Oliver Peters
Sep 24, 2024
Originally posted on postPerspective
The Netflix drama Bridgerton is in its fourth season of production. It’s based on a series of Regency romance novels written by Julia Quinn and set in 1800s London. Bridgerton and a spin-off series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, are produced by Shondaland.
Although principal photography happens on location and in soundstages in the UK, the audio post for Bridgerton is headquartered at Westwind Media in Burbank. I recently discussed the sound edit and mix on this series with members of the post team, including supervising producer/post producer Holden Chang, co-executive producer/Shondaland head of post Scott Collins, supervising sound editor Ulrika Akander and dialogue re-recording mixer Christian Minkler.
Tell us about the team, schedule and workflow for sound post on Bridgerton?
Ulrika Akander: We normally start from a locked episode and have ample time to edit sound. It varies, but the shortest time is three weeks. We spread it out so that we can work on multiple episodes at once, if possible. Typically, the dialogue editors get six days. I have four editors that I can use, but sometimes it’s only one or two, depending on the episode. My time as the sound supervisor covers 10 to 12 days, including spotting, cueing, recording and editing ADR and group ADR, plus going over the audio edits and the mix.
Angelo Palazzo is the sound designer. He’s been on the show since we started and has helped build the soundscape of Bridgerton with all the various locations. The effects editing/sound design gets six days. The Foley is done at Westwind and gets one day for cueing and two days to record. Mitch Kohen has been the Foley artist on every single episode.
Any ADR that we need to pick up from the principal cast is done at a couple of stages in the UK, but mainly in London. Because of the time difference, Holden and I, with our colleagues Becca Wolfe and Ivy Briones, are up bright and early in the morning for those sessions. Then we record group ADR at Westwind with British voice actors so that it’s authentic. The group ADR is a big part of the Bridgerton soundscape that we have created. Every time we’re with the Bridgertons, we want to keep them alive in the background. Throughout the seasons, I’ve also created a library of all of them chitchatting in the background. These little conversations are not real but add to the flavor of the show.
In addition to managing everything, I’m typically also editing part of the dialogue — making sure it’s streamlined and ready to go. Once all that’s packaged, we’ll take it to Christian and FX mixer Gary DeLeone for a five-day mix on each episode.
Christian Minkler: This has been my first season on this show, so it’s such a huge advantage that Ulrika’s been with it from the start and has an uncanny memory for things from past episodes. For instance, I might be working on a scene, and something is a little off-mic. She’ll bounce up and go, “You know, in Season 2, Episode 3 we had a similar thing going on — same actor and everything.” She is able to grab a piece of a word for me for a certain actor and help me repair it without having to record ADR. She can construct lines of dialogue from past seasons or just give me syllables from actors.
Akander: I’ve always stayed in touch with the production sound mixer. We get a lot of channels — one or two booms and then everybody on ISOs. The only ADR we really need is for added lines. In these past three seasons there have only been a few times when we have recorded ADR for technical reasons.
Holden Chang: We have a great production sound team headed up by John Rodda. There are a handful of times every season when we have to go into ADR with the principal actors to improv. This is the ultimate ensemble show, where there is no one single star in a lot of the scenes. It’s about the family.
You might see two main cast members talking in the background of this scene. And then in the next scene, you see a different mix of characters talking in the background. To their credit, our actors are more than happy to come in and ad-lib and improv dialogue. It will never even be clearly heard, but it fills in the space and the soundscapes and makes their voices sound authentic.
An example in Season 3 would be the wedding, when Francesca and John Stirling get married. The entire family and their friends are there at the party afterward. Almost every single ball, every single garden party is from Ulrika’s library. If not, the actors are game to fill in.
Akander: I keep all of those, name them and put them into particular folders. It could be a line from a different season, but it has the right tone. We’re always looking for that right tone. And then Christian has this magic touch to have that one little thing poke through. When we do record these things, we very often ask them to just do some laughs or some “brother” or “sister” or names, because that can always be sprinkled in.
