Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Netflix; Brett Hinton; Mark Hailstone
It’s frightening to think about how fragile the systems that power modern civilization are, and how the failure of those systems (even short term) would be catastrophic. When the systems meant to support and protect society are under attack, who has the power and fortitude to fix it? Netflix’s new series Zero Day explores that anxiety-inducing subject from the perspective of a former President named George Mullen (played by Robert De Niro). Mullen tries to untie the tangled knot of motives to discover the true perpetrators of a cyber attack while dealing with mental breaks that make him question reality.
MPSE Award-winning supervising sound editor Brett Hinton and Emmy Award-winning sound designer Mark Hailstone discuss their approach to creating Mullen’s mental breaks as possible psychological warfare (a weapon called Proteus) or personal trauma (conveyed by the Sex Pistols song “Who Killed Bambi”) and how those two motifs are intentionally blended. They also talk about how they achieved such a realistic sound for news broadcasts with the help of production sound mixer Ken Ishii, how they built believable, dynamic protest crowds by combining production sound, loop group, and sound libraries, how they approached the sound of technology in the show, and much, much more!
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What initial ideas did showrunner Eric Newman have for sound on Zero Day? And what were some of your initial ideas for how sound could help to tell this story?
Brett Hinton (BH): The first thing I did on the show was the sound design for the cold open. I had read the scripts and met with picture editor Ben Lester before I was given any direction on the show. I love creating this way. I got to do this on Altered Carbon as well and I think we need more opportunities like this.
It’s important to find your voice inside the construct of narrative imagery before you go too far down the path of compromises for a consortium of opinions.
It’s important to find your voice inside the construct of narrative imagery before you go too far down the path of compromises for a consortium of opinions. It’s a way to build something bigger than itself. A choir is more powerful than a single voice. It’s equal to how an actor brings a piece of themself to a role before the director shapes that voice towards their goals.
The first meeting between Eric and me had a powerful impact on me in relation to the project. I think for him he was taking a big swing with me. I was the new guy in the band and Eric had high expectations from sound and music to shape the emotional impact of the story. He has a great ear for what works and puts a lot of trust in his collaborators.
Most of our early discussions were centered around the Proteus weapon. We discussed how it should be a constant evolving force attacking Mullen. There was also a discussion of using organic versus electronic sounds to sculpt Proteus. We tried to veer away from digital sounds. We discussed bringing a musicality to it — something untethered to the real world since it was all psychological.
Eric’s mantra throughout the series was ‘propulsion’ – keep the audience engaged and don’t let go.
Composer Jeff Russo also lent his endless talents to the equation and integrated these demonic flute pieces with the high pitch synths and recordings Mark and I were doing. This is the third project on which I’ve been blessed with the talents of Jeff Russo. The way he makes space for sound design is honestly unmatched.
Eric’s mantra throughout the series was “propulsion” – keep the audience engaged and don’t let go. Music and sound design was directed to be propulsive. If he felt we were losing that thread at any point, we looked at ways to adjust sound and music to grab it back.
As they were going through production, I kept in contact with Ben [Lester]. He was my point person for how things were going. In the late summer/early fall, he asked me into his cutting room and we looked at some footage with helicopters flying through the city, big crowds, and tight shots of amazing actors. Mark took the world beyond what I was doing.
Mark Hailstone (MH): Brett was kind enough to get the script to me ahead of time. I read through it and did a whole Excel spreadsheet where I was forming the show in my mind before I got to see the episodes. It played pretty close once I saw the edit.
I was able to get all my background locations sorted out. I started building those out and thinking about what design elements I want to use and what I want to record. Through that process, everything started getting fleshed out before I had the picture.
That got me thinking about how your brain is floating in liquid, so I started thinking about underwater animals, like whale sounds.
