and using really rich foley to ground the audience in the world. A big part of my focus was making this medium-sized city feel totally believable, as if you were just watching a drama. I wanted to get the feel of the suburbs — you feel the bugs and the wind and the quietness of this town. You hear children playing in a backyard a couple of streets away. It’s a town that most people in America can relate to in some way. So we really wanted to grab the audience with that and then turn it on its head as the film progresses. Crafting believable backgrounds and focusing on the foley and character actions came before any fantastical ideas.

LV: That was something really effective we found through Filipe’s work. We wanted to craft this distorted bucolic neighborhood. Everything feels a little off-kilter in this town. And that’s not just with the sound. The color-grading is also a little off. Everything is a bit off. For example, in terms of the locations in the film, you never quite feel grounded there. There’s something weird about it all. And Filipe was naturally drawn to that in the visuals and echoed that in the sound.

You can establish a cadence of cicadas and use that for the tension of a scene

One really effective use of sound was with cicadas. This is like the tremolo of nature. You can establish a cadence of cicadas and use that for the tension of a scene, and then we go full-ham with it when James is running into the forest. There’s this whole opera with the cicadas that takes us into this insane scene.

I think everyone working on this film leaned into the idea of making it all feel a little distorted because that set the stage for all the insanity that ensues later in the film.

FM: In thinking about how the film was shot and where it was shot, I quickly figured out as I was cutting sound that almost all the scenes took place in transitory places: the gas station, a back alley, a backyard, the woods… none of these places had many (or any) people there. So, the soundtrack lacks a lot of walla and people activity because it’s always taking place in an eerily empty place. It’s quiet, and that led us to lean into everything.

Weapons – I’m the Problem – Warner Bros. UK & Ireland

The story revisits the same events from different perspectives, like Paul (the cop) and James (the junkie kid), Justine and Marcus at the gas station, etc.. What were some challenges of this approach? What were some opportunities to use sound to support the different perspectives?

LV: These repeating timelines suggest trying to recreate the scenes identically, but Zach was very quick to clarify that, no, he actually wants some discrepancies between these timelines because that helps convey the subjectivity of each timeline and each character; it contributes to the unreliable narrator aspect. For example, the dialogue in the opening of the film, when the parents are rushing out of the school and they’re shouting, there are three very specific lines that are uttered in a very specific cadence. Then, when we come back to that location in a different character’s timeline, it’s repeated but slightly differently. It’s expedited; the whole scene is cut quicker. From a picture editing point of view, it’s an interesting challenge to keep the repeating scenes from feeling repetitive in a boring way and therefore it’s helpful to introduce variations. This concept applies to sound as well.

he actually wants some discrepancies between these timelines because that helps convey the subjectivity of each timeline and each character

FM: Just how different people remember the same thing differently, right? When Justine catches Paul leaving the police station, she hears a police car door shut, and that makes her turn her head. But from Paul’s perspective, it’s him angrily leaving the station and slamming the glass door behind him. Or, when Paul enters the bar, the sound of the bar is much fuller because he’s going to meet her. But for Justine, who’s waiting for Paul, the bar feels a little emptier. She’s in her head.

There are a lot of these little discrepancies, and that changes the perspective in an interesting way. It keeps the story moving.

In the interactions between Paul and James, it’s evident right there in the dialogue, too. Paul is trying to be calm, saying, “Okay, I’m going to take the cuffs off you. I don’t want to see you here again.” And from James’s perspective, Paul says, “All right, now get the fuck up.” It’s a totally different experience.

There’s that fun scene with Marcus (under the blood magic spell) running off to attack Justine. He runs through different lawns and locations, interrupting the lives of people he passes. Can you talk about crafting the sound of this sequence?

LV: There are a few select moments throughout this film that are short but that took us forever to nail. And this was definitely one of them. The initial questions were, “What identifying sound do we want in each one of these little moments? And are they ordered in the right way? Are they conveying something cool? Is the audience actually catching them?”

that dog bark kicks it off […] so that it doesn’t just assault you by going from nothing to craziness

These little moments are only three or four seconds long. The baseball part of that sequence, when you hear someone yell, “Yo, what the fuck, man?” That’s actually Zach Cregger’s voice. And that was from temp one.

They are over-engineered in such a small way, but they came out really cool.

