Sound Mixer Amanda Beggs and Re-Recording Sound Mixer Laura Wiest worked together on Netflix’s Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. You don’t necessarily think of an intense and vast sonic landscape when you see Dahmer, but this conversation definitely raised many previously unknown facts about how sound works in the limited series. Then, you realize just how important sound was as the series gradually reveals the horror behind Dahmer’s (Evan Peters) apartment door, largely heard by neighbor Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash-Betts). Here, they discuss the challenges they experienced capturing the sound on a show that was avoiding using ADR. They also talk about going against normal instincts in trying to make things quieter for effect while avoiding wanting to glamorize the notorious serial killer.
Awards Daily: The first thing I thought of when I learned I was interviewing you both was the sound of the drill through the grate. How was that sound captured?
Laura Wiest: That was quite a debate. We did that a couple of different ways. The first time was, like, how much did you want to hear of it? Is it more of a hint of it? So it was practical. It is a drill coming through a vent. But it is also kind of subliminal so a lot of the noise is subdued. You know what it is and our goal was just to hint at things and hold back. That was one of the sounds we didn’t want to be super aggressive.
Amanda Beggs: Yeah, as the production sound mixer–so for all of the grate stuff, while we got some practical insight to give the voice direction team some options that very much was the artistry of Laura and her team, really creating that in post.
Awards Daily: Did Ryan Murphy or Ian Brennan have any general ideas that they wanted to get across from you from the start?
Laura Wiest: No actually, that was kind of a weird thing. Before we signed on we were able to read scripts but we weren’t really allowed to see anything until we agreed we wanted to work on it. Then we saw the first two episodes, and certainly the picture editor Regis (Kimble) and Stephanie (Filo) cut quite a bit in their guide tracks, and it was kind of a guide. But they were pretty much like we want to see what you guys do with this. Originally with that first episode, especially with Glenda sitting and hearing the saw through her apartment the first time, it was really aggressive. It was a lot more bone crunching, a lot more blood, it even had a whole montage. We played it back for Alexis (Martin Woodall) and it was, like, maybe this is too much?
That’s when we realized that we should hold back and let the focus be on the actors. Throughout the soundscape that was pretty much what we thought it should be. A little more subdued and not so flashy, and just kind of hinted at. Because the acting is so great we decided we didn’t need to be that aggressive with the sound and let it play a much more realistic, natural, and more authentic role, since it is a real story.
Amanda Beggs: It’s great to hear something about this because I’m just a small part of it. Just getting the actors’ performances on set, there is so much that can be added to later in post. But it was really great to get to hear the tracks that we had recorded on set really shine in this particular piece. Like Laura said, the performances are so strong and so good. My job was just to capture those crystal clear ,and as authentically as possible, just to hand it over to them. So that is what we tried to do. It was nice to see it all work together so well after they were done.
Award Daily: You submitted episode eight, “Lionel,” for consideration for the Emmys. What was it about that episode that really jumped out at you about the sound?
Laura Wiest: That is kind of a tough question. [Laughes] I think in the end for the sound team we were on this mix for six months, back to back watching these episodes, and we were pretty impacted by it. I definitely felt the weight of the story. Honestly, I think we just wanted to put up an episode that had to do with the victims. This episode did have the trial in it, so it just felt more appropriate. It was tough sitting on the mix stage and doing these episodes back to back, day in and day out. It just seemed right to put up the episode that focuses on them finally getting to have their word. Which might not have definite sound stuff in it, but at the end of the day we just wanted to put that episode forward.
Amanda Beggs: It’s less focusing on the sensationalism of what Dahmer did and more so on these are the repercussions of the actions this person had. And how big of an impact this person had on so many people’s lives. In the trial scene that room is full of people that were all impacted by the awful things that Dahmer did. The performances in that are some of the strongest for the whole season. While Evan did a fantastic job, I think it really highlights that the show was packed with people that just gave 110% performance wise. It was really an honor to get to be there and get to record those performances. I mean Richard Jenkins as Lionel is just phenomenal work. He had the crew speechless at times on set. His performance is incredible.
Awards Daily: In episode six, “Silence,” you deal a lot with not having sound or playing more with the vibration of music or the beating of a heart. What different challenges did that give you guys?
Amanda Beggs: In terms of capturing, it was great on this particular episode because we were working with the team who still recognized that even though there wasn’t spoken dialogue in some scenes we still treated those like scenes with sound. It wasn’t like our department was put on the back burner. We still mic’d up, the actor who plays Tony Hughes still had a wire on him, we still boomed those scenes, we made sure extras were doing things in the background like clinking glasses at the pizza parlor. We allowed all that to play, knowing we weren’t quite sure the direction they would take. Obviously there are many options post could have gone with but we figured give them the soundscape, and Tony, while he is hearing impaired, lives within a world that does have sound, and so we wanted to record all of that and let that creative choice happen later. We definitely still recorded everything on set. Just because there was signing, we didn’t treat it like it was a shot without sound. The one thing we did was put a wire on the ASL interpreter so he would live translate to a microphone that would just be sent to post production so they could translate what he was signing. Just like an actor can improv or change what they say, our hearing impaired actors can do the same thing, they have the same freedom. So for the editors who didn’t know ASL, it would be a way to help them follow along with what was happening on set.
