At 11:30pm on October 11, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television – and culture – forever. Directed by Jason Reitman, written by Gil Kenan & Reitman, and told in realtime, Saturday Night is based on the true story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of
Saturday Night Live. Full of humor, chaos and the magic of a revolution that almost wasn’t, we count down the minutes until we hear those famous words…
Graced by Reitman’s inspired direction and the standout performances of his large ensemble cast, the film also benefits from an innovative, meticulously-crafted soundtrack. The product of an unusually-tight collaboration between the film’s production and post production sound teams based at Sony Pictures, the soundtrack seamlessly recreates the tense atmosphere of 1970s live TV while capturing the magic and mayhem behind the birth of a show that changed television and comedy forever.
Supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Will Files led a team whose principals also included production sound mixer Steve Morrow, supervising sound editor/FX supervisor Lee Gilmore, supervising sound editor/DX supervisor David Butler, music editor Chris Newlin and dialog & music mixer Tom Ozanich.
Files says that from his earliest discussions with Reitman, it was clear that Saturday Night was a special project.
“The first thing Jason told us was that sound was going to be more important in this film than in any of his previous films,” he recalls. “That got our attention. It was exciting but daunting. We knew it was going to be a trial by fire.”
Saturday Night is packed with rapid fire, outrageously-funny dialogue. There are relatively few scenes where someone is not speaking, and characters sometimes talk over one another. Funny lines are not only delivered by characters in the foreground, but also by those on the periphery and even off-camera. To ensure they captured all this dialogue in clean tracks, the production sound crew took the unusual step of providing the whole cast with individual radio or lavalier microphones. In some scenes, as many as 30 actors wore mics. Even more microphones were employed in scenes involving live musical performances with guitars, keyboards, drums and other instruments also individually recorded.
“We mic’ed everyone in every scene,” recalls Morrow. “We instructed everyone to talk and have real conversations rather than mime dialogue, even if they were in the background. In post, if someone was in the deep background, we could put their improvised dialogue in the background versus having nothing there. There were often ad libs that were hysterical, and this approach enabled us to bring that dialogue up a little so the joke could be heard.”
Additionally, multi-channel ambisonic microphones were placed above sets to capture ambience and ensemble performances.
“The way the movie was shot with the camera moving in 360-degree space, it was impossible to use boom mics without creating shadows,” Morrow says. “Ceiling mics allowed us to capture people chattering and the vibe of the room in a natural and unobtrusive manner. That helped us ensure that the dialogue ‘lived in reality,’ rather than sounding like a podcast.”
Ultimately, the production team delivered a huge amount of source recordings to the post production sound editors. They also provided live mixes that they produced during filming to capture the spontaneity, depth and scope of the actors’ live performances.
Initially, Reitman wanted the sound team to incorporate the live mixes into the final soundtrack because they were so raw and real, but, ultimately, the sound editors and mixers were obliged to take a different approach.
“The live mixes had a messiness to them that Jason really liked but there were technical issues,” explains Ozanich. “Because they were done with open mics placed at different distances from people, there were problems with phase cancellation, comb filtering and things of that nature. The mixes were so dense, everyone was compromised by the people around them.”
Instead, the team worked to replicate the “messiness” of the live mixes while building dialogue tracks from individual elements.
“We needed to control who was being understood at any given moment,” Ozanich notes. “We also needed to be able to clean up and clarify individual actors. Using individual mic tracks allowed us to make everyone sound like themselves and correct for technical anomalies. It also enabled us to move things around, to make the sound move with the camera and guide the audience’s focus. When characters cross the frame, the sound goes with them. You hear their dialogue as they walk away, and even after they leave the frame.”
Using the individual mic tracks also had the benefit of increasing creative flexibility.
“Because we had dialogue for every person on-screen, we could put characters into the left or right channel as needed,” notes Butler. “In essence, we used them like a loop group of principal actors. We might have Paul Shaffer [played by Paul Rust] or Gilda Radner [played by Ella Hunt] talking off-camera. Gilda has a very distinct voice and when you hear her in the background, you recognize her…even while focusing on the conversation that’s happening on-screen.”
Having access to so much raw material was a creative boon, but also labor intensive.
“Going through Steve’s track was like an archeological dig,” Butler says. “It was a process of identifying every character that was speaking. At one point, I had ten tracks of people talking at the same moment. Who do we feature? What’s the most important narrative piece? What’s the best joke? And…how do we do all that while maintaining the baseline chaos Jason wanted.”
The final mix was completed by Files and Ozanich on Sony Pictures’ recently renovated Kim Novak Theater. Scenes that included both dialogue and music were especially challenging.
“We might have a scene where two characters are talking while musicians in the background are picking guitars, tuning drums and doing other things of that nature,” recalls Newlin. “For those scenes, we used a combination of production audio and elements that Jon Batiste, the film’s composer, had recorded earlier of musicians tuning and jamming. We used those elements like Foley tracks to support moments where we didn’t have sync audio. It worked great. When Billy Preston [played by Jon Batiste] is talking with Garrett Morris [played by Lamorne Morris], you feel like you’re standing there with them and the band.”
Similar artistry went into replicating the ambience of 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s Studio H, where much of the action takes place. While those scenes were shot on a set, the sound team sent a crew to New York to make field recordings in the real-world Studio H space.
“Studio H was originally built for radio broadcasts and adapted over the years for use as a shooting stage,” says Files. “As such, it is quite live acoustically compared with a typical Hollywood sound stage. Even now, when you watch SNL, you can hear that space. When an actor says, ‘Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night,’ you hear an echo.”
To recreate the stage’s echo-y ambience, the sound team used machine learning software to extract reverb from recordings made at the real Studio H and other software to apply it to Dolby Atmos soundtrack elements.
“Tom used it on the music and dialogue, while I used it with sound effects, Foley and loop groups,” recalls Files. “It’s the actual reverb so it gives you the feeling of being in the actual space. It’s the glue that holds the whole thing together.”
Gilmore added to the ‘70s vibe by sourcing sound effects specific to the era. “Honestly, we were a little obsessive,” he admits. “We did a deep dive to figure things out. What elevators did they have at 30 Rock in 1975? What machinery was in the control room? The ‘70s were a noisier time. Switches and knobs had to sound old and clunky. Cab horns couldn’t be too modern. Times Square should feel hot and grimy.”
Gilmore filled out the background environment with ambient sound culled from the ambisonic recordings captured on the set.
“Jason didn’t want sound beds with lots of layers that could build up and make things murky,” he observes. “So, we sifted through Steve’s mics and pulled out snippets with a lot of personality like hammering, falling objects or other extraneous sounds. We used those to create authentic spotted backgrounds that had great personality because they were composed of real things.”
The sound team relied almost exclusively on “real things,” whether dialogue, effects or ambient sound, throughout the process of constructing the film’s soundtrack. And yet, insists Files, the finished product is not “real,” but rather a carefully crafted illusion.
“There’s a big difference between something that feels real and something that feels authentic,” he says. “A good soundtrack can feel authentic without reflecting reality. This whole film is like that. It’s not a documentary. Rather it makes a creative leap that takes you into a world of amazingly controlled chaos. It’s not the real world, but nothing is inauthentic. It all rings true.”
Saturday Night is now available to buy or rent on digital platforms.