Then I got Brett’s design for the cold open; he did a great job on it. It’s like the foundation for every time Proteus is introduced. Proteus was a big design element. How do we get this synthetic yet organic sound? That got me thinking about how your brain is floating in liquid, so I started thinking about underwater animals, like whale sounds. I started looking up dolphin sounds. It’s funny because many of the dolphin recordings I have sound digital, but it’s that sonar sound that they’re making. And it works perfectly for this design. It all just came together naturally based off everything that was provided for me and everything I read in the script. I was able to flesh everything out beforehand. Having all that in mind, I was able to start recording sounds and hit the ground running.
Let’s dive further into Proteus. What went into the sound of George Mullen’s altered mental state? Was there a ‘recipe’ or a guideline of what to include and not include? (For instance, sometimes he hears the Sex Pistols song, “Who Killed Bambi.” Was there direction on when to play this and when not to?)
BH: The melding of the Proteus and Bambi motifs over time was intentional to keep the question of whether it was psychological warfare or the mental trauma from the death of his son. I don’t know how to speak too deeply on this without giving away major spoilers, but the way we integrated the two motifs of Proteus and Bambi was to open the door to the bicameral mind, which we see evolve over time with his incidents in the cottage.
I did some performative synth work with Native Instruments using patches like Heavyocity’s Evolve Mutations.
I was focused a lot on the Proteus side of things because of the early work I did on the cold open where we established the idea of Proteus. I did some performative synth work with Native Instruments using patches like Heavyocity’s Evolve Mutations. I was pulling from sound libraries like SoundMorph Tension and Bloody Nightmare. We were also using pulses from the helicopter that we tried to use both as diegetic and non-diegetic sound. We see the light flashing in the room as if it could be something coming from outside, but it’s also inside his mind.
I also used the sound of voices coming through the wall, processing those to sound inhuman. We used Natan’s voice (Mossad agent) speaking in Hebrew and motifs with the journal to create confusion, and mixed warped messages.
we tried to sculpt those as an element inside his mind, like this whirring and clicking was having a psychological effect on him.
Additionally, the safe played a big part in the opening. I was trying to not go too Hollywood with it. Every time you see him dialing the safe, we’re hearing these over-stylized clicks, which is a bit artificial to the way a safe would sound. So, we tried to sculpt those as an element inside his mind, like this whirring and clicking was having a psychological effect on him.
Later, Mark did an incredible job for when Mullen was getting the psychological baseline test to see if he was mentally sound. He revisited those mechanical ticking and clicking noises through that sequence.
On the Bambi motif, after Mullen’s very first mental lapse as he’s hearing the “Who killed Bambi” song, that’s when Mark really started going deep on that motif, doing some incredible manipulation and warping and in-depth work.
MH: It was a lot of fun to experiment with that song in particular since it’s such a weird performance. I had a cool little gadget made by Paul Tas, who has a company called errorinstruments. I recorded the song to tape and then I was able to slow it down and speed it up with a knob on errorinstruments Loopman device. So it’s all coming off a cassette tape that I put into a sampler and played with TONSTURM Whoosh. I had a bunch of electromagnetic samples playing with the warped “Bambi” song. I had a nice long file that I could use.
Mark Hailstone’s Proteus Design Sketch Using Whoosh
I get bored if it’s the same sound(s) every time, so I used whatever fit. If there was an eye movement or head turn, then I could bring in a different whoosh element with all these other elements swirled in.
Every time, it was something different. I was not only using the “Bambi” elements, the electromagnetic, dolphin, and whale sounds but also elements from the environment. Sometimes, a phone ring turns into something or some cicadas in the background become part of the design. I like making everything its own thing.
What went into the sound of the news broadcasts? After the Zero Day attack, George Mullen is flicking through the news channels, taking in the chaos that unfolded after the attack. The sound slips into this subjective headspace. There are also very realistic moments, like the subway footage recorded on a cellphone that then aired on the news. Sometimes the broadcasts just play in the background. Can you talk about your sound work on these? What did you get from production? What did you have to add in sound post?
BH: We live in a media-saturated world and I know from my own experiences I am constantly moving between extremely engaged and subjective introspective reflection. Doom scrolling or flipping channels can have that effect on the psyche.
