"Kaddish" w/ James David Redding III

Today we talk all things sound design with James David Redding III. Tune in as we discuss how much goes into what you are hearing while watching The Patient.
From Straw Hut Media

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Straut Media. All right, let'sdo the recap of episode seven. As
always, If by some miracle you'dhave yet to see episode seven of The
Patient, please stop what you're doingright now, go and watch episode seven,
and then come back here and listento the rest of this episode.

(00:27):
All right, for those that watchthe episode, let's begin. As we
start episode seven, Alan is anxiouslyawaiting one of two outcomes of what could
happen. Either the police have foundhis note that he jammed into Elias's mouth
and are coming to find him,or Sam has found it and is going

(00:49):
to come and kill him to takerevenge on his betrayal. And to his
surprise, actually neither of those thingshappen. Sam comes back to the to
the basement for a session, butAlan is too tired. He seems he
can't do it, and we cantell that this, this refusal to treat

(01:12):
Sam in that moment, is areal shock to him and that he's not
particularly pleased by it. Later,Sam pays a visit to his old school
and chalks talks with his school counselor, mister Botella. He asks him whether
he expected Sam to be unhappy asan adult, and mister Botella says he

(01:34):
knew that Sam was different and thathe had a hard time, but no,
he had expected he would turn outto be a good person and that
he always felt that Sam was hopeful. Sam asked her, asks mister Botella
to be his therapist, and hesays, they'll have to think about it.
Um, he's never taken honest studenta student before to become a new

(01:57):
patient. And then, of courseSam says, oh, hey, do
you think it's a good idea fora patient to live with a therapist?
And mister Mitchella is very clear itis not a good idea. Do not
do that too late, mister Michella. Unfortunately, I mean good news for
mister Bechella in that I guess Samwill not take that on with him this

(02:20):
time. Lucky guy. So whenSam gets back home, Alan is talking
to Charlie, the psychotherapist he hasin his head is his dead psychotherapist,
and pondering the relationship with his son. He is frustrated with his relationship with
Ezra and how Ezra made life forBeth so difficult, even in the last

(02:44):
few days of her own life.He reveals that Beth wanted to die on
her own terms, that is,by using pills, as Era made a
big deal about it being illegal anddecided not to take part, which Alan
saw as judgment and abandonment. Samcomes in with a large bag, and
it's not food this time. He'sbrought a printer to print out the Cottash,

(03:08):
which is the prayer for the dead, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
For Alan, who later said hewanted to recite it for his wife
but couldn't remember the words. Alantells him that this is what he was
talking about earlier, that this isempathy in action, and he's thankful,
and we of course know that he'sthinking murderous thoughts about his patient in his

(03:28):
head, while complimenting how kind hewas for bringing a printer. Alan then
wants to talk to him about what'sgoing to happen when the police finds Elias
his body, but Sam responds,all that's not a problem. He changed
his mind. He got scared becausehe pulled up next to a car who
managed to see what was in thebed of his truck, and so he

(03:49):
decided and said to put the bodyin a place that it would not be
found. Alan realizes his plans failed. Sam hands him a copy of the
cottash and asks if he would preciteit for but Alan says it's private,
which is yet another refusal of Sam, and so Sam leaves the room,
but as he sits in his bedroomlistening through the door, he can hear

(04:11):
Alan reciting the cottage for his wifeand maybe Elias too, as we fade
to black on the episode, Hey, good point there for Elias too.
Thank you, Thank you. Youknow I'm paying attention. I feel like
I'm developing my psychotherapy muscles with youweekly that I'm starting to see some insight.

(04:32):
Yes, you are just being like, wow, he's just a murderer.
So yeah, I was really disappointedas maybe as much as Alan to
he learned that the body was notleft out. You know, that was
really crushing. Yeah. Yeah,And but what starts interesting to happen in

(05:00):
this episode is Alan's fantasies of whatcould happen, what might happen. They
really start to become more and morefrequent, and also more and more sort
of extreme, you know what Imean in terms of like he has a

(05:23):
vision that Sam will find the noteand then rush into the room and stab
him in the throat with the note. Jam the note down his throat,
which I was just like, Idon't, jeez, maybe he would do
that. But also it's like,I'm I'm starting to wonder if Alan's anxiety
is actually getting the best of himand sort of exacerbating his fears of violence

(05:48):
and death. I mean, maybewhy not? Right, Like, he's
not right, you know, he'sin this very like you know, life
or death situation, not unlike theHolocaust people. You know, in the
Holocaust in concentration camps, I'm surethey had violent fantasies all the time and

(06:10):
there was some revolting um. Butso yeah, I'd probably have similar kinds
of fantasies. And but you know, they're they're painful to watch because we
know that well we we we assumethat Alan doesn't feel capable of and of

(06:30):
being violent himself. He might haveto be, but you know, he
really feels incapable of that. SoI want I want to bring up one
other fantasy that shows up that Ijust found because I believe it appears in
this episode for the first time,and it's um, it's it's almost less

(06:55):
shocking. Now. Okay, Sofor those of you who have been following
facts has been sort of marketing theshow The Patient as we go, not
us. They have not been marketingus. They have been marketing the Patient.
We wish they would market up.And yes, by the way,
they're completely welcome to market us.FX. If you're listening, and I

(07:15):
know you're not, please feel freeto reach out. But Stacy, remember
a couple of weeks ago that FXreleased sort of like a video that was
like coming soon on the Patient,you know, and it was sort of
like the second half of the season, and the people who were in the

(07:36):
sort of patient, you know,fan groups were horrified by this video because
it was like all these things comingout and you're like, spoiler after spoiler
after spoiler, and you're like,oh my god, what is happening.
You're ruining the whole show in frontof my eyes. And this one minute
promo and probably the most shocking partof that is that there is a moment

(07:59):
in which US Squat Team smashes throughthe basement door window and you know,
with guns drawn, and it startsto become you know, like this this
tactical assault team. And when itwhen that tiny little snippet of that thing
showed up in the video a fewweeks ago, we were like, oh

(08:22):
my god, they've given away theend of the patient. This is how
he gets rescued. That's what Ithought. And then what you quickly realize
is that's just another fantasy of Alanthat's not that maybe could happen, but
probably isn't going to happen, andit's just another sort of like blasts of
violence that shows up that's gone ina second. In fact, I mean,

(08:43):
I think if if he does getrescued, it's unlikely to happen in
that kind of big dramatic way,right, you know, like, yeah,
he's not he's not the president.You know, he's just some therapist.
Sorry, I mean, I likehim, but it's unlikely to have
and it's like stormtroopers coming in andbreaking the glass. But I want to

(09:05):
say, I love the idea ofjust going back to Alan and saying,
you know, I'm sorry, youdo not actually rate a swat team.
We might be able to get likea couple of dogs and a couple of
overweight security guards, but I'm sorry, we the swat team will not be
called out for you. I mean, I'm imagining it's some like dirty detective

(09:26):
who like shows up like Colombo youknow, like to talk to Sam like,
hey, so what's going on here? You know, kind of like
that, but you're going you're goingkind of old school honest here. Yeah,
you're going back to them, youknow, like maybe Jessica Fletcher is
going to show up from Murder sheRoad and just be like, oh,
I just came by to borrow acup of sugar. Is there someone in

(09:48):
the basement? Right? But Ithere's one other thing I want to say,
and then we kids should get onwith our episode. But um,
okay, that the the fact thatm Sam has gone and sought out this
new therapist is a really bad signfor Alan. You know, that's he's

(10:09):
you know already he's going to replacehim because it's not working and there's really
only one option for Alan at thatpoint, you know, like he's not
going to just let Alan go likeoh this didn't work out, I'm firing
you and I'm going to get anew therapist like most people do. You
know, since he's kidnapped and stuckin the basement, it's bad news.