FM: The first moment of this sequence we didn’t figure out until the last day of the mix. This is when Gladys is getting into her car, and Marcus is running away in the background. I had this dog barking, but on the next shot, we just hear Marcus’s footsteps and his breathing. On the last day of the mix, Zach said, “What if we just do one more dog bark, but it’s from Marcus’s perspective over there?” That bark worked great; it just glued the whole thing together because we started with nothing really on that first shot, and then it gets crazy. So that dog bark kicks it off, starts the tempo, so that it doesn’t just assault you by going from nothing to craziness.

whatever we put there had to go full-force because if not, you could easily miss it

From the very beginning, I always saw that scene and the subsequent chase sequence as coming from Zach’s comedy brain, playing a little bit on Ferris Bueller running through the backyards. I just knew that whatever we put there had to go full-force because if not, you could easily miss it.

LV: In every temp leading up to the final, the song that whizzed by the camera was actually Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.” It was effective and fun, but I’m pretty sure that would’ve cost them like $10 million (joking) to license. So they had to ultimately go with something else…

This is a fun scene, but it’s coming off the heels of that incredibly upsetting moment […] it was helpful to keep the chase light

The other quick slice is when Marcus is running through the restaurant’s sidewalk seating. That was all loop group, for which we had Dann Fink as our loop group coordinator. He’s also the guy who goes, “Oh!” in the college lawn scene.

The whole sequence is ADR’d by actor Benedict Wong (playing Marcus). He came in and recorded breathing for this scene (and the rest of the film). This is a fun scene, but it’s coming off the heels of that incredibly upsetting moment in which Marcus is bludgeoning Terry’s head in. So, it was helpful to keep the chase light and brief and fun, to snap the audience back into some version of happiness… If momentarily.

Those ADR breaths when Marcus is smashing in his boyfriend’s face really sold the effort in that scene. You can hear him getting tired…

LV: We recorded a bunch of wild tracks of both characters: Marcus doing his breathy, possessed sounds and Terry (played by Clayton Farris) doing his impact reactions.

We were going through takes and found this one very animalistic, defeated groan

We didn’t find space for those sounds until the last few days of the mix. We were going through takes and found this one very animalistic, defeated groan from Terry. Zach was like, “Try that in the space between the penultimate hit.”

We spent so much time perfecting the hits themselves, but it wasn’t until we put in that groan that we all felt it. It’s very upsetting when you can hear Terry actually respond to the hits.

Let’s talk about the other chase sequence. After Alex performs the blood magic, he sends the kids to attack Gladys. This was my favorite sequence for sound! Can you talk about kids’ crowd effects? Was that production sound and loop group? Or, how did you handle that?

LV: The majority is production. I’d say 85% of it is production. We recorded a bunch of kids in loop group, mainly to take advantage of Dolby Atmos. So, in that whole sequence where they’re running leading up to the actual attack, there are moments where the kids are coming at you or whizzing by you, and we wanted separation of those voices because the production tracks’ waveforms looked like sticks of butter. They were super compressed because the kids are screaming. There was only so much dynamics we would get out of those tracks.

the production tracks’ waveforms looked like sticks of butter. They were super compressed because the kids are screaming

That was a big Atmos moment. The kids would come at the camera and split, and we would spread that into the room. Recording the kids in loop group gave us the upper register of the sonics in those moments since the production sound had this low/ mid tonal quality in the recordings. So, we needed brighter sounds – distinctive, bright, sharp sounds that could be easily localized.

So, we did have those extra layers, but the majority of it is, in fact, production.

Underside of the Rumbler

This sequence, much like the earlier one with Marcus, goes through different houses and yards. I love how fast the cuts are, and how precise the sound work is. Can you talk about your sound work for this chase?

FM: The biggest challenge was carving out the space between Gladys’s shouts and the kids’ screaming, because anytime the kids are featured, there’s not much room for anything else. That required a lot of crafting. We spent a lot of time in the final just deciding what to play, like, “Okay, we have all these elements. We have the kids the whole time. We hear Gladys; now let’s have two seconds before the kids catch up to the camera.”

The biggest challenge was carving out the space between Gladys’s shouts and the kids’ screaming

Then, in those two seconds, I could sneak in a chair creak for the woman eating breakfast as she turns around. Many of these sounds you would not hear if the kids were just blaring right through. So I think that was mostly Luciano finding the right space to give me an opportunity to clue us into these other sounds.

LV: This is Zach’s comedy instincts coming out again. It’s brief moments of silence where it looks like a lovely little scene being painted, and then the kids just come in and completely destroy it.