We really pushed to nail the sense that we were inside the mind’s eye of President Mullen watching a crisis unfold and how that impacted him emotionally. Again, a hint of Proteus or mental degeneration was also a lingering question mixed in there.
In fact, there was a version where the climax of the subway scene took place entirely on a close up of Mullen’s eye. It was a powerful sequence for sound. We were still able to play with this fleeting moment, which sets the stage for the ground zero speech.
I have to give props to Ken Ishii, who was the production mixer and our point person for all things production sound. When it came to the production, he and his team did things I’ve never seen before or to the extent that they did it.
Anything that had a voice in it that was playing through a device (e.g., TV, smartphone, etc.) was played practically on set and captured by the production sound team.
Anything that had a voice in it that was playing through a device (e.g., TV, smartphone, etc.) was played practically on set and captured by the production sound team. So when Mullen is watching the TV, it’s coming out of the TV. When Lizzie is talking to her counterpart on her phone, all the sound is coming through the phones. They would record both the live, unfutzed feed clean and also the actual sound coming through the phone. We had both. The one reason why a lot of things in this show sound so real and genuine is because they are. The base layer is coming from set.
Production mixer Ken Ishii said of his experience on set:
“I think the challenge in filmmaking is helping the director achieve their vision through whatever means possible. For production sound, that falls a lot on the help of other departments. Their assistance and coordination can make or break the production sound tracks. We were blessed to have such a collaborative group of people and were given the time and resources to achieve that. It starts with being invited on the tech scouts, which doesn’t happen enough on TV shows. Being able to see the locations, hear if any problems might be an issue, and speak to the department heads about possible sound needs was huge. It really laid the foundation for trust and cooperation.
Our goal was to make ‘Zero Day’ as real as possible.
Our goal was to make Zero Day as real as possible. That came from making prop microphones practical, to hear the actor’s voice as authentically as possible. All the podium mics throughout the show were made so that the actors could speak into them. During press conference scenes, the props department assisted in disguising boom operator Peter Deutscher as part of the press corps so we could capture the actor’s performance on a boom given the high camera count during those scenes.
The costume department gave us an immense amount of trust to mic the actors in such ways that we could accommodate the sometimes multiple combinations of film cameras, ENG cameras, drone cameras, security cameras, and body cams that were used to achieve such a realistic look. We leaned heavily on the wires (lav mics) for the large staged scenes. We were able to get the mics close to the actors’ voices and quite exposed. This led to a nice blend between using the wires and using the boom microphones.”
BH: When we cut the dialogue, we always made sure to start with our practical recording through the TV and then our clean version. Using Sound Radix’s Auto-Align Post, if we wanted to play both in phase, we could. Or, if we wanted to throw it all out and augment it in post with an in-the-box futz, we had that control.
We wanted to feel like he was experiencing those events unfolding, like we were looking at them through his lens
The big scene in Ep. 1, when Mullen is flipping through the channels, I felt at times it needed to be objective. But throughout the scene, since he’s a former President, we want to have his experience of this traumatic event happening across the country and the emotional effect that’s having on him, especially with what he’s going through psychologically. We wanted to feel like he was experiencing those events unfolding, like we were looking at them through his lens — the lens of someone with presidential experience and an emotional attachment for the love of his country. We tried to focus on him in those moments.
For the subway scene, they did a reshoot. Initially, the edit was just holding a close-up on De Niro’s eye. So we’re hearing the screams of people, but we’re holding on his face. It was such a great moment for sound to tell the story because it’s an emotional one. When we got the subway footage, I was a bit salty, like, “Oh, can’t we just stay on his eyeball for this?” Sound was having such a great moment there.
I think we still got our moment with that scene. We needed the subway, the practicality of it, to set up the story for them going to ground zero of that event leading up to his speech.
That’s another Mark Hailstone design that lived and breathed through some amazing, design sculpting.