(10:30):
So it's really giving us a youknow, a foreshadowing that this isn't going
to end well, you know itdoes, Okay, so I had that
thought. But then the other thoughtI had is like, Okay, this
is now the second therapist in theroad that Sam is connected with, and
this time this therapist has a previousrelationship with Sam. So like, if

(10:56):
this guy, mister Mitchella doesn't workout and Sam ends up Kinney killing him,
like, it's going to become harderand harder not for people to start
to make a connection of like,say, why are all the therapists being
killed in this strange way? Youknow what I mean? Like I think
people would touch on, right,I might take a few therapists might have

(11:16):
to die before anybody notices. Ithink. All right, I'd like to
remind everyone that you are, infact the therapist and we are not actually
wishing for lots of therapists to diein order to pope. Thank you so
much. All right, this seemslike a good time to get on with
the episode. I think we've askedsome great questions, and you know,

(11:39):
there's a lot of interesting sounds inthe episode, you know, and I
think there's one person that we canturn to to answer all of our questions
about the soundscape of the show.Hi, everyone, Emmy Award winning Sound

(12:03):
designer and sound effects editor James DavidReading the Third is on the show today.
He has worked on countless television showssuch as The Queen's Gambit, American
Rust, The Americans one of myfavorites, Thirty Rock, plus countless other
projects. We are so excited tohave you here today. Welcome James.
Thank you. I'm excited to behere. Yes, oh man, this

(12:26):
is exciting, So James, I'ma sound designer myself, and so I'm
super excited to I'm gonna try notto geek out too much with you here,
but I'll do my best. Ijust want to say that I'm super
excited to talk with you about thisstuff. It's all good. I love
geeking out about audio saying well,I want to say I don't know anything
about audio, but my son wentto school for sound design and he had

(12:50):
some questions. So those are thoseare in the mix here of some of
the questions that we're going to havea right sure, sure, what school
did he go to? He wenta school in Madison called um I don't
know what it was called now,but Madison Media Institute that's what it was
called. Ya Okay, sure,okay, cool, So James I want

(13:15):
to just start this off by saying, you are the supervising sound editor of
this show? Correct, Can yousort of talk us through what that means,
what that is, what your jobentails. Sure, as a supervising
sound editor, especially for this show, it means coming up with what the

(13:37):
overall soundscape of the show is goingto be. One thing a lot of
people don't think about when they're watchingTV or movies is that we are creating
a whole world. Especially when it'sa scripted show. They tend to shoot
on lots which are soundproofed, andso we are creating everything around it,
and we have control over the environments. And in this show, it was

(14:01):
coming up with a tone of whatthe show is going to be, what
you're going to hear, what you'regoing to experience, how you're going to
experience that sound part of the medium. And I sort of with co supervisor
Ken Han, who I've worked withfor many years, we came up with
a palette of sounds that we usedand we actually passed on to Picture Editorial

(14:24):
when they first started picture editing.That we passed on to sculpt the show.
It helps tell the story in adifferent sort of a subconscious way.
Most people don't think about how soundaffects them, and that's all I think
about, is how sound affects people. So, uh, you know,
my it's it's like painting for yourears. Wow. So when you're putting

(14:48):
effects together, are you making themwhile watching the show or are you making
them separately and then handing them topicture editors who then placed them into the
show. How does that work?So it becomes a big collaboration for this
show. Especially what we ended updoing was I got the scripts back in

(15:13):
January after I was first hired byThe Jays and read through all the scripts
and came up with an idea ofmy head of the locations that they mentioned
and the experience that we want everybodyto be part of. And then as
they started shooting and stuff like that, the picture editors, while putting together

(15:35):
scenes, sometimes need a little helpwith the audio. You know, Oh
we need you know, the soundof the can rolling around on the ground,
you know, from episode one,And so I pull those together and
send those to picture And what thathelped us do is get a roadmap of
what they're thinking. The Jays andthe director Chris Long would spend months with

(15:58):
the picture added or crafting these shots, and then they would pass off the
locked picture the episode to us,the sound team, and then we would
go through and we would use thatroadmap to tell us how to sculpt the
rest of it, and then we'reputting in our own sounds, uh,

(16:18):
you know, to craft around theworld. You know, what what does
Alan's house sound like? What doesSam's house sound like? Um, you
know, what does the car soundlike that's going by? What does that
you know that can rattling round soundlike? What does that windstorm sound like?
Right? So, you know,it's a it's a good collaboration where
I start off by giving them somethingand then they sort of give it back

(16:40):
to me as like this is kindof what we're thinking, and then we
fill it out from there. Soit's kind of it exists almost in drafts,
I guess, where you sort oflike, yeah, first draft,
and then you just sort of keepadding and tailoring it as it goes.
I think of it like a BobRoss painting. You start with a big
broad streaks of a brush, youget that background in, you get those

(17:03):
you know, the sort of colorpalette going in. It's a little fuzzy
at first, right, and thenyou slowly get in and get in and
get it in, and then youget those happy little trees and clouds and
everything all of a sudden is great. You know. Yeah, that sounds
like an involved process, a longprocess, right, or how long does
it take to do something like that? Every project's different, and it comes

(17:26):
down to how much time before airsometimes if it's a TV show or when
they want to hit a festival ora release date for a film. For
the patient we got, I believeit was five days for sound effects editing,
and five days for dialogue editing,and three days for fully total and

(17:48):
then mixing wise, which is adifferent part of it all. Mixing is
just like it sounds like, it'sjust like baking, where you're taking all
these ingredients and you're putting them togetheras a sonic palette. We get three
days for mixing to complete an episode. So some people would say that's a
lot of times. Some people wouldsay it's not a lot of time.
It all depends on your experience andwhat you can do with that time.

