'Spider Noir' Sound Team Discusses How They Crafted The Sound Design Of The Film Noir Series
FilmSpeak sits down with the sound team behind ‘Spider Noir’ where they discussed how they crafted the show’s audio design and much more.
‘Spider Noir’ centers on Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a down on his luck private detective who has hung up his mask as the city’s superhero “The Spider” after a personal tragedy. However, when a new case lands on his desk, he’s quickly propelled into a dark, tangled web of corruption that sends him hurdling back toward his old life. While the series has a gorgeous and highly immersive film noir visual aesthetic, the sound design is a crucial element that helps elevate this story even further. Respecting the film noir genre was paramount for this team and they were more than happy to delve into their goals for the project.
Re-recording mixers Nick Offord and Ryan Collins were instrumental in bringing the sound design of the show to life. Speaking to the subject of paying homage to the film noir genre, Offord stated, “Ethan, Andy, Ryan and myself talked a lot about how we wanted to stylize the show you know in a noir setting, but also pay homage of course to the Spider-Man IP…cause there’s a lot fans and they’ll call you out if it’s wrong.” Collins added, “The original pitch to Oren was we really wanted to make sure we really leaned into the noir style.” Supervising sound editor Ethan Beigel added on by saying, “For us in editorial, it was about selecting sounds that could sound more period.” Production sound mixer Matthew Sanchez wanted to make sure what he was capturing on set only aided in post production. He goes on to state, “The thing with me was trying to get the dialogue as clear, crisp as possible so the post team has the full spectrum to work with and they’re not getting shortchanged on anything.” Crafting a soundscape that could be effective and enveloping and both black and white and in the show’s true hue color brought about its own challenges as well.
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When it came to figuring out what sound effects and tools worked best in both formats, Offord began by stating, “Yeah, it was a challenge. We had even talked about at one point that it would be cool to have two versions of the mix, black and white and a color, but budgetary and time restriction wise we had one shot so we had to make one version that was cohesive with both.” Collins supported his sentiments by saying, “Pretty quickly we learned that the sound had to be the glue that connected these two worlds.” Beigel added, “I think people think that picture and sound are two very distinct crafts and technically they are, but when you perceive the movie, you perceive it totally differently in color and black and white.” One of the considerable highlights in both versions of the show was the sound design pertaining to Ben’s spidey sense.
Speaking about how they crafted the more painful sounding sound design for not only Ben, but for the supplementary super-powered characters, Beigel stated, “That was the whole premise of I think all the characters…that was an early conversation that Oren had that he wanted these superpowers to be like an affliction for the characters. So yes, the spidey sense is painful for Ben when it happens.” Collins added to Beigel’s remarks by saying, “We used a series of you know vibration recordings to make that up. The thing about the spidey sense is that each one has a hidden sound in it that is foreshadowing what’s about to happen…if there’s a fight coming up, maybe we’ll use a sound from the fight and that’ll be hidden within the spidey sense.” Safe to say, these elements make it highly appealing to re-watch the series and pay closer attention to when Ben’s spidey sense takes over.
‘Spider Noir’ is a series that can be appreciated from both a visual and audio perspective, the two elements working in tandem to deliver a wholly immersive viewing experience that truly rattles the senses. What the sound team was able to accomplish over the course of these episodes was nothing short of remarkable and their attention to detail is what makes the sound design of the series so enjoyable and impressive. If the show returns for a season two, there is boundless potential for where this talented team can take the soundscape of the series next.