MH: In the design, you hear the “happy family” on the subway. Then you start to hear the subway cars coming off the rails, the screeching, people screaming, and then we cut to the close up of Mullen’s eye. The sounds I used were more visceral. The screams got crazier. I have the sound ramp up right to when his eyes shut. Then the world goes away a bit. It numbs out when his wife walks in.
Mullen cares about the American people and he doesn’t want them to go through this. The horror of the show is the fact that he’s putting all of this on his shoulders, starting with the TV news broadcasts.
It’s the little sonic details in the subway scene that make you buy that moment as real – the subway voice announcement and the warning ‘bings’ for the doors closing that sound like they were captured on a cellphone. They make the recording feel authentic…
BH: That’s such high praise because when we were going through this, there was a lot of back and forth. It was something that came together much later, when we were already on the dub stage. There was a lot of re-sculpting and re-working on the mix stage. In my mind I was thinking, “No one’s ever going to hear that subway announcement.” So for you to call that out, that’s great. It means it worked. The prevailing feelings of how to sculpt that were right.
We had to recreate the subway announcement because the MTA owns the copyright to those announcements. So we couldn’t use the real thing.
Can you talk about your loop group work for the show? There are specific crowd chants and call outs, foreign languages, angry reactions, mixed reactions, cheering, and so on. Did you record any of the loop group outside? It sounds great!!
BH: I would have loved to do a group field trip on this one. We had such an incredible team that all brought their A-game. I have to give major credit to our fearless director Lesli Linka Glattter and the production sound team headed by Ken Ishii. They got such an incredible trove of baseline crowd layers on set. I don’t think it would have sounded as impactful without it. Lesli directed all the extras on the day to bring their voice and go to town.
Lesli [Linka Glattter] directed all the extras on the day to bring their voice and go to town.
With that said, since we had the wonderful base layer we were able to use group more efficiently to create detail and layers to spread across the room. The Loop.Group‘s Jennifer Foley ran our sessions and did an amazing job of casting, along with Kevin Sutherland and their team. We spent a lot of time building it up from beds to clusters and call outs and -bys, bringing a lot of physicality in front of the microphone.
Mark rounded things out with cut walla and BGs from protest recordings. The crowd wallas, as well as other layers of BGs and foley, added a whole other layer of depth. All three worked together.
MH: Brett had given me crowd recordings from Black Lives Matter protests, and some from Trump rallies. You have to be careful when cutting from specific protests because you don’t want specific words to cut through. You want the energy but you don’t want to hear what they’re actually saying.
BH: Before we had recorded loop group, I was auditioning crowd effects libraries and I probably had 20 tabs open with all these different libraries on A Sound Effect. I was auditioning a lot of different protest libraries and crowd libraries to find which ones we wanted to lean on and to augment with loop group.
We were trying out alternate chants so that the main chants could dovetail with different subgroups in the crowd. It was important to find the right words that would have the impact we were looking for.
It was a process to go through in both loop group and the cut walla. We were trying out alternate chants so that the main chants could dovetail with different subgroups in the crowd. It was important to find the right words that would have the impact we were looking for. The show has a strong social commentary while also trying to be somewhat apolitical — not being for or against a specific political party overtly. It was more about bringing people together and what slogans would represent a pro or anti-government sentiment of the group. Some fitting protest libraries for chants and walla were from Occupy Wallstreet — the sounds we sourced from that were more appropriate for the show because it was people vs. government or people vs. 1% protest movement. That energy was more in line with the show’s vibe.
There are also many closed-room meetings, board-room meetings, phone calls, and quiet conversations. What was your approach to these scenes (for example, limiting foley and ambience), or some challenges to these scenes?
BH: We listened to what the scene needed and didn’t try to go against the grain. Usually, if we were in a quiet room, we wanted to keep it that way to let the actors’ performances stand alone. Every single actor in this show has an incredible resumé of legendary performances and brought their A-game to this series. The performances stood on their own. We wanted to give those intimate conversations the intensity that the actors brought to them, so anything we could do to strip away the world in those moments was effective.