(18:11):
Yeah, I'm really learning how obviouslyinvolved and complex this is to put together
a TV show, even one that'sless than thirty minutes long each episode.
It's it sounds I can't even imaginethe effort and the time it depends on,

(18:33):
you know, I mean, there'sso many different layers and you can
get into such minutia and everything else, and really what it comes down to
is how do you want the folksto experience it? And you look at
a show like The Patient where you'relike, oh, it's less than thirty
minutes. It can't take that long, except that we're creating this almost claustrophobic

(18:55):
world with audio. And you know, Steve and Donald were great actors and
they they're expressing such emotion. We'retrying to make sure that it comes out
cleanly so that everybody can understand everyevery word that the Jay's wrote is important,
and every word that is uttered isimportant. And you need to you

(19:15):
need to get the nuances that they'redoing and along with what they're doing and
shooting, right, they're they're shootingand there it looks like it's just two
guys in a basement um, butthere's a whole crew of people there and
so we have to take out thatnoise and make sure you don't hear extraneous
footsteps you don't hear, you know, at one point you could hear um.
I think it was the cameraman breathingat one point, and we had

(19:40):
to take that out because it's like, wait, these breaths don't match up,
right, So we're taking out thatstuff and then and then replacing the
world around it and giving you afeeling. You know, Um, there's
a difference between Alan's house and Sam'shouse tonally. You know, you don't
necessarily know it because it kind ofblends in with your own house when you're

(20:00):
watching at home, but if you'reif you're watching, you are getting a
tonal shift between those spaces. Andeven what we did, what we did
with um the space. So wemixed this show in surround sound just in
five dot one. It wasn't donean atmost, but it was done in
five dot one, and we didthese shifts in space as far as having

(20:23):
you know, Alan's houses all theway around you with the normal suburb sounds
of birds and little traffic and stufflike that, and Sam's house is definitely
a lot quieter. And then whenwe uh snapped to a flashback or such
for Alan, it goes to thestereo. And then when you go back

(20:45):
to real time, it comes outback around you. So if you're watching
in surround sound, it's kind ofa it's a very subtle but a different
experience. Yeah, I totally caughtthat. I mean, in listening to
it, I could determined that thatthere is a real difference in the rooms
and that you're right in that Sam'sbasement does feel very claustrophobic in that way.

(21:11):
It does feel like a tight spaceand you can't I think it's one
of those things that it's so subliminalyou don't really think about it, but
it's definitely your work is very clearthere. Now. We did a couple
of acoustic tricks for audio in thereto make your you know, there's a

(21:32):
whole thing with audio and how itjust reacts to the human brain and instincts,
and we played with that for theespecially for the show. I mean,
we played with it with everything,but this show especially, we were
trying to make you uneasy endpoints.You know, and most people think of
you know, Nate Bar's score,which is just magnificent, but that's what

(21:52):
most people think of, they thinkof score, But in this show,
there's a lot of spots where thereis no score, and it's just it's
just what happening in the room,and we're still messing with their brains through
their ears, Like, how canyou give us some examples of that?
Yeah, Well, like in Sam'sbasement, we're playing with the space and
we're putting in this low tone andwhat's happening with low tones low frequencies because

(22:18):
of the wavelength, the physical wavelengthof the sound, it's confusing to your
head. You can't locate low frequenciesas well. Because the wavelength is so
big, it takes a long timefor your ears to reconcile where it is.
So in Sam's basement, we havethis low tone going through most of
the basement has this little movement toit and such. The other thing that

(22:41):
we're doing in Sam's basement is we'remaking it really really quiet, like you
don't really Every once in a whileyou hear a crow outside, but that's
kind of the only sign of lifethat you hear outside of that basement.
And when he opens the sliding door, you get a gush of wind,
but that's about it. Otherwise.Once that door closed, and we did

(23:03):
this on purpose, once that doorclosed, you get that vacuum effect.
It's like, you know, becauseyou're in this sort of environment that Alan
is stuck in. You know,that's probably like the best example for this
show of how we mess with things. That is super cool. So just

(23:25):
to illustrate for listeners out there,because I think people don't necessarily get this.
When I first started getting into filmsound, one of the things that
I was genuinely surprised by was howlittle of what happens on the set actually
shows up in the final product ofthe show. So with the exception of

(23:48):
the actor's voices, which obviously you'retrying to record those as cleanly and as
carefully as possible. When we watcha television show, like if we're watching
them in the room, how manyof if you could give a percentage of
the amount of effects that are createdby you after the fact versus what is

(24:10):
the recording of what happens in theactual space, it's about, Um,
my effects are probably about of whatis actually happening. Wow, Um,
you do have uh, you know, he's chained to the floor and sometimes
uh he has that chain on andit's actually a real metal chain, and

(24:33):
sometimes he's not wearing the chain becauseit's uncomfortable. To wear a metal chain,
right, and so that chain wereplaced most of it, though you
do hear some of the original inthere. Um. All the footsteps have
been replaced because they were on avery quiet carpet. Um, you know,
like you said, besides the voice, most of the stuff has been
replaced. The food containers down,we're putting in that, um, we're

(24:56):
putting in clothing ruscle, we're puttingin hand pats down where we're putting in.
Yeah, I would say a goodninety five of what you're hearing.
And the ambiance too, you know. Again it comes back to this subtlety
where they were shooting on a stageand we had to make it sound like

(25:17):
the middle of the woods. Youknow, most people don't understand what that
means. They're like, what doyou mean? And and all I could
say is if you went into likethe deepest closet in a you know,
skyscraper, where you're in the middleof the building in a closet that's fairly
quiet. And this was probably atleast that quiet, if not quieter,

(25:38):
on the sound stages because we needthat control. You know, you can't
have airplanes flying over and ruining atake. You can't have. And I'm
not saying that doesn't happen in someshows when they're shooting on location, but
we're trying to avoid that most ofthe time. And since we were able
to, since we're in Sam's house, that could be a set. So
for example, like when in theepisode three when Elias's body is we see

(26:02):
it for the first time being slammedagainst the glass window. That's that's you,
right, that's not that's not thereal sound of that, that's us
and we we we labored over thatfor a while because it's you know,
you do have a hint of youknow, he does hit the glass,
and so we have the picture departmentis used to hearing that song because they've
had it in the dailies. Right, they really threw against the glass,

(26:26):
and then we enhanced it and wetook glass hits that we had. We
took um, you know, Ihave all sorts of synthesizing types of plugins
that I could make lower frequency hitsto make it a more boom. Um.
We put in some extra glass rattle. UM, we put in some
metal rattle because it's on that metaltrack for the door, you know.

(26:48):
Um. We also spread it outthe sound that was captured on set is
captured in mono, meaning a singlesource, and we spread it out so
that it came out in stereo,so it seems like a bigger sound in
the space. So yeah, Imean that that that sound I would say
was he had like ninety percent ofus with maybe actually probably more like ninety
eight percent of us two percent ofthe production sound. And then to going

(27:12):
back to that scene too and thevoice. You know, we always try
to capture the voice. But whenthey were doing that scene and he's dragging
him through the basement to put inthat back room, we brought the actors
in to recreate the struggle. Yeah, you know, so we we also
replaced voices when necessary. You know, this show, you know we kept

(27:36):
I mean, the ADR account forthis show is very low. M ADR
standing for automated dialogue replacement, whichis when we bring the actors in to
replace something. This was very lowbecause of the fact that we were able
to control so much of it andthey gave such powerful performances the first time.
But every once in a while,we you know, we brought in
alias and he had he had amoan and groan like he was just beat
up and dragged through a basement.Poor guy. No alisas were hurting the

(28:03):
filming of the show. Okay,I have a very burning question James that
I think is on a lot ofpeople's minds. All Right, I just
I'm gonna let you take your sipbefore I say it. I want to
know about the peeing. The internetis on fire about the pet to know

(28:30):
is it real peeing? Is itreal peeing? At the time? How
did you make that sound of peeing? You know, the Jays asked me
the same question. I'm assuming thatthe listeners know who the Jays are.
I'm talking about Joel Fields and JoeWeisberg. Who are the creators? Um
So, yeah, the peen sorry, the pen has been a very big

(28:56):
topic of discussion since we read thescripts um and episode six, which is
the one that we're discussing today.It actually has the payoff for what the
pen is. So the peene is. We end up using it for a
very Pavlovian reason. In episode six, you know, Sam does what he