It’s brief moments of silence where it looks like a lovely little scene being painted, and then the kids just come in and completely destroy it

The magnum opus in this film for Filipe and me is at the tail end of the sequence. Before Gladys gets ripped apart, there’s a very quick moment where one girl is chasing Gladys. So she comes into the frame, they run through the house, and they leave the house. That one scene was the most overly engineered thing that Filipe and I did in the film.

FM: We really wanted to create a sense of weight for this little girl, so she was no longer this sweet 9-year-old girl, but instead, she’s this monster who’s after Gladys. We wanted to sell that through the weight of her steps and just the brutality of her movements.

we run a signal through the subwoofer to vibrate the plate, and we record that vibration

So after our foley editor Laura Heinzinger finished the edit pass on for the girl’s feet — something we had Laura prioritize so that we could do this — we used that foley edit as a signal for this contraption that we came up with.

It’s a subwoofer attached to a wooden plate that we put objects on. Then we run a signal through the subwoofer to vibrate the plate, and we record that vibration. The signal mirrors the shape of the edit we want to match, so that when we put this vibration track into the edit, it’s already in sync with everything.

The sound of ‘WEAPONS’: Using the Rumbler to create plate rattles for that end chase scene

By using the girl’s foley feet track as the signal sent to the subwoofer, the vibration track adds this room movement feel without artificially creating it, which would take a long time and lots of effort, and yet still might not feel exactly right. By doing this — essentially, worldizing it — we’re able to get the sync dead on.

we’re using a low signal, like 100 Hz, to vibrate real objects in a space, and the signal track is a sync source, like the foley footsteps

So, we’re using a low signal, like 100 Hz, to vibrate real objects in a space, and the signal track is a sync source, like the foley footsteps.

The first iteration of this contraption, which we eventually called the Rumbler, we came up with a long time ago, and we’ve since altered this thing. We made the plate a little smaller and we added handles to it. We also found that by putting a piece of corkboard on top of the wooded plate, we could clamp down on any resonances and also get a much tighter grip on what we were putting it against. So we were able to hold the Rumbler up against a wall and then run the signal through it. We were actually very surprised at how just how much it shook a whole room because that subwoofer is pretty strong. We spent one day just ruining my neighbor’s life…

LV: We took the Rumbler to Filipe’s apartment.

The sound of ‘WEAPONS’: Using the Rumbler to create picture frame rattles for the end chase scene

FM: We were vibrating my entire apartment for a whole day in my living room, which has a bunch of paintings and pictures hanging up on the wall. We were putting it up against a china cabinet, and putting it up to my kitchen cabinet where all my glasses are stored. We got the sync sound of these footsteps reacting in this environment, as if they were performed in this home. It’s perfectly worldized. We recorded all these different layers and put them all in together and because it was all synced up, it just played. Then, after that, it was a matter of taming the frequencies in the mix.

we have the living room layer as an object that can move from front speakers to back in the Atmos mix

Because we had all these layers, we were able to make specific layers come at you through the mix. So, we had the living room layer that first plays when the girl jumps into the living room. As she runs toward the kitchen, we have the living room layer as an object that can move from front speakers to back in the Atmos mix — it sounds like it comes right through you.

Then the next object layer comes right through you, and the next. So, you get this feeling of running through this house where everything is vibrating and it’s changing depending on the room that she’s in. It’s the most over-engineered sound for this five-second scene, and it’s fucking brilliant.

LV: I remember when we came back the next day, Filipe was in his room editing it in. He texted me, asking, “Can you come listen to this?” When he played it, I was like, “I don’t hear it.” But that’s because it’s that fucking good. It’s just in the space. And it’s all in there — all 12 layers. When you press play — with no effort on our end, no additional processing — it just sounded like she was in this space destroying the furniture. It was amazing.

FM: We also used it to sweeten Marcus’s head hits.

What went into the foley/character sounds for Gladys? I love her squeaky shoes. That makes her seem innocuous, even though she’s this evil blood magic witch…

FM: We got the squeaky shoe idea from a note that Zach got from David Fincher after a screening he did. Fincher’s only sound note was to put a squeak on Gladys’s feet when she’s walking through Marcus’s house. We took that idea and ran with it. We just made it outrageous.

it’s crazy to hear such a big sound when she moves her head on the close-ups

Another key foley sound for Gladys, which I loved, was the sound of her earrings whenever we’re really close up to her. That was kind of comical, because it’s crazy to hear such a big sound when she moves her head on the close-ups, but it’s also very eerie, especially when she’s delivering her monologue to Alex, telling him about herself and her plan. It’s just a very strange sound to be hearing under such a serious, evil tone from her. I absolutely loved that addition.