If it’s an intense moment, everyone in the bullpen is going to feel that so the energy in the room is going to be quieter and more subdued.
In contrast, the bullpen was a character unto itself. In the bullpen, we tried to constantly score the mood in the room and not just make it busy backgrounds with personnel oblivious to the evolution of the story. If it’s an intense moment, everyone in the bullpen is going to feel that so the energy in the room is going to be quieter and more subdued. When we’re in “go mode” in a big action sequence, then the bullpen can come to life and we can go 100% with all the layers in there.
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What was your approach to the sounds of violence — people getting beat up, run over, shot at, etc.? What were the showrunners’ tastes for these moments?
BH: I think everyone involved knew the show needed to be grounded in reality and if it felt artificial it wouldn’t work. Lesli and Eric were both sensitive to this. With the high shooting ratio from production, we were able to pull so much of the world that they captured and liberate those sounds from blemishes and deficiencies to give them a chance to live and breathe on screen.
Sometimes, there’s barely a whisper of sync sound and then we dig out what we can and augment where needed with ADR and foley to add the clarity of action.
So much of the action was sculpted by the raw audio/on the day performances. We constantly strove to save everything and augment it with ADR and foley. For example, when Roger is abducted, drugged, and murdered, so much of that is Jesse Plemons in his element. We dig out and sculpt the production in a way that clears out the muck and brings into focus the narrative thread connecting us to him sonically, like his drugged breathing, body being dragged, the bubbles of air as he sinks into the tub. They are there in the tracks. Sometimes, there’s barely a whisper of sync sound and then we dig out what we can and augment where needed with ADR and foley to add the clarity of action. The goal was always to find the realism in the moment for stuff like that.
We tried to supplement the production track with sounds that don’t call attention to the punches
MH: We tried to supplement the production track with sounds that don’t call attention to the punches, so you feel them more than you hear them. We save the over-the-top sound for Mullen’s mental breaks and Proteus. That made for a cool contrast in the show.
BH: Because we’re earning all that realism along the way, when we get to a moment like the big shootout, we can really unleash. Hopefully, we’ve earned it by that point.
MH: Even the gun choices I made for the shootout leaned more towards realism. Chuck Russom has a great gun library with an assortment of guns that are real sounding and not over the top. For the most part, I love the real sounding guns.
What was your approach to the tech sounds, for example, the sound when they’re running scans to match identities, or pulling up feeds, and so on?
MH: I love doing tech sounds. You put in a bunch of markers for every little thing that happens and place those sounds in the edit. There’s something about the methodic approach to it that I find meditative.
I thought of glass as a futuristic-sounding element that’s still based in the real world.
For the tech sounds, I thought of glass as a futuristic-sounding element that’s still based in the real world. I did glass recordings of little tinks on bulbs, getting rid of all the other elements that weren’t the high-end. I didn’t want to make it too synthetic. So all those little glass tinks I could turn into scroll sounds or do whatever with them.
BH: In the mix, it was my taste to pull them down to barely audible. I want to feel it more than hear it. When you work on something sci-fi or futuristic, you can often justify raising the level of those sounds because they have no basis in reality and the audience isn’t going to say “that futuristic computer doesn’t make that sound” because it doesn’t exist.
As a narrative component to a present day drama, it’s tricky because if you take all those sounds out to play the real world, you’re left with a static-sounding sequence that doesn’t drive the story or action forward. Going back to Eric Newman’s mantra of propulsion, how do you get propulsion in this moment? You have to hear the through line of stepping through computer screens to get to the next nugget of information that moves the story forward in the show.
You have to hear the through line of stepping through computer screens to get to the next nugget of information that moves the story forward in the show.
An interesting side note about the tech sounds is that for the Russian consulate, we tried to find ringtones from phone manufacturers that were inherent to that country, to lean into sounds they would be using when they’re calling and communicating with each other. Not everyone uses an iPhone.