Scott Collins: The big thing we always concentrate on in the mix is not necessarily to hear them in the background — not to hear the specifics — but to just feel their presence. You don’t want to even hear enough to go, “Oh wait, what did they say?” You just want to know they’re there.
What about the sound design?
Akander: One would think that it’s just a basic London street. But we’re in different parks and there are so many layers to weave in and out of. Whatever the background, people would like to hear the water rushing or hear some birds. We take out most of the birds, but the ones we keep will have a perfect place. For instance, it’s evening. Would a woman be outside in the street laughing in this particular area? Or is this where we should just have the sound of a horse carriage going by?
Minkler: Talking about the carriages, you have to keep it sounding old English rather than like a Western. It could easily sound like 1850s America. The sound effects team does an excellent job of staying accurate to the period and place.
Are there any recurring soundscapes tied to particular places or characters?
Akander: They’re all around Grosvenor Square. The Bridgertons are the happy ones, so we’ll hear a little more of everything. It’s a little richer. When we go to Cressida Cowper’s home, it’s very heavy and quiet. There might be a clock going. Angelo will provide us with the various elements for those different locations. And then, of course, every season has that episode with the big event. In this last season, we had the fair with the hot air balloon, which was so much fun to do.
A balloon has those wind machines; therefore, some of the production sound was unusable, making the scene a challenge. We could find a few little words here and there, and then we recorded a little bit of ADR. That was enough to patch it and make it sound realistic.
Where does music fit into all of this?
Collins: Kris Bowers is our composer, and he’s been with us since the beginning of Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte. Heading into Season 4, we have three seasons’ worth of library that we can pull from. Typically, the picture editors will use music from those three seasons as a temp score to create a feeling and an emotion for what the scene is. Then Kris will take it and create a new theme since each season is its own love story.
He will also give these characters their own theme for the series. We won’t reuse a ton of music, but some things carry over. For instance, there’s the Lady Whistledown theme in Bridgerton that carries across the seasons. And then we also have instrumental needle drops that we’ve used in all three seasons. Kris Bowers, along with bands like Vitamin String Quartet, will rearrange and reimagine contemporary pop songs as classical pieces.
Akander: Like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Sia, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus or Madonna. Their songs are typically used for the big ballroom scenes.
How does Bridgerton differ from a standard historical drama?
Minkler: Definitely the music. It’s a very clever way of bringing a modern tone to a period piece. I think that’s what separates it from any other show on TV — the way they have been able to blend the two and make it work so well. It’s really genius on the filmmakers’ part of how they established that. For me, it begins and ends with the music. It sets the tone for the mix. Brittany DuBay, our music editor, does a fantastic job with the building blocks of the music.
Collins: Another thing that makes it a little bit different is the extravagant wardrobe and wigs that are used. They even have their own sound effects.
Akander: We try to find those little things, like the little sparkle of the jewelry or when the queen has a big wig with something sparkling inside.
Collins: In one episode she had a swan going around in circles in her wig. It was amazing!
Let’s shift gears and talk about the technical side of the mix for this show.
Minkler: This is an Avid Pro Tools show for all of the sound editorial and mix. We are working on the Avid S6 control surfaces in the mix stages at Westwind. There’s a full complement of four Pro Tools systems and one recorder on the stage. I’ve got 5.1 surround, full theatrical Atmos, and broadcast Atmos available to me in the room. We start with a full Atmos mix, which is what we deliver to Netflix. This is also folded down to stereo.
I have about 16 tracks of production dialogue and eight tracks of ADR. That might go wider depending on how many principal characters are in the show. Group ADR can be as wide as 24 tracks. I also have as many as 40 to 50 tracks of music per episode, plus the sound effects tracks, which Gary handles. He has five banks of effects with 16 tracks on each, four banks of background effects with 14 tracks each, and 16 Foley tracks. We do get time for a pre-mix, which is basically us consolidating the tracks for a day or two. But in reality, we’re running live with the tracks in the mix session.