LV: She has her moments when she’s so ridiculous that people can’t help but laugh. But then, during her monologue when she’s talking to Alex after his parents stab their faces with the forks, she’s pure evil.

We obsessed over making that scene razor sharp in terms of its clarity with the dialogue and the foley

Amy Madigan (playing Gladys) is insanely good, and we spent a lot of time on that scene, as simple as it is. It’s a clock. It’s room tone. It’s her dialogue, and it’s the foley of her earrings and her movement. There’s no score. We obsessed over making that scene razor sharp in terms of its clarity with the dialogue and the foley, and picking exactly what we hear when.

In that scene, I chose sonically to make her dialogue a little brighter than the rest of the surrounding scenes. Usually, I’m a little gentler with EQ on the high end of a voice. But in that scene, I wanted everyone to lean in a little further. So, the way we mixed it was to have a very “under a microscope” kind of feeling. Her dialogue is super upfront and very close in perspective. And all of the foley helps to sell that reality.

FM: Luciano did such a fantastic job of lowering the noise floor on her production. It’s as absolutely low as it could possibly go. He and Jake O’Brien (dialogue editor) worked really hard on that.

we […] use very specific reverbs to tell the story of the backgrounds right in the space, like you can hear the room that they’re in

Then we found that by dipping away from the backgrounds (so there was really nothing else but her voice and that clock ticking), all of a sudden it really pulled you in. That was a scene where we had figured out that we shouldn’t be using backgrounds to sell the silence. Instead, we should just lower them and use very specific reverbs to tell the story of the backgrounds right in the space, like you can hear the room that they’re in, but you’re not hearing any added air or outside birds or anything like that, that we would normally add for any other scene in the film. We really wanted to make her float in this silence. I think that really sold that evil.

Did the foley team help with other moments that required precise sync, like Paul digging through the glove box to find the med kit, or James freaking out in his tent?

LV: It’s definitely foley. The scene with James messing with his drugs in the tent, all of that is so specific. We actually sent these scenes to the foley team before we even technically started on the film. We asked them to do it because the production was noisy and some of these scenes don’t hit until you lower the noise floor of the production. But the problem is that if you take away the production, then you don’t have all the sounds. So for the ‘Friends and Family’ screening, they wanted this moment to hit harder than it was. We needed to get foley involved to help us do those moments.

Our ideal approach is to start with nothing, build up with the foley, and then see how the production can be filled in

Our ideal approach is to start with nothing, build up with the foley, and then see how the production can be filled in — if it’s even necessary in those moments.
So yes, there are heavy foley scenes, like in the car, and James doing all that stuff in his tent, and the kids running in through the front door at Alex’s house.

FM: That was also another instance of using the Rumbler. Foley gave us so many amazing layers. For the kids running past the front doorframe, we did a lot of work, following each kid and making sure everything was panned. I wanted to focus on the camera movement to put us exactly in the space because the camera work was so specific and so cool. I wanted to support that.

One of my absolute favorite things to do is to go wild with panning foley

One of my absolute favorite things to do is to go wild with panning foley. The scene with James in his tent, all those little objects are flying all around the room just to make the chaotic camera movement seem so much more extreme, to match his perspective because he’s freaking out. You want to get into his head. So by throwing all these foley elements all over the room, you just get into this chaotic space.

LV: The zipper in James’s tent was such a challenge. That took us a long time to get right because cutting the zipper was so sync-specific. It became our morning ritual, like a coffee routine for us. We would come into the mix in the morning and ask, “Should we go look at the tent again?”

The zipper in James’s tent was such a challenge […] because cutting the zipper was so sync-specific.

We would look at that one scene, and I’d say, “Okay, play it. Okay, stop right there. Just take half a frame off of this piece. Okay, that’s fine for now.” And then the next day, we’d come in the morning and ask, “Should we look at the tent scene again?”

It took a really long time to get it right. I’ve seen it a few times in movie theaters, and I’m like, “Ooh, I would still shave a frame off of this moment.”

