Dror Mohar served as sound designer, re-recording mixer and score mixer on Apple TV+'sLady in the Lake, starring Natalie Portman. Mohar is both a close friend and long-time collaborator with series creator Alma Har'el.
The series spans seven episodes and looks at the disappearance of a young girl in Baltimore on Thanksgiving in 1966. Portman plays Jewish housewife Maddie Schwartz, who is seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist. Moses Ingram plays Cleo Johnson, a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family. When Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s death, a chasm opens, putting everyone around them in danger.
Here, Dror shares insight into his work on the soundtrack.
Tell us about the sound effects needed for Lady in the Lake?
"The effects needed for Lady in the Lake were made up of environmental elements, quite a bit of Foley, organic ‘hard’ effects, and tonal textures — sound design elements used to create or enhance mood and perspective. Through the show, there is a constant play between the internal world and experience of the main characters and how it drives their actions as the story unfolds. A big reason behind the elements we chose and created was to enhance this experience.”
Did you receive a directive as far as theme, style or sound?
“Director Alma Har’el has a very unique and dynamic filmmaking style and sonic signature to go with it. In Lady in the Lake, she weaves together a murder mystery set against the backdrop of a racially-charged and class-charged period in Detroit. As the sound designer, I was tasked with using sonic elements to differentiate those two parts of the show, establish the sound of the environments and technology of that period, create a distinction between the different racial and religious groups, and enhance the ebbs and flows of suspense. Sometimes that was through specific designs, and sometimes that meant specific choices of effects and mixing treatments. Another aspect of sound was creating treatments and designs to detach from ‘real life’ and go into subjective scenes. Alma takes a dive into the two sides of the human experience: the inner one we all have in common, and the outer one, which emphasizes our differences. She brings the characters’ background and state of mind to the surface, and shows how that, along with their race, religion and class, translates into everyday life. Every sound direction and choice was aimed at supporting those stories.”
What tools were you using?
“I used Pro Tools for editing and mixing, and software instruments (mostly from Native Instruments) and a range of plug-ins for processing.”
What scenes would you point to as a highlight of the soundtrack?
“The dock sequence, where Cleo reflects back on her childhood, and what brought her to that point, and the dance sequence that comes right after that sees Cleo losing herself on the dance floor. The subjective sequence flows right into a dynamic dance sequence, which is intercut with an intense sensual scene of Maddy and Officer Platt in her apartment. What was interesting in terms of working on those was that the sound design was completely different before we got to the mix stage, and in the mix, we found that it wasn’t hitting the emotion that it needed. We ended up scratching it and I completely reworked the sound design on the mixing stage. We introduced elements from earlier scenes for the subjective part, which then transitioned really well into the high energy of the dance sequence, with a variety of feet stomping and movement transitions to play the rhythm. It was very collaborative and just came together naturally.”