Nancy Nugent Title (‘Wicked’ sound editor) on maintaining musicality across live vocals and ‘organic gear’ effects
“Our first goal was to never feel a shift between spoken dialogue and song vocals, for it to all exist in the same space all the time,” explains “Wicked” supervising sound editor Nancy Nugent Title. That was no small feat when making a big screen adaptation of one of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time. But, she ensured that a keen sense of musicality runs through the sound design of the entire film. We spoke to Nugent Title as part of our Meet the Experts sound design panel. Watch the video interview above.
The decision to record live vocals on set makes sense when world class singers like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are leading the film, but it required the sound team to solve a laundry list of logistical challenges. Nugent Title describes receiving test sound roles from production sound mixer Simon Hayes early on in the process so the team “could prepare ourselves for the massive amount of coverage that he was going to provide,” she explains. Multiple booms were used in each shot to capture individual characters. Microphones were used absolutely everywhere, with each actor sporting multiple body mics in order to capture their voice through even the most complex choreography. “We had the frequency coverage between all those microphones to retain those performances in a very rich, authentic way,” explains Nugent Title.
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For a large dance number like “Dancing Through Life,” Nugent Title had to follow the music through multiple sonic layers to achieve the final product. Some takes were filmed specifically to capture the sounds of the ensemble’s footwork as they danced, and combined with captures of their singing and vocal reactions. Foley then came into play for her favorite sound effect in the film: the giant rotating “hamster wheel” that Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) slinks through as he turns the library into a playground. “All of that is meticulously timed and tuned to all of the music,” notes Nugent Title, “there’s a click track that we had running through the whole movie so that everything would never be fighting the music.”
When it came to the sound effects featured in the famed Emerald City, Nugent Title was guided through her work by the strong aesthetic established early in production. “Everything in Oz is created with the idea that The Wizard made this, that it’s all gears,” she reveals, “and he’s in his lab creating these things as part of his illusion.” So mechanical sounds can be observed in The Wizard’s diorama, or in his iconic metal face he uses to intimidate visitors. The latter set piece was filmed using a giant, weighty puppet, and its movement inspired Nugent Title’s accompanying sound design. “Sometimes, the head would bob forward, and that was just because it really was that heavy,” she recalls, “but it worked perfectly. And so having all those really organic, gear sounds, I think it really worked.”
Nugent Title is a two-time Emmy winner for “When Dinosaurs Roamed America” and “Dinosaur Planet.” She earned an additional Emmy nomination for “Before We Ruled the Earth.”