That whole nighttime sequence, when you learn that the kids were running to Gladys and Alex’s house, and they’re standing at the doorframe as the kids run in past them, we didn’t know if we wanted diegetic sound in that moment because it starts really strong with this gorgeous score. There are huge, bombastic, brash sounds that go “Blaaaaah!” That was the actual name for them on the dub stage. Zach would ask, “Can we take the ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’ and move it two frames to the right?”

Anyhow, because we came into that world and there was no sound and it was very effective, the question was: when do we bring sound back in, or at all?

as the kids are approaching the door, we slowly bring in the background atmosphere and then have the sound of each kid whiz by

We had multiple iterations of that scene, and we didn’t know what we wanted. At some point during a temp, we had no sound at all during an even earlier temp. We tried just having the production sound swell in at some point, but it was production sound because we hadn’t yet gotten in with foley.

This became a huge project for Filipe. Zach has this idea that, as the kids are approaching the door, we slowly bring in the background atmosphere and then have the sound of each kid whiz by. So, the texture changes from them running up the concrete steps onto the wood floor in the interior of the house. It was surprisingly complicated. They’re such small and quick sounds for an audience to actually catch what’s happening, so texturally, it took a long time to get it into place.

We had them do breathe-bys […] they would pant and we would whiz the mic by their faces

One thing that sort of glued it all together was the loop group we recorded of all these kids breathing. We had them do breathe-bys where they would pant and we would whiz the mic by their faces. Then, in the Atmos mix, we had a field day. You hear the tiniest Doppler of breaths and footsteps. They’re such quick little vignette moments, but I thought it came together really nicely.

When Justine and Archer enter Alex’s house, all hell breaks loose. They get attacked by Paul and James; Alex gets attacked by his parents. Can you talk about creating the sounds of violence? (For example, when Justine uses the vegetable peeler on Paul’s face, it’s not over-the-top gory sounding.)

FM: To start the scene, when we go upstairs with Alex, that was another instance of finding the perfect cadence and tempo for the violence to have it read as something specific and not just added noise because it could very quickly sound like a bunch of nonsense, and you wouldn’t get the emotional weight of Alex’s perspectives.

that was another instance of finding the perfect cadence and tempo for the violence to have it read as something specific

It took a long time for us to find the procession of sounds, like, okay, it’s this chair break right here. Now, let’s wait. Then let’s hear Alex’s footsteps, and another chair break. I think, for me, the thing that really does it is hearing the screams from downstairs — just peppering in these things was the most important part.

The peeler came together pretty quickly because we were following Zach’s focus of keeping everything as real as possible. Of course, I went all the way before being brought down to earth. But I’m very happy with where we landed.

I actually spent more time on the Atmos whoosh-by of the peeler as Paul hits it away

I actually spent more time on the Atmos whoosh-by of the peeler as Paul hits it away. That was a little moment that I would play for myself in solo, and think, hell yeah, that sounds cool.

There’s also the beautiful pan hit. That was Zach’s request. I thought it was very funny.

LV: Filipe and I both instinctively wanted to go big with the gore moments. But to Zach’s credit, he said, “Let’s try and not do that. Let’s try to go the complete opposite direction. Let’s pare it down and make it more diegetic and realistic.”

The more we turned it down, the more realistic and upsetting it became

Once we got over our instinct to go bigger, it was interesting, especially with the peeler. The more we turned it down, the more realistic and upsetting it became. This is why those moments work so well. Like with Marcus in the kitchen, the hits on Terry’s head are really loud, but sonically, they are more like a sound from a PFX track than a massive sound that goes into the sub. It doesn’t have huge squishy sounds to it. It’s more realistic.

to Zach’s credit, he said, ‘Let’s pare it down and make it more diegetic and realistic.’

So with the peeler, we wanted to just hear, ever so slightly, the smallest bit of it cutting through the skin. The same thing with the forks that the parent jab into their faces. They’re made up of 10 to 12 layers of different timings of the forks entering and leaving their faces. But overall, they’re not loud because it wouldn’t be a very loud sound naturally. And so it created this very upsetting moment.

FM: That direction from Zach really elevated the film. It shifted the way that I thought about the entire sound edit, just cutting this film as I would a very real drama. It certainly served its purpose. It elevated the tension, hearing the characters react to all this horrific stuff. It just makes it so much more real. That was a big lesson for me in horror sound design.

The kids pull Gladys apart, eat her flesh, and blood sprays everywhere. This WAS over-the-top gory. Were you saving the super gory sounds for this scene, to make it feel even more horrific? What went into the gore sounds here?