(29:21):
does to Elias, and then Alanconvinces him that he needs to put the
body out. He needs to putit out so that his family can find
him and Sam's like, all right, fine sort of and he goes and
does his routine. Sam is veryroutine, right, If you notice everything

(29:41):
in the show is very routine.The door open and close up his bedroom,
very routine. The coffee cup,taking the top off, sling and
throw it in the garbage. Weset up a rhythm, and we set
up the rhythm so we can messup the rhythm. And what we did
with the pen was we played withtime. At least to me, that's

(30:02):
what it ultimately end up coming downto the Jays. They might have had
something else in their head because wehad many discussions about PE, but we
used it as a time crutch tochange the time because we knew how long
he peed each episode. He hada pretty long, strong stream. And
in six, when Alan goes toput that note down his throat, Alan

(30:26):
has it timed out. Yeah,he's gonna go and pe and it's going
to take him this long. Andso that causes anxiety because now all of
a sudden, he's trying to dothis thing in this time period. And
then what we did was we kindof slowed down our time and we put
you know, it wasn't really slowingdown the time but it took longer for

(30:47):
him to flush the toilet and washhis hands. And really, what that's
doing is causing anxiety for the everybodyelse who's used to him taking such a
long pee. There like he's gettingtowards the end. Oh no, hurry
up and get this note in hismouth. Oh no, better, what's
gonna happen? Right? And itwas, it was. It was a
very Pavlovian thing. Um of whatwe did was causing this cause this,

(31:10):
this response to a timing thing toa sound. Um that that that,
for me, is what the peaingcame down to. Why they initially wrote
it in I don't know why they'vemade that their time piece, but it
was a time piece, you know? Was it real? P? It
was not Donald's p. It wasnot done on set. He never once

(31:30):
uh pet on set. As faras part of the production, um uh,
it was recorded. I think theywere about I think I sent the
picture department at the very beginning twentytwo different recordings of urinating from different perspectives,
uh, different lengths, um differentuh you know, from behind the

(31:55):
door, from in front of adoor, from in the bathroom. Um.
And this is going to sound weird. But a lot of it I
had people help me with because weyou know, you could record normal pain,
but sometimes you want to record somethingfast or something slower. So sometimes
we would take pictures of water andslowly caused the stream into the toilet type

(32:19):
thing, and it was funny.My daughter was in a bad mood one
day, and to get her outof the bad mood, I was like,
you want to help me record peenAnd she looked at me like what
she came up? She se usedto be asking her weird questions and before
like child services come after me.It was with a picture of water and
we went into the bathroom and andit's just fun because when you can involve

(32:43):
people in the process, it's somuch fun. Like my daughter, she
was about six when I was workingon The Americans. Um she's thirteen now.
She wasn't allowed to watch The Americansjust because of the content, but
she did get to go visit theset and that changed her perspective on medium.
On the medium of television and helpingme with these projects. She finds

(33:04):
it so much fun and so muchjoy that we get to sit there and
she's like, what is this for. I'm like, I can't really show
you this project, kiddo, buttrust me, it's going to be a
cool sound and it's going to beimportant. So there were many different ways
that we got the Peace sound,and it was funny because there was a
joke on the stage the mixtage thatyou know, at one point, Joe

(33:27):
is just like, I don't knowthat toilet sounds industrial. It doesn't sound
like a home toilet. And Isaid, Joe, I can tell you
one hundred percent it's not an industrialtoilet, and I'm not going to tell
you how I know. And everybodyjust laugh. Really, we all know
where that recording game from that weuse that day, all right, So

(33:47):
we're saying, then, I thinkwe have to just get this on record
for the court. You did actuallypee in the toilet at least for some
of these takes, yes, okay, yes, all right, it's a
sacrifice I had to make. Youknow. It's funny because as a sound
designer, we do a lot ofweird things. I carry a recorder with

(34:14):
me everywhere. Yeah, you know, I have a little microphone that can
plug into my phone that records highquality audio. But I also have a
couple other portable recorders and I alwayshave something with me to record, and
I'm always listening for new, interestingsounds to use. And sometimes you can't
find things that other people have recorded, or they haven't recorded them correctly.

(34:35):
The storm in episode one, thewindstorm, right, it knocks over the
garbage can and that can comes outright, And I couldn't find something that
worked, and so I took myrecording rig and I went out to my
backyard where I have a patio anda recycling bin full of cans, and
I threw it around for like anhour and recorded it. And my neighbors

(34:57):
thought I was nuts. They werelike, what are you doing, James,
And I'm like, go back insideand be quiet, please, I'm
recording. And I just threw mygarbage around and got the sounds that we
needed for that can to fall overand that other can to roll, you
know. And that's just part ofour job is to like, Okay,

(35:20):
you think this is such a naturalthing, right, And the idea is
that you don't know that this didn'thappen on set, right, You're you
as a viewer are to think like, oh, yeah, I don't know
how to go and pee for areally long time, and they just left
his mic on. You know.So we do all sorts of weird things
on other projects. I've done someother crazy stories that maybe we can discuss

(35:44):
another time. But that's so great. Yeah, I once had to.
I also had a show that Iworked on once where I had to record
myself that your director specifically asked forthe sound of someone peeing in a bucket
um which I did not have,and so I actually had to set up

(36:04):
a recording device in my bathroom specificallyto get me peeing in a bucket.
But it works well in the Americans. We had a couple of scenes and
bathrooms also, and we had manydiscussions about those sometimes too, because like
there was one time where they're like, that's not how somebody pees into a
jurnal and I'm like, no,no, it is. Sorry, I

(36:27):
mean, it might not be whatyou want for the sound, and yes,
we can change it for that reason, but that is the actual sound,
you know. And that's that's anotherthing is many people have a thought
in their head of what the soundit will sound like, and so sometimes
what the actual sound is isn't whatthey're thinking. Like the obvious thing is
gunshots. Gunshots sound nothing like theydo in television film, right, And

(36:53):
every time somebody's like, I wanta real gunshot, and I always have
that as one layer and I putthat in. They go, no,
no, a real gun shot.I'm like, no, that that's actually
the gun that you have on set, sound right, And it's like,
okay, now, I'll give youwhat you want and we, you know,
juice it up with all sorts ofother toys. And then they're like

(37:14):
yeah, and you're like that,you know, we're full on you.
Sorry, you know. I havethat experience a lot, particularly with wind.
I don't know how you if youhave that experience, because wind is
as much you hear it, butalso you feel it at the same time,
and the feeling it is so apart of that sensory experience. And

(37:36):
so sometimes I'll play wind for adirector and they'll be like that sounds like
the ocean, Like that is wind, you know, and so like then
you have to really like you haveto basically invent a wind that sounds like
what you think it feels like inorder for them to be like, yes,
that's the wind I'm looking for.Yeah. I actually created a wind

(37:58):
machine synth so that I can playwind, and I can change the tonality
of it because it is It's oneof those hard things where somebody's like,
I want win and then they say, oh, that sounds like the ocean,
because it does have a very oddrhythmic thing to it, and you
usually have it going through something that'srustly, like grass or leaves or trees