I stumbled upon this cool library through a Reddit wormhole one day. Some guy who was really into phone technology maintained an open server of every phone manufacturer and their sound effects kits. I maintain a copy of the sound kits so that I can reference that stuff when needed.
for the Russian consulate, we tried to find ringtones from phone manufacturers that were inherent to that country
A lot of times we’ll cover DTMF tones and telephony sounds that most people aren’t using in the real world because their phones are on silent or mute. So the foley becomes that much more important when someone is typing or they’re getting a haptic feedback since their ringtone is silenced. This goes back to building the world within the way we interface with technology nowadays. It’s going to be more believable that a political operative who is playing multiple sides probably doesn’t want others to know when he’s receiving a phone call and what he’s doing on his phone. The Bourne series is a good example and my inspiration for how to tell a story with sound through technology, but then to minimize it to try to get some sense of realism.
There is a scene in Ep. 5 where the technology plays a more overt role. They use long-range AM radio that they dialed into frequency 1140. They hear voices that are all processed with voice changers. This cuts to a scene with multiple people listening and transcribing the communications they hear. Later Mullen gets on the radio, sends a message, and has a chat with one of the radio operators. What went into the tech sounds for these scenes?
BH: There’s two components. There’s the voices themselves, which I handled, and then the sounds of static and interference that Mark handled.
We had some recordings from Ken on set. But in this case, I felt we needed to go back and re-record all the voices because what I wanted to do with the voice changers required a much cleaner signal. I needed the voice recorded clean and up close on the mic, and not running through another piece of gear.
Because we have multiple characters within the show, like Red Rooster, Blue Hawk, Tyrone44, Gekko, and Athena all using voice changers, the goal was to make them sound different even with the voice changer processing, and give each voice a personality that goes with what we’re trying to say about them.
the goal was to make them sound different even with the voice changer processing, and give each voice a personality that goes with what we’re trying to say about them.
I was using Soundtoys Little AlterBoy, Zynaptiq Wormhole, iZotope VocalSynth, Avid Pro Subharmonic, and Audio Ease Speakerphone to create different chains to get a sonic character for each voice. As I continued to build the processes to mask their voice, we started losing intelligibility, running the risk of getting a lot of notes on the stage for clarity.
Another aspect is to make these characters distinct because the more you futz them, the more they start sounding homogenous. That was a challenge. And, we were finding that one voice, no matter what we did, always sounded a bit alien. So we needed a bit of that processing chain but not too much to the point where it sounded goofy and undermined the character’s integrity. It was a fine line.
MH: I recorded a bunch of radio static as I was sweeping through all the channels and some radio chatter of people talking. I recorded some of that to a tape and then ran that tape through another little machine, this one was LANDSCAPE’s HC TT.
Mark Hailstone’s Landscape HC TT Radio Scrub for ‘Zero Day’
With this machine you can put a cassette tape in and it has knobs that you can turn. It’s almost like record scratching, with scrubbing and scrolling type stuff. So that’s in the backgrounds, especially in that scene and other scenes where they’re going through all these transmissions. It gives it nice movement in the background, instead of just having a steady static kind of sound, which gets boring pretty quickly.
BH: I bought an AM radio receiver and was twiddling through the frequencies. That was fun. I needed a radio that had a knob instead of buttons that digitally switch between stations.
MH: That’s why we do what we do, to fiddle around with knobs and make audio sound weird.
Overall, what was the most challenging episode for sound? What were some of your challenges and what went into your sound work on it?
BH: I think the mob outside Mullen’s estate in Ep. 6 was probably the toughest. So much is happening that we want to bring to life with sound. The way the camera cuts inside and outside the car and different perspectives made for a lot of detailed cutting and stage prep. There was not a lot of bandwidth for music, dialogue, or anything else with all the crowd work, so finding ways to make space for everything was a challenge.
Any helpful indie sound libraries on the show?
BH: Yes! Some helpful ones were Black Hawk by Pole Position Production, lots of libraries from SoundMorph, and the protest crowd libraries from A Sound Effect.