LV: That was another scene we did early on because everything was coming together there in the film. What I love about that scene the most is, again, Zach directing us to just teeter over the edge a little bit, but don’t go crazy because, as insane as that scene is, it’s actually not as crazy as it could have been, or maybe once was in an earlier version of our mix. You break the spell when those gore sounds get too in your face. So we had to find a way to make it work.

it starts intensely gory, and then slowly you hear this harp come in

The coolest part of that moment is that it starts intensely gory, and then slowly you hear this harp come in. It’s the moment where the audience realizes, okay, we’re aware of how ridiculous it’s being right now. The audience just smiles in that moment. That was just so well done.

Another big project for us was figuring out the shape of this score cue as it comes in. Do we let people lean in and search for it through all the mayhem, or do we want to hit them over the head at the beginning of it? We settled for the approach of leaking it in through everything, and then, as it comes up, just go bigger and bigger.

FM: I have blood and guts sound design elements for days, but even though I did layer a lot of that in there to sweeten all the gore, like the blood spray when her head gets pulled apart, I leaned heavily on the specific crunches that came from foley since our focus was more on the physical.

The blood and guts — the squishy sounds — aren’t in the language of this film, and would immediately put the audience off

The realm of this film is very real. We were focusing on that physical element, so the foley element is what sells it to be over the top. The blood and guts — the squishy sounds — aren’t in the language of this film, and would immediately put the audience off. It would tell them that, yes, this is ridiculous. But by making it even crazier, it would come across as funny because it’s so over the top. I’m happy to give credit to our foley team for making such great physical touch elements that kept us grounded throughout the whole film, and also in this insane moment.

On the dub stage with Luciano Vignola and Filipe Messeder, mixing the tent scene in ‘Weapons’

Who was on your foley team?

FM: Foley artist was Jason Charbonneau at JRS Productions, and Laura [Heinzinger] was foley supervisor/editor. She was on our crew.

All of us constantly talked about the foley, how we wanted them to shape it. They did a beautiful job.

What was your favorite single sound in Weapons? Why? (What went into it?)

LV: For me, it was using the Rumbler to create those layers. That’s our passion project.

the screwdriver drops and bounces in the rhythm of the song and whizzes by you in Dolby Atmos

Another sound I loved is when James is running, and he drops the screwdriver. Filipe did this brilliant thing; the music jumps in and it’s going hot there, and the screwdriver drops and bounces in the rhythm of the song and whizzes by you in Dolby Atmos. It does it all in this very elegant way. You may not even notice it if you’re not paying attention, but it’s a very cool sound.

FM: I love that moment as well. It’s funny, though, because we got a QC note from someone saying that wasn’t the sound of a screwdriver. That it sounded like a crowbar.

The different perspectives of the rain was by far my favorite moment of the film

My favorite sound and sound moment in the film is when James is walking around the house trying to break in the rain. The whole shot is like we’re under him, and he is climbing up the siding. He gets stuck on the antenna of the house. After that, we’re following him silently creeping through the house. It’s foley and the sound of rain on the roof. The different perspectives of the rain was by far my favorite moment of the film.

LV: Another amazing sound was the screams of the parents at the very end of the movie, as they’re chasing Alex around the house. We recorded both parents. We asked them to give us the nastiest, gnarliest, possessed screams they could. And the mom killed it.

My other favorite sound is her screaming

We assumed that we would have to give these tracks a little love with processing and possibly add some animalistic layers as sweeteners underneath. But Callie Schuttera (playing Alex’s Mom) came in and screamed, and those screams are so insane. I only used limited band distortion to get a little more bite out of it. So, those are their performances when they bust through the door and look down at Alex and go nuts. The mom’s performances were insanely good.

We didn’t have those sounds in place until the actual final mix because of the ADR schedule. This was during the California wildfires, so we were prioritizing everyone’s safety and well-being and rescheduled a bunch of the ADR sessions. When we could at last cut them into the film, we were like, holy shit. That’s insane. My other favorite sound is her screaming.

Any helpful indie sound libraries or sound tools on Weapons?

FM: I’d say Sound Particles and Soundminer Radium for spatialized random elements, as well as for adding movement to the backgrounds.

I also used Reason, NI Reaktor, and Xfer Records Serum for custom patches to help me with more abstract design and sweeteners for sound effects.