(38:19):
or something like that. So Icame up with this synse so that I
could sort of play it more emotionally, which is a lot of fun.
We used it a lot actually inthe patient too, for when Sam's opening
and closing that sliding door. Youknow, I'll play a whistle that comes
through, just so that you getthat hint of it. Because you also
have to think of how people arehearing it on their different devices and what's

(38:42):
going to play through their different devices, so you it's easier to be able
to play it and have like thesetones come through that suggests the wind because
they are so used to feeling it, right, You're used to feeling that
bite of cold. You're used toso now you have to make a sound
that evokes that feeling, which canbe very tough. It's the same with

(39:04):
rain, right. Rain is alwaysa hard one because you know, what
you see isn't necessarily what you wantto hear, and vice versa. And
it's a tough one to sell sometimesbecause and then they do visual effects and
they either add more rain or takeoutring. You're like, well, that's
not how I designed this thanks tothe effects with people. Oh well,

(39:27):
one of the sounds that I've youknow, just kind of notices the like
crunching when Sam is walking in fromoutside on what looks to be like a
gravel driveway. So I've thought aboutthat. And I also just noticed in
episode six, during his like sequenceof visions, when Alan takes the habdalah

(39:52):
candle and puts it out in thewine and you hear the sizzle. And
I was watching with my friend Stephie, who's slightly more observant than I am,
and she said, oh, yes, it's very important that you hear
the sizzle. And I went,wait, tell me all about that,
you know, And so now Iwant to you know, so how did
you create that sizzle? Like youmust have literally put out a candle in

(40:13):
something oll that sizzle. I have, so I have um about four terabytes
worth of sound effects, which equalsup to about three hundred and eighty thousand
sound effects in my library, soluckily I have For the candle sizzle,
I did use a candle sort ofbeing snuffed out. I also used the

(40:37):
sound of frying, like oil frying, and also the sound of a fuse,
because fuses have this sparkle to them, right, and so we actually
use that in the candle snuff outand then that bleeds into the gas chamber.

(40:57):
So it was this really cool meldingthat I did where I took that
especially the fuse sizzle was the onethat was most prominent to accentuate the feeling
of danger, right because of LooneyTunes, we all accentuate, you know,
associate fuse with bomb, and soyou have this thing that happens,
and then we morph into the shotof the gas chamber and I put in

(41:22):
the air escape of the gas witha couple of bangs because we actually did
some research into Auschwitz and gas chambersfor the show and how that whole process
worked. As depressing. Sometimes beinga sound designer can get really depressing because
we have to research these really disturbingthings. But basically, there was always
a canister that was dropped down ahole, and so that's where these bangs

(41:45):
come from that we used in thegas chamber sequence and then the gas escape.
But that fuse is to take thatsad moment and make it, you
know, almost a danger in Alan'sbrain. But it was. It was
very highly effective, and it wasfunny because we had we have long discussions
about these things during the mixed sessionsbecause it's like, oh, is that

(42:07):
too you know, that sounds likea FEUs and it's like yeah, but
psychologically that's what works, you know, and that's the feeling that we want
to evoke. Same with the gravelfootsteps. Our Fully team at Alchemy Post
did a great job. Leslie Bloomwas our fully walker and you know,
we said he walks in on gravel, and again it becomes that that timing

(42:28):
thing. His truck pulls up,the gate opens and closes, he walks
to the door, he opens thedoor right. So and we had this.
We had to have a distinct footstepssign. It couldn't just be like
a thunk. And especially since wesee him walking on gravel. Thank god
they shot that. If they didn'tshoot that gravel sequence, it would have
been so hard to sell that.But they shot that, and so you
see him walking on this gravel andit just adds that texture that crunched kind

(42:52):
of almost like a creature, right, and and you know Sam is is
a creature. We're we're exploring thiscreature that is walking among us that seems
so not dangerous. And then weput in these little hints, these little

(43:15):
you know, there's crunch. Itjust puts edge on things and it helps
you identify as he's coming through.And it's hard too, because you were
trying to sell it through a glassdoor and everything else. But you have
to identify what it is. Andluckily the gravel works because it cuts through.
If it if it was just apavement, you know, asphalt topped
thing, it would have just beena thud and you kind of would have

(43:37):
been like ah. So overall inthe production, they were smart about how
they set that up for us.Well, you made really a good point
because you're also telling us that it'sreally quiet and it's like a vacuum effect
when the door is closed. Andyet if you hear the gravel and it
builds the tension, right, Iwould assume for Alan because you know Say

(44:00):
is returning back so well, andthat that's what the truck too, you
know. You you hear that truckpull in, It pulls past the house.
We mapped it out. It pullspast the house and around the corner
and all this other stuff, andand that truck that's the first you know,
whoosh of the return. Right,Oh, here he comes, and
it's got this deep gravel growl toit. You know, it's a Tacoma

(44:24):
truck. I mean, we seeit. It's it's not like a you
know, diesel thing or anything likethat, but we still put it.
Putting it through that wall gives youthat low and then I put in some
gravel for the tires, and hepulls around, and then again that timing
thing, and it's all about likethe countdown. Yeah right, Alan's sitting
there going, oh he's returned,right, and especially with Lias right,

(44:47):
it's wait, something's different about thisreturn. Something else is happening out at
the truck. You hear these extrabangs. What are they? And then
all of a sudden you find it. Um you know, it's it's sort
of it becomes part of what we'recreating for this world and what we're creating
for the viewer as danger markers.You know, So I have a question

(45:14):
about this because when I first startedwatching the show, I was like,
I was trying to decide whether ornot this would be an exciting project for
a sound designer or not, becauseon the one hand, you have a
show that probably eighty five percent ofit takes place in a very quiet house,

(45:34):
right where ostensibly there's almost nothing happeningin that house. But then the
thing is is that everything that happensin that house is super important. Like
every single one of those noises,as you said, like the peeing is
actually a clock as to how longbefore he comes out, or like the
sounds of the outside world let usknow that danger's about to walk through the

(45:55):
glass door. Like there, allthe effects that you can here are super
important. And then I think aboutlike a science fiction movie right where like
Star Wars or something where like there'sthousands of sound effects and they're constantly happening
all the time, and they requirea different level of creativity. That's about
that. What's your favorite kind ofproject to work on, the kind where

(46:20):
there's less stuff but the things aresuper important to the plot, or something
where sound is part of a completelyother world and it's like it's almost like
you are expanding your creativity, tryingto invent sounds for things that don't necessarily

(46:42):
exist. You're gonna think this isa cheap answer, but I'm going to
say both because I love I lovethe challenge of both. And one of
the things that I loved about whenI was reading the script is, Yeah,
you're sitting there going, oh,this, I'll take places in a
basement, like you gotta be kiddingme. But then I got to thinking

(47:05):
about it, and it's like,well, every sound becomes threatening, every
sound is important. You know,the episode two, we hear those footsteps
above us, and you know inthe mix, in the surround sound,
if you were watching the surround wetried to place them above you as best
we could, and you know,it got to be fun of like how

(47:29):
do we make it not be afootstep but be a footstep? How do
we how do we make this soundsomething that you know that there's something else
in the house, but you don'tknow what it is. Right, and
myself and Ken we actually I wentover to Ken's house and I went down
in his basement with a microphone that'scalled an ambasonic microphone, so it captures

(47:52):
like a sphere of sound so youget like the atmosphere of what's in there
too. And I was in hisbasement with my microphone and recorder and he
was upstairs in his house and hewould walk back and forth. And then
we took these five pound and tenpound weights and just dropped them and rolled
them and recorded all these sounds fromhis basement opening and closing up doors.
And then I came back to myhouse and I went down to my basement.

