The sounds of The Wire
You don’t typically think of The Wire as a show that used audio to great effect, but you’d be wrong. From the show’s use of music only ambient to the scene (e.g. a car radio playing), the season-end montages, and the background soundtracks that accompanied certain characters or situations, The Wire’s use of music and sound was quite calculated and effective. At Reddit, a sound editor who worked on the show shared her experiences.
One of my crew’s challenges, then, was to find ways to evoke mood with backgrounds. When a character is in a crowded situation he is not comfortable with, listen for background laughter. When McNulty is drunk and on the prowl, listen for dogs barking (because he’s a dog - my own private commentary on his character). There was a whole world of work that went in to creating the sound of Hamsterdam and building it from an empty to thriving enterprise.
Working with Felicia Pearson was challenging:
Snoop was tricky. That DeWalt scene wasn’t the first time she was in the show (she’s a scout for Marlo the first time we see him in season three maybe?) but it was the most dialog she had up until then, and the HBO note was that she was completely unintelligible. I had her in the studio to do pretty much the entire scene over it felt like, and whenever I had a new actor in the studio, I would always ask (unless I recognized them from something else) if they had done ADR before because “The Wire” used so many non-actors. She said “no ma’am” so I walked her through the process and she did a great job. Stayed in sync, matched her cadence… and sounded exactly as unintelligible as she did on set!
But so was Dominic West:
McNulty (Dom West) came in often and was awesome, as well. His accent showed most often when the character was drunk or angry. Oddly, the name “Stringer Bell” tripped him up a lot. “Stringa” and then a very over-enunciated end to “Bell-eh.” Also, the words “fuck” and “cunt” came out “feck” and “cahnt” and the only way to break him of it was to stand right in front of him (so he could watch the mouth shape) and say the word over and over again. So a Dom West ADR session often went like this:
Me (with Dom staring at my mouth): Cunt. Cunt. Cunt.
Dom: Cahnt. Shit, do it again, please.
Me: Cunt. Cunt. Cunt.
Dom: Cunt. Cunt. OK, let’s record…
(three beeps, the line starts and):
Dom: …cahnt. Feck! Say it again.
Me: Cunt….There were some instances where we didn’t bring Dom in for ADR because the emotion and energy of the scene would be compromised if we tinkered with his accent, and I support that decision, but it still pains me to hear those lines and feel like something slipped by me. I was like, the last checkpoint before dialog went on the air.
Which reminds me, the “Fuck” scene (McNulty/Bunk) — when picture came to me, there were only about 30 “fucks” in it. We brought the guys in together and played the scene over and over and slammed a variation of “fuck” everywhere it would fit. I think the final mix tops off at somewhere in the 80 range? My personal contribution was Bunk’s “fuck, fuck fuckitty fuck.”
And Michael K. Williams cannot whistle:
Michael K Williams cannot whistle! It’s totally true. We brought him in and he tried but it just wasn’t happening. Omar’s whistle is provided by a lovely and talented loop group member named Susan, who is an actor and John Waters’ personal assistant.
To which another Redditor replied, “Susan’s coming yo!” The whole thread is great, read it.
Stay Connected