Each of these is always followed by Spanner for further size and panning control

I rely heavily on a combination of reverbs and delays, such as Audio Ease Altiverb 8, LiquidSonics Cinematic Rooms, and The Cargo Cult Slapper for its fantastic control over interior early reflections, as well as using it for all exterior spaces. Each of these is always followed by The Cargo Cult Spanner for further size and panning control.

We figured out new, very inventive ways of getting even louder

LV: The NUGEN Audio limiter. I had to use it a lot. I’ve discovered new ways to make sounds louder in this film than I ever have before. I actually got to ask some colleagues for tips and tricks on making small sounds louder. When you’re on a big dub stage and you’re working on a very loud movie to begin with, trying to get more loudness out of something is sometimes really tricky. We figured out new, very inventive ways of getting even louder.

On the dub stage with Filipe Messeder mixing ‘Weapons’

Overall, what was your approach to mixing Weapons? What was your biggest challenge?

LV: From my perspective, we had spent so much time with temps and getting a lot of the scenes in place. My goal in the mix was to give the music composed by brothers Hays Holladay and Ryan Holladay its time. Zach is also credited as a composer, as Filipe said earlier. He is himself musical.

Doing the whole Dolby Atmos mix with the score was a pure joy for me

The score was entirely digital. It wasn’t recorded live. We were actually running with stereo stems. Doing the whole Dolby Atmos mix with the score was a pure joy for me. There are big tent pole moments in this film where you have to carve out space for all the sound effects, and that’s where getting the score into the room itself and finding a way to envelop you without distracting you or taking your attention off the screen was my personal goal. That’s what I spent the most time on during the mix.

FM: I was really focusing on perspective, really paying attention to where the camera was and how uniquely the film was shot. I wanted to feature the rooms that we were in and how the camera moves through each space — how we go so close and then so far away from these characters.

The ability to move the early reflections and give you the sense of space and scale was very important to me

I used Alitverb 8, which I recently switched to because of its capability to follow panning on a track. The ability to move the early reflections and give you the sense of space and scale was very important to me. So, Altiverb was my main reverb with the exception of the exterior scenes for which I primarily use Slapper.

Because all these scenes outside were so empty, I really wanted to hear the reflections everywhere to dial in a very specific sense of these spaces, like in the alleyway, or in Justine’s quiet street. I wanted to hear the dog bark come from one end of the street, but hear the slap back at the other end. So it was a lot of focusing on how we shape the reflections of all these sounds.

Using its room rotation setting, I can follow camera movements by whipping around the actual reverb while still keeping the direct signal clear and coming from the center

 
In my chain, I have a reverb or delay always followed by Spanner, which I can use to dial in the processing more specifically. Using its room rotation setting, I can follow camera movements by whipping around the actual reverb while still keeping the direct signal clear and coming from the center, so the audience never loses it, but you get the feeling of movement.

I’d say the biggest challenge for me during this mix was just dialing that in.

LV: A great example of that in the film is when James is running into the forest and the camera does this really quick whip pan. The whole forest rotates really fast and it sounds so cool in the Atmos mix. You can really feel everything just go nuts for a second.

What have you learned from your experience of crafting the sound on Weapons?

LV: The biggest realization for me was perfecting the understanding that sometimes the gore is more effective when it’s gentler and not over the top. It’s counterintuitive to my assumption of how this is supposed to go. We realized pretty quickly that this is way more effective.

The more realistic you make these sounds, the more effective the scene is

The more realistic you make these sounds, the more effective the scene is. That was the concept that we learned early on and then rolled with it. Once we embraced this approach, we wondered how we could apply that idea to all the scenes in the film. The Rumbler really helped us to make everything feel realistic. And when the kids are attacking Gladys, we had to find that line of realism and not cross it. Understanding the discipline when crafting a gore scene was a learning curve for me. I hadn’t done a big horror film before, so the anatomy of these gore scenes was a tricky thing to nail down.

it’s about making your edits and all of your intricate sound design as transparent as possible to better serve the narrative

FM: The lesson that I learned here — and it’s a lesson for anyone interested in learning more about sound design — is that less is more. It’s not that you have to make very simple edits or cut less; it’s about making your edits and all of your intricate sound design as transparent as possible to better serve the narrative rather than being on top of the film. That’s the key to it. Of course, there are films where we’re asked to go huge, but for something as serious as Weapons takes itself in its narrative, it is absolutely crucial to get out of the way.

A big thanks to Luciano Vignola and Filipe Messeder for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Weapons and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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