Akander: During the first three days of the mix, it’s typically just Christian, Brittany on music, Gary and me. We’ll work on dialogue and sound effects on Days 1 and 2 to get it in the pocket. We don’t always have the final music until Day 3. Then we run a playback on Day 3 just for us, where we make our own notes for things we want to fix. On Days 4 and 5, Scott, Holden and the picture editor will join us. We’ll do playbacks to check the mix in both Atmos and in stereo since a lot of people are going to watch this in stereo.
Chang: In the new world of streaming, people are watching on hundreds of different devices in stereo, 5.1 surround, Atmos — on their phones or through headphones or earbuds. So we try to cover all the bases.
When you’re doing the Atmos mix versus the stereo, are you doing completely different mixes, or are you just folding the Atmos mix down to stereo?
Minkler: It’s folded down to stereo. Fortunately, it’s folding down nicely. Yeah, it might keep me from doing a few things on the Atmos mix, but nothing that’s hurting the show. It’s not really affecting the creative vision or the sound of the show.
How much of the sound is happening behind you in the Atmos environment?
Minkler: Quite a bit, musically. That’s one of the reasons I really love the score. Kris and Brittany provide me not only with great orchestras, but little instruments and percussion that I can place around the room at any time. It all translates nicely down to stereo. Hopefully, somebody who is able to listen in an immersive environment can appreciate that. But at the same time, it’s folding down to a two-track just fine.
Any particular sound challenges that come to mind?
Akander: I think it was Season 2. There was another production sound team, and they sent me a video from the set and I thought “Good luck.” They had six or eight musicians on a revolving stage while there was dialogue going on. The musicians were miming, but we had this creaky stage going around. We ended up using a couple of words from it. With a little bit of help fixing the dialogue and cleaning it up, it worked. Something like this will happen almost every season.
Or there’s the fact that they’re shooting at practical locations … castles and big old buildings with stone walls that are 8 feet thick. There’s always a location that has windows or mirrors, and it’s all being reflected. It’s hard to get the booms in there. The production sound crews on all three seasons have been spectacular.
Is there one tool or item that you really couldn’t do without on the show?
Minkler: I would have to say all of the tools to get rid of modern sounds. We wouldn’t be able to sell the show to the viewers without those.
Akander: For me it’s Sound Radix’s Auto-Align Post, which is a plugin for Pro Tools. You take the boom track and then line up the lav tracks. The way they play together has created this really full sound, even if the lav mic is not 100% complete. Sometimes the men’s lavs are noisier than the women’s because of the rustling from the costumes. For example, the mic for Luke Newton (who plays Colin) might drop out in spots, but I can also use the mic from Nicola Coughlan (who plays Penelope). I put them together with Auto-Align Post to make it so much fuller. It’s an absolute must-have.
With all the buzz about AI tools, does any of that work its way into the show?
Minkler: When we started Season 3, it wasn’t really an option. It was just an idea that was percolating. By the time we ended the season, it became a focal point in union negotiations for what we can and can’t do. We started the season before the strike and then finished it up afterward. Coming out of it, there were some specific rules to follow. So, for Bridgerton, we’re still cautiously and slowly walking into AI.
Akander: The closest to AI that I’m part of is with a few of the noise reduction plugins that are using AI. But we’re super-cautious with noise reduction on the show. Yes, of course, we try to get rid of something like huge gravel footsteps or an airplane overhead. Unlike a lot of episodic TV, I do very minimal noise reduction. When Christian has everything up along with the music, that’s when we might need to go a little deeper. There are a couple of plugins we might use — Clear, Hush and dxRevive. Those are AI-based.
I want to be careful not to suck the life out of the production. Noise reduction is good for hums and buzzes, since that wouldn’t be in any home in 1800s London. But I try not to go so deep. I like to keep the natural movement and present a smooth track that goes easily in and out for Christian. And then if we need to take it further, he can do that with proper monitoring on the re-recording stage.