Who handled your foley on Zero Day?
BH: Foley Artist Brooke Lowrey and Foley Mixer Nerses Gazalyan at Sony with Jordan Aldinger cueing and cutting. The foley on this show felt very collaborative. The team was very receptive to ideas and feedback.
This is what Brooke had to say about her work on the show:
“As the Foley Artist on Zero Day, my work was all about enhancing realism and immersing the audience into the details onscreen. Whether it was the precise weight and touch of George’s fingers to journal pages, or the intensity of a baseball bat hitting the hood of a car by an enraged protester, every detail was meticulously crafted to heighten the authenticity of each scene.”
What was your favorite scene for sound design? Which was the most fun to design? What went into your work on it?
BH: The Proteus opening was the most fun because what I did was very subjective and most of it basically stayed the same from what I originally built. Ben [Lester] asked me to take a swing at it, and it was a great proving ground for experimenting with some of our motifs. There are lots of ideas crammed into a small space that we were able to expand on throughout the series.
What are you most proud of in terms of your sound work on the show?
MH: I just felt so supported throughout the whole show, like I was able to go as wild and crazy as I wanted to and experiment with all sorts of different things. I love recording things specifically for shows and this one was a dream project to work on. I felt like no matter what I threw at them, they were receptive. And, they mixed it so well. It goes with the music so well. I couldn’t be happier with how the show turned out. Working with everybody was awesome.
BH: We were given so much creative freedom. Because of an accelerated timeline, we never spotted a single episode. We did relay messages over Slack regarding things that would come up in the edit, but the only time we ever interfaced with our team in person was when they came to the mix. That put a lot on our shoulders.
De Niro’s last line in the show: ‘Every time we can do the right thing, it’s another chance to save it.’ How about that for a post sound mantra!?
As I mentioned earlier, Eric took a huge swing on me and our team to actualize his vision. They built an incredible roadmap for us. You could see where we were to build out the world and when to lean into subjectivity. There were times where the editor would put nothing in the guide track; sometimes it was complete silence. For instance, whenever we had the motorcade by, we never had sirens. That was a conscious choice to put nothing there. There were times when the world would suck away. And our editor Ben [Lester] built in those silences. Sound also had a really powerful impact when it wasn’t there. They gave us so much creative freedom to find our voice within the construct. And I’m so happy that we were able to bring that vision to life. It’s such a powerful project because of that.
Getting to work on such a poignant series during a time of such politically charged energy makes me feel proud to be a part of it. We were posting the show right in the middle of the election cycle and aftermath. I worked with Angela Bassett on some of her lines as the POTUS on Nov. 5th. Very surreal.
It was interesting to feel the shift in what kind of impact and meaning this project would hold post-election. It seems like a fever dream to think about what it would have meant in an alternate timeline. I question which timeline would hold this series in a stronger light and how it will be looked upon through the lens of time.
When I first met Eric Newman I began our collaboration with this quote in mind. It’s De Niro’s last line in the show: “Every time we can do the right thing, it’s another chance to save it.” How about that for a post sound mantra!? It’s certainly an upgrade from a cynical whim of “We’ll fix it in Post.”
Sound team on Zero Day:
Brett Hinton – Supervising Sound Editor
Helen Luttrell – Dialogue Editor
Mark Hailstone – Sound Designer
Foley Mixed at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City
Brooke Lowrey – Foley Artist
Nerses Gezalyan – Foley Mixer
Jordan Aldinger – Foley cued and edited by
Michael Miller – ADR mixer in LA
Patrick Christensen – ADR mixer in NYC
The Loop Group – Jennifer Foley & Kevin Sutherland
Ken Ishii – Production Sound Mixer
All post sound was done through Signature Post, mixed with
Pete Elia – Re-recording mixer
Jason Coleman – Re-recording mixer
Jared Fellow – Mix tech
Jeff Russo – Composer
Ben Schor – Music editorial
A big thanks to Brett Hinton and Mark Hailstone for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Zero Day and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!