(48:14):
My floor's a little creakier than Ken's, and we did some more stuff,
and then I took my vacuum andthat first sound that you hear in
episode two of the sound that sortof makes Alan look up is ME pulling
my vacuum across the floor and justthe wheels rolling right, and so it
becomes a recognizable but not recognizable sounds. So for me, it was like

(48:34):
such a fun challenge because what canyou do in this sort of mundane area,
right, and it I love thatchallenge. I also love the challenge
of you know, how do youcome up with a space shuttle? Right?
Like, that's fun too, Andso every every project presents its own
challenges, and this one what's sosatisfying about it is that I'm being besides

(49:00):
me talking about it with you,and that nobody else notices what I'm doing.
Right, You're just supposed to buyinto this world. And if I
did that, you know what Ikeep looking like, are people talking about
the sound design of the merit ofthe patient? And I'm like, no,
they aren't. I'm like, Okay, that's good, but I kind
of want them to talk about it. You know. It's like, besides

(49:22):
the pan, everybody's talking about thebean, but they don't realize that that's
the sound effect. You know,Yeah, but it's it's it's it's it's
so it's so fun coming up withthese challenges of what do we hear what
don't we hear u in this world? And we had a long discussion during
the first episode of what certain thingssound like? You know, Um,
we had so many discussions of whatwe hear through that glass door. You

(49:45):
know, we tried a couple ofthings. We were like, oh,
you know, do we put inyou know, a fox scream at night?
You know, do we put inh you know, a dough a
baby deer or something like that?Whining? Because have this very sort of
animalistic wine and like it's nature,and maybe that could. Sort of it's
a confusing sound because most people don'thear it, and so maybe that would

(50:07):
work. And we tried all theseother things, and then we were like,
no, it's scarier to have nothing, and we made silence part of
our musical score. And that wasone of the things when we were mixing.
You know, Nate just writes suchbeautifully haunting things, and I got

(50:30):
very used to how Nate thinks byworking on the Six Seasons of the Americans,
with Nate getting to know sort ofI don't know exactly what he's thinking
when he's writing things. We actuallynever have conversations about the sound. He
writes the score and I do thesound design, and we just happened to
meld where our brains think the soundshould go. And it works so well

(50:55):
in the patient because there's so manyinstances where sound design and music just so
seamlessly blend between each other that I'msure sometimes Nate watches the show and goes,
I didn't put that sound in there? Where that come from? You
know? And uh, but youknow, we there are lots of times

(51:15):
when we're sitting there and Joe orJoel will be like, I don't know
if we need this queue. Whenwe first sat down with this episode,
we told Nate to write a queuehere, but I don't think we need
it, and we said it's okaybecause silence is part of the score.
It is part of that emotional journeythat we have with Alan. It's such
an interesting discipline to really think aboutsilence. And I think for anybody who's

(51:38):
listening to this podcast and they're like, I can't I don't understand this concept,
I would challenge them to just sitin their house for like five minutes
and not move and just listen,and you will be amazed at how many
things you will hear in your house. It's always funny. Like I talked
about going around with the recorder allthe time, is I, you know,

(52:00):
being in and out of New YorkCity and I lived in the city
for a while. You know,I would always have the recorder and you
record different streets in the city andwhatnot, and uh, you know,
people would be like, oh,put in you know, we need a
city sound for this. You know, when I was working on thirty Rock
and you put in the city andthey're like, no, no, birds
aren't birds in the city. Andit's like, no, there are lots
of birds in the city. Youjust don't notice them because we're so busy

(52:21):
with everything else. You know,same with crickets. You know, there
are certain times when you can't youshouldn't use crickets just because of the nature
of them. But you know,people forget that they're there sometimes, and
even during the day. There's thezicadas and they're not really like I always
think it's Zicada's as a certain breedthat we have here in the Northeast.
But there's also those like sort ofdaytime crickets that you always hear out in

(52:44):
the rural areas, and they're inthe suburbs too, and people just forget
that these sounds exist. And sometimesthey're useful to us, and sometimes we
have to get rid of them inthere, peine in the butt, you
know, to get rid of outof dialogue tracks. But all these things
are part of our palette and partof how we we mess with people in
sound because taking those things out.If you look at m night, Shamalam

(53:05):
did it and signs amazingly where youknow, you're out on this farm,
da da da, and then allof a sudden, most people might not
have even noticed that all of asudden, the crickets sounds disappear because the
alien presence has come right, Cricketsgo silent when something's near them. It
was such a genius sound move togo into silence there, you know,

(53:27):
And there are so many upcoming soundpeople who don't appreciate silence. I teach
at NYU. Also I teach soundmixing, and you know, you always
have to teach the students restraint,like, no, you don't have to
fill in every hole with the sound. And I find either even other season

(53:47):
sound professionals always trying to, ohthere's a hole in dialogue there throwing a
car horn and it's like, no, it's okay, you know, like
we don't need to be reminded we'rein the city. We've done that already,
we've already estopped. Wish that silencecan be such a useful key because
you know, as in episode six, there's that opening when Sam comes home,

(54:10):
goes inside the house and then Alan'slaying there and he's having those flashbacks
to Allies, right, And Ibet when you watched it, you probably
jumped a little bit at that flashbackbecause it was quiet beforehand, and then
we get really loud. But youcan't have really loud if you don't have
quiet. It's a relative thing.So using silence to your advantage for these

(54:35):
things helps that dynamic range of emotionsthat you can cause well sound, you
know, And that's one of thethings that we're always striving for, is
playing you know, it's a pushand pull game. Yeah. I just
want to say as a psychologist thatsilence is also really important in the room
with people sometimes. And I justhad this conversation with my students last week

(54:57):
where they said, sometimes I don'tknow what to say when this happens,
and I said, sometimes you don'tneed to say anything. Sometimes you can
just sit there in silence and letpeople have their feelings. And you know,
it's it's a really difficult thing toteach because they also feel like they
need to feel feel the feel thesilence. And I'm like, nope,
just use some restraints and a littlebit and it's very interesting. Yeah.

(55:28):
Well, it's it's so interesting nowadays, especially psychologically, how reliant on noise
we've become. Right, My daughtershe's thirteen now, and you know,
it's we try to tell her,like you can't be looking at your phone
all the time. You can't.You have to sometimes be able to sit
with nothing, because that helps groundyou as a human. Like you sometimes

(55:52):
have to listen to yourself. Andit's such an odd thing nowadays. Right
you go to the beach, youcan't even listen the waves. But he's
got a radio plane. Somebody's gotit, got another radio plane. Then
you got two contrasting musics hitting bothears, and you're like going crazy and
you're being bombarded. And what youdon't understand is that that bombardment that you
can't control to your ears is anassault on your brain because your brain is

(56:15):
trying so hard to decipher everything,and then you get out of it.
It's like, when I get homefrom mixing, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted
because I spent so much time listeningand my brain was actively going I'm just
sitting in this chair, but holycow, my brain did a lot of
work. And so sometimes, youknow, my wife laughs because sometimes I

(56:36):
come home from a twelve hour dayor whatever and I just sit and she's
just like you, and I'm like, sometimes I put on I have you
know, these great earbuds that whenI'm on the bus on my way in
ers On that I'll listening to musicor something like that. The really great
at noise canceling, and sometimes Ijust have them in and don't have anything

(56:57):
playing. I just I need to, you know. But so many people
forget that. They like being distractedby everything else. And yeah, it's
that's almost what makes it better forus a little bit in the sound world
when we're designing things, because wemake people uncomfortable with silence. You know,
you're sitting in a movie theater oryou're sitting at home watch a TV
show and all of a sudden theystopped talking. I don't want to.