Laura Wiest: What Amanda and her crew did was so important. Alexis and Ryan Murphy and the whole team do not like ADR, which a lot of directors do not but they really do not do ADR. I think there’s maybe one line of ADR in the entire series. So it is extremely important that it is a very clean production, that they were mic’d up and they did have plant mics even when they weren’t talking, especially in the Tony episode. When we got it and they said, we just wanted chunks of just no sound, especially when he’s with his friends at the restaurant, we were, like, ooh, that’s a long time! We still had to fill up the space using a lot of low end rumbles and just filling up the weight so the sound did not go completely out. Our main focus in those silent scenes was that you were with Tony, watching Tony, that was the important thing. That as soon as you went into those scenes, you felt like you were just with him, as he lived his life. To get in and out of those things our goal was to pretty much use anything that was in the environment, whether it was his hands clapping or that clinking of the glass. It was to pull from the environment, and how to get in and out of his world and try to use anything realistic that was in his natural environment.
Awards Daily: One scene that stayed with me was the scene where Dahmer himself was murdered. How for the longest time there is no music. There’s a small ambient noise of the prisoners cleaning or a door closing and barely any dialogue. What went into making that scene?
Laura Wiest: I think the goal was to make sure that we got the sense that he was alone and isolated and that this was planned. They wanted to just really focus on Dahmer, so that’s where we highlight the small details. All you do is hear a little bit of cleaning so that you know someone is still in here, and that it draws his attention when his killer walks out. The idea was to hold back and to make the audience really focus on the super small details and make you just stuck watching him, for better or for worse Evan Peters is so good at portraying Dahmer we just wanted to leave space. It is a hard watch but that’s kind of what we’re going for. He did horrible things, we didn’t want to make it super flashy, we just wanted to make it realistic.
Awards Daily: Was there a moment for either one of you that was particularly challenging or something you were particularly proud of in creating this?
Amanda Beggs: I am so incredibly proud and grateful for the crew I had in the sound department. There were many challenging moments– multiple cameras, the lighting in a lot of the interior locations were all practical so desk lamps, ceiling lamps that throw pretty intense shadows at times. I mean it’s gorgeous and cinematic and moody but that can pose a lot of problems for where you put a boom microphone so that you are not casting a shadow but that you are also not standing in an actor’s eye line. Because it was our job to be very invisible and let the actors do their thing. But I have a fantastic boom operator, an incredible sound utility who was fantastic at wiring the cast and making them feel comfortable, never taking them out of their performance if we had to make any adjustments. As well as my utility, there were a lot of different plant mics, just little mics around the room to make sure that we were always filling in the soundscape as much as possible and weren’t leaving any empty zones. There are several challenging moments that come to mind but I’m just so incredibly proud of the work that my team did. I don’t think I would have been able to do anything if I didn’t have those guys with me helping me out. I’m very grateful I had such an incredible team for this.
Laura Wiest: The same for post. There is no way we could have done some of those scenes, especially with the creators not wanting to do ADR. Some of those scenes in the apartment where it’s just him and he’s just quiet, in that whole first episode without extremely clean production. I couldn’t just play the fish tank noise and the fridge and the freezer and the lights in there. You just couldn’t play that because there was tons of noise on the production, so we are extremely grateful and very lucky that all the production was incredibly clean. Also that the creatives Alexis and Ryan Murphy let us explore to see what was going to work for this. I think our overall goal was we didn’t want you to like Dahmer, we did not want him to be a hero, we wanted this to be from the victim’s perspective and I think that was the whole goal on set, in editing, and in sound. Our overall goal was how to be respectful, and for sound that just meant holding back. I’m an effects mixer. I am used to doing things loud and in your face and getting a reaction. For this it was to do the opposite, and luckily everyone gave us the space to do that, to do what seemed to be appropriate for this show.
Awards Daily: Final thoughts?
Amanda Beggs: I do have to say because I don’t think I’ve said it enough, watching the episodes and seeing what Laura and the post team did was just so great. You do your part and then you’re handing it off. I just have to say it was just incredible, the two halves coming together. So I just have to say that the post team did some really amazing work and I am happy to be a very small part of it.
Laura Wiest: It was a big part, especially for this! Imagining these actors coming in and reading those scenes for ADR–I can’t imagine. I am sure it was hard on set. Luckily Amanda and her team got it perfect the first time, so it is great.
Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story streams exclusively on Netflix.
