Awards Daily talks to Emmy-nominated production mixer Sean O’Malley about creating all of the sonic environments in the nail-biting Euphoria episode “Stand Still Like a Hummingbird.”
Rue (Zendaya) is really put through the wringer in Episode 5 of Euphoria Season 2. “Stand Still Like a Hummingbird” starts with an all-out fight between Rue, her sister, and mother, and ends with her escaping the threat of human trafficking at the hands of the quietly sadistic Laurie (Martha Kelly). In between all of this, she runs for her life on the street, landing in backyard pool parties, crashing into mariachi bands, and causing a series of traffic accidents along the way.
Sound production mixer Sean O’Malley and his team really had a lot of sound mixing to do in this episode, which also features that killer Labrinth soundtrack.
“With all these running scenes, we have to have a mic on Zendaya,” says O’Malley. “And her clothes are moving around, but there are these breath sounds and vomit sounds. And then she goes right into this running sequence, so it has to be done really well and we have to make it in a way where it’s not going to affect her ability to literally run down blocks all day long. That shoot was her running constantly for like 10 hours.”
I had a great conversation with O’Malley about how his team supported the dialogue-heavy opening scene, the dramatic choices they made with Rue on her way to rehab, and of course, that down-the-hallway line heard ’round the world from Jules (Hunter Schafer). Watch below!
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