(57:21):
I think these guys need to shoutout only murders in the building. Building
first season, the episode that theyput up for the Emmys, and I
believe they won for mixing, wasamazing because they had no dialogue in most
of the episode, and it's suchI mean, they had all sorts of
other great sound happening, but nodialogue. And it even took me a

(57:44):
few minutes to be like, there'ssomething different about this episode. And then
they're like, all right, they'renot talking, but the story is still
coming through and It's just so uniquethese days that you know, we tend
to have such rapid fire dialogue allthe time, and it's like and that's
what I liked about the patient,and that's what I like about working with
the Jay's um. They allow thingsto sit and stew, you know,

(58:06):
they allow things to you know,just sort of sit there and they hold
your attention. You know. Wehad so many long shots of Alan sitting
there looking like, what's going tohappen? Right, and no talking and
it's just such a experience. It'sbeautiful. Sorry, I talk a lot

(58:28):
about sound. It's great. He'stotally great. I wanted to ask you
about Yeah, I wanted to askyou about mixing um so UM. I
think one of the things I'm mostinterested in is the sequences where Alan is
talking through the door to Elias,who is in the other room now it

(58:52):
did you is is Elias recorded separatelyafter the fact? Did you all do
ADR with Alias or did you allrecord him inside of that room? Yes,
we did both. It was itwas it was a blending of different

(59:12):
performances with Elias m We did keepsome from production. We did a couple
of different rounds of ADR to changestory points to change emotion of how he
was feeling. U But we ourdialogue editor went through and after the picture
department sort of said we like thesetakes, our dialogue editor went through and
made them so they were more seamlessto either And then that was that was

(59:37):
a good challenge. And I willgive props to Ken Hahn, who was
the dialogue He was the re recordingmixer for the whole show, but dialogue
is really one of his specialties.And he came up with this sound of
hearing Elias through the door that youcan still hear him clearly, but you
still get the idea that he's notin the same space with you. Yeah,

(01:00:00):
And it was Joe and Joel said, they were like, you should
get a sound, I mean,just for that because coming up with the
sound through a door that's still clear, Like if we were to play that,
how it actually sounded like they recordedhim in the room while even while
Steve was outside, And if youlisten to the outside recordings, it's very

(01:00:22):
mull flog on everything else. You'reright, and it's hard to hear him
because you know, it's just likeif somebody's standing outside my door. Now
you could tell that something's happening,but you aren't hearing the clarity because that's
high frequencies which are getting blocked.So we had to come up with a
way, and Ken did it masterfullywhere he used a reverb, a room

(01:00:42):
reverb for inside the room, andthen a room reverb for outside the room,
and took it instead of it beingjust a mono source, he took
the as almost the whole door andwall were vibrating the sound of Alis's voice
and spread it across the front fieldwe're talking about, you know, in
the surround space, the front threespeakers, the left, center, right,

(01:01:07):
and in sarrio you still get thesame effect, but he spread it
and then when Steve talked, whenAlan talks, it's a mono source right
until we switched to inside the room. You know, like it was this
whole dance of how do you makesomebody talking through a door still intelligible?
And it was a good challenge.It was fun. So it's like recording

(01:01:29):
somebody inside the actual room, thenrecording somebody later again, and then trying
to make them sound like they werein the actual room, then taking both
of those recordings and trying to makethem into a new sound that is a
combination of all of that put togetherplus all of these other things that are
more convincing, so that you arelike I clearly hear you behind a door,

(01:01:53):
which is actually, as you pointout, a physical impossibility, right,
Yeah, And we do that acouple of times with I mean,
that's what adr is is they shooton location somewhere and then we replace it
and there's totally somewhere else, youknow, And then we have to you
know, not only do the actorshave to get back into character, right

(01:02:15):
like, sometimes they've shot this stuffmonths ago and now all of a sudden
they have to get back to thisemotional place, so they have to get
back into character. But then,you know, they might be recording in
a small, you know, fiveby seven booth and we have to make
it sound like a basement or wehave to make it sound like an airport
hanger or you know, and wehave to match it. And then yeah,

(01:02:37):
and on top of it, wehave to make it sound like you're
coming through a door. Like butwe can still understand it because well it's
sort of story relevant, you know, it becomes Then that's again where it
comes to, like you ask whattypes of projects I like doing. It's
just another fun challenge for me.I like having those I haven't done this
before. Let's see what we cando. Yeah, you know, I

(01:03:01):
think it's what's interesting to hear youtalk, James, and I just want
to say, I really find youvery inspiring and sort of exciting. Is
I can clearly see how passionate youare about how sound is such an important
part of telling a story. Ithink sometimes people think of people in technical

(01:03:21):
feels as just like nerds who liketurning knobs, and you know, they're
mostly just concerned with like the reallysuper technical aspects of it. But actually
the things that people really care aboutare and get really passionate about, is
how to tell the story best forthe maximum impact for the listener. And

(01:03:43):
I think sometimes people don't necessarily getthat. And it's really great to hear
you talk this way. Oh,even people in the industry. I mean,
some people see me as just abutton pusher and just somebody who's going
to make sure that the network getswhat they need or you know, the
studio gets what they need. Ialways describe myself as a technical artist.

(01:04:03):
I have to make sure that myart form stays within a certain technical range.
And I do that so that everybodyelse can enjoy my art form.
My art form is meant to beenjoyed by masses, and so I need
to make sure that you know,if you're listening to surround sound, it

(01:04:24):
sounds really cool. If you're listeningon earbuds, it sounds really cool.
I have to technically be able totake these two very wide things and make
them work every time. And mywhole job is to enhance the story.
Right, this story the patient isnot my story to tell, but it
is my story to make sure thatothers enjoy it. And so I am

(01:04:45):
here to support you, know thatin any way that I can. Now,
I happen to have you gotten aBachelor of Science and audio and studied
psychology of audio and studied physiology ofaudio, and I go acoustics and all
sorts of other fun things. AndI've been doing it for twenty two years
now. And some people take advantageof that and go, what do you

(01:05:10):
think? How do we make thisbetter? And some people just say make
that louder, you know, ButI can't not be passionate about it,
because not only have I sort ofdedicated myself to this, But I've always
been a fan of audio. Somepeople take it for granted what we can

(01:05:30):
hear and don't realize how wonderful itis this experience. I mean, it's
as a sense, as a bodysense. It's one of two senses that
can do recall in your brain,you know, you audio is one of
the things that can take you backto something. Right, you hear a
song, Oh, I danced withso and so at the eighth grade dance.

