Christina Wen served as the supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer on the Tribeca TV seriesPresumed Innocent. The eight-episode limited series stars Jake Gyllenhaal, who also executive produced the project. Hailing from David E. Kelley and executive producer JJ Abrams, the show is based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Scott Turow.
Photo: Christina Wen; credit: Himo Group
Presumed Innocent takes viewers on a gripping journey through a horrific murder that upends the Chicago Prosecuting Attorney’s office when one of its own is suspected of the crime. Gyllenhaal plays chief deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich and is joined by a cast that includes Ruth Negga, Bill Camp, Elizabeth Marvel, Peter Sarsgaard, O-T Fagbenle and Renate Reinsve. The show is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Here Christina shares insight into the series' use of sound effects to enhance the narratives of each character, and how sound is used to create doubt about Rusty's innocence.
Hi Christina! How did you get involved in the soundtrack for Presumed Innocent?
“I was brought onto the project by post sound studio Signature Post to mix on the first season of Presumed Innocent. It was an amazing experience getting to work with an extremely creative and collaborative team, and I had the best time mixing on this series.”
How did you use sound effects to enhance each character's narrative?
“In Presumed Innocent, many characters had big personalities, and I think it really came down to the details in the sound effects and Foley to help accentuate those personalities sonically. To give a few examples, in the later episodes of the series in the courtroom, I played up Tommy Molto’s Foley to project his confidence and cockiness, and to show how passionate he feels about the case. During intimate conversations between Rusty and his kids, it was important for me to accentuate each movement to make the audience feel the vulnerabilities and to have the audience feel close to the characters in those moments. When Rusty first opens up to his kids, and we see him breaking down, sitting on the staircase, I gradually pull out the ambiance sound in hopes of creating a feeling of the air getting sucked out of the room, and we are just sitting in Rusty’s sadness.”
You used both realistic and unrealistic sounds for Rusty. Can you provide a couple of examples of how you achieved that?
“Many of Rusty’s flashbacks to relive his relationship with Caroline’s character had lots of unrealistic sound design elements created by our amazing sound editorial team, my sound supervisor Nick Forshager, sound effects supervisor Scott Sanders and sound designer Matt Temple. I had a lot of great elements to mix into the series, and one big element of Rusty’s memory of Caroline was the element of being underwater. In the mix, during many of his flashbacks of her, I tried to create a feeling of Rusty drowning in his memory of Caroline.
“One of my favorite scenes to mix was a scene in Episode 104, where Rusty had to think about the night of Caroline’s murder. Our producers Trevor Baker and Andrew Balek came up with the idea of playing sounds of actions from Rusty’s interaction with Caroline the night she was murdered that doesn’t match what exactly is happening on-screen and varies slightly each time he thinks of their interaction to create this confusion in hopes of encouraging the audiences to really wonder if Rusty is telling the truth in his testimony, and to question his innocence. We were hoping to utilize different sounds drawn from his memory, whether it’s Rusty ringing Caroline’s doorbell or violently knocking on Caroline’s door, to make the audience wonder if Rusty is really trying to remember what happened the night of the murder or is he trying to make up a story.
“I tried to really play with reverbs, delay and pans to create a dreamy and unrealistic feeling to Rusty’s memory of Caroline to emphasize that the Caroline we see from Rusty’s perspective is really a representative of his obsession with her.”
How did you distinguish between the sounds during Rusty’s flashbacks and memories as opposed to the present time?
“Every time Rusty goes into his head space, we treat the sounds of reality around him with effects, such as big reverbs, delays and more, and sometimes I would even pull away the sound of reality and push up drone effects-sounding elements, and pan a lot of these elements in all directions to create a feeling of being sonically submerged/drowned.”
Can you talk a little bit about your mixing setup?
“I used Avid Pro Tools and Dolby Atmos Renderer to mix this series. Presumed Innocent is mixed in Home Theater Atmos format. A few of the plug-ins I used a lot in the mix for this series included Fab Filter EQ and compressor plug-ins, Exponential Audio Stratus reverb, Audio Ease Altiverb and Speakerphone.”
Is there a particular scene that you would like to highlight as your favorite?
“There are so many! Besides the few I already named, I have to mention the scene where Brian Ratzer’s character showed up at Rusty’s house, where a fight broke out in chaos. It was such a tense scene, and so much was going on. I got to pan the violent door knocking to follow the camera’s angle to emphasize the chaos. When the fight broke out, we first accentuated the impact and the realness of the violence of the punches, and then transitioned the punches into impressionistic-sounding punches by using reverb and EQ. It was so fun to get to mix that conflict scene and get to maneuver the fabulous sound designs provided to me by the sound editorial team.”
What’s next for you?
“I am currently mixing the new FX comedy series on Hulu, English Teacher, created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez. I will also be supervising and mixing Who Are You? Nanu, directed and written by Anjini Taneja Azhar. The film is about (how) Aisha's grandfather's (Nanu's) ceremonial cremation brings her to the Ganges River in India, (where) eight-year-old oddball Aisha befriends the phantom of her Nanu's rambunctious 11-year-old self and discovers the journey after death.”