(01:05:50):
It was a lovely time. Right. The other one that does it
is smell. Oh, that's applepie. I remember going to my grandma's
house. Right. And our audiois just the other one that can do
that. And we use that totell the stories and support the stories of
what people want to say. Andwe do it in all sorts of forms,
not only in shows like The Patient, but we do it in documentaries,

(01:06:12):
and we do it in you know, every sort of sense so that
people can enjoy this sensation. It'salso a sense that actually physically penetrates us
in a way. You know,it does come into us, right,
It's it's coming into us, andwe barely have any control over it,
you know, eating we have controlover right, smelling. We kind of

(01:06:34):
have control over but hearing. Unlessyou cover your ears, it's coming at
you no matter what. And soyou know, you have to treat that
with the respect I think, andI think a lot of people don't.
But that's my job is to tryto not only educate them, but make

(01:06:54):
the experience respectful so they can enjoy. Wow, that's really cool, James.
We have so enjoyed having you withus here today. This has been
such an illuminating a perspective for us. And I think maybe those who watch
television show hopefully will even listen hardereven though they're I think they're listening pretty

(01:07:15):
hard already for your work. Andwe're really really grateful for it. Thank
you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. You're welcome.
I do want to point out onething about episode six that I'm really
proud of though. Okay, yeah, so in six, when Sam is
going and digging the hole in theback room, right, we did this

(01:07:36):
whole sequence, And what's really coolabout it is so he goes back there
and he starts sledgehammering it, andthen he goes to the jackhammer and then
we meet Charlie, right, andCharlie's a different world. We're inside Alan's
protective bubble, so to say.And what was so cool about the experience

(01:07:56):
was we got to invade that bubblewith sound in such a weird way because
what we did was we took thehammering and the jackhammering and we muted it
almost more like a typical through thedoor sound. And then if you were
listening in surround sound, or evenif you were listening with headphones on,
the sounds to sort of go behindyou because it's in the back of Alan's

(01:08:18):
head. Like that was it waslike for me, like that was just
such a fun moment because I'm like, nope, we're putting it into the
back of his head because he's tryingnot to focus on that. And like
when that jackhammer first comes in,it actually goes from the back to the
front sound wise because it breaks intohis world. And and I was just
really proud of how we did that. That's awesome. It's one of my

(01:08:38):
favorite scenes. I think. Ithink those scenes are so cool. And
I made a point of mentioning howhe's in a therapy session but you can
hear the jackhammer in the background,so he's not able to fully escape what's
happening in his reality, you know, in this image that he's happening.
So I thought it was really tremendous. Yeah it was. I mean it

(01:09:00):
was such a team effort, butI really loved the way that we pulled
it off. It was so Ithought it was tremendous. So that's awesome.
Well, congratulations on an amazing job. We're so so glad to talk
to you today. Thank you somuch for being with us. Yeah,
so apporiate. I would love todo it more. Okay, that was

(01:09:25):
really amazing. I never knew whatI didn't know about how sound is created
on a television show. I'm justI'm in awe of the whole process.
I know, it's fascinating. It'sfascinating, and I think the thing that
you don't really think about that hetalked about so eloquently was the idea of

(01:09:53):
how much thought and care and artistrygoes in to something that you, if
it's done correctly, will never evenknow ever happened, Like you'll never even
think about it for a second.And I kind of love it. Yeah,
I mean I'm thinking about it constantlynow, Like you hear someone on

(01:10:14):
the phone with someone you can hearthat side of the conversation, well obviously
you can't hear that sound that sideof the conversation, so that sound is
being added. And he told usthat nearly every single sound you hear in
the show is added afterwards, andthat that's just like amazing to me.
I can't think of a different wordother than amazing, but yeah, it's

(01:10:38):
amazing. It is. It isamazing. And they have to sit there
and line up every single sound withevery single visual action, so like you
know, the things where like ifif Elias's body falls on the gravel,
they got to stand there and makeit so that the sound of that happens
right at the right time. It'sit's it's fascinating, but also like it

(01:11:01):
really shows you how much those soundsreally affect you, you know what I
mean, Like like they really dowell. And not only that, but
like how involved the jays were inevery single sound, Like how many different
times they peered, you know,pee and a pete and a bowl pete

(01:11:21):
and a cup poured water like toget just the right sound of peeing,
you know, like was amazing tome. You know, Like, so
it's so it's not just like,oh, let's go get some sound of
a you know, a horn honking. Let's get three hundred sounds and listen

(01:11:44):
to all of them ten times anddecide which is going to give us the
exactly right tone for this moment inthe show. It's mind totally mind blowing,
is right. I wrote down someof the things, Oh go ahead,
Oh yeah, no Q. Iwrote down some of the things he

(01:12:06):
said that really captured me. AndI cheated, I said, I said
one earlier before we regarded the soundscapeof the show, like that was I
thought, a really beautiful word.He talked about the palettes of sound,
and he said painting for your ears. Those were really yeah, beautiful ways

(01:12:29):
of describing his work. Yeah.Absolutely. I mean, first of all,
I could talk to that guy allday in the same way that you
could probably talk to Laura Pettler allday long about death and murder. I
could talk to that guy all daylong about sound. But what I loved
about him the most was just Ilove how much he loves his job.

(01:12:54):
Okay, like I'm totally like intohow much he really was into it,
like and and I found him sosort of inspiring and it just made me
want to go out and be like, guys, have you heard about the
sound on the Patient? Because it'samazing and there's so much in it.
I also really appreciated to how hetook a job that, in theory,

(01:13:21):
the sound might not matter so much, you know what I mean. It's
not necessarily a big budget, blackbustertype of situation, and one could easily
be like, oh, it's youknow, it's just show set mostly in
a basement, probably not a wholelot of exciting things happening here. And
he really found he really found afirst of all, a tremendous amount of

(01:13:42):
opportunities to really come up with somecool ideas, but also, like you
know, the he was able tofind a tremendous amount of pride and joy
in his work within the little,tiny things that maybe won't be necessarily noticed

(01:14:02):
by folks. I don't know,there's something about seeing a person who really
loves what they do that I findreally heartwarming and inspiring. I don't know,
how do you feel about that?Oh? Absolutely? And I have
to say he was such a mensch, you know, he was just such
a nice guy and so so generouswith you know, telling us everything.

(01:14:23):
Both he and Nathan Barr were soeasy to talk to and so generous and
so and so passionate about like youlike you're saying about what they do and
having a lot of fun. Imean, he said basically that he walks
around with a recorder everywhere he goes, you know, so that he can
he hears like some sound that hemight need at some point. Having three

(01:14:46):
hundred and fifty thousand pieces of storagesound is just you know, like I
think he's listening all the time.You know, most of us don't hardly
ever listen, but James is listeningall the time. Yeah, he's listening.
He's probably recording you right now,if you're listening to this, he's
somewhere in that room. Yeah.Yeah, you're going to be on the

(01:15:11):
show for sure. Now that's mydream, are you kidding? I want
to be on the show. Youwant to podcast that is based around your
life, like the Truman Show offyou're basically as a podcast. No,
that might be creepy, but okay, yeah, you're right, that's too
far. All right, Only Jameshas allowed the room. No one else

(01:15:33):
right right, Well, it lookslike our time is up, Lindsay,
and um, we're gonna have towrap it up for today. We'll see
you next time on Psychoanalyzing the Patient