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DEPARTMENT www.postmagazine.com 35 POST AUGUST 2017 GLOW The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling take center stage in the new Netflix original comedy series GLOW, which premiered June 23 rd . The 10-episode season, set in the 1980s, follows the personal and professional lives of a group of women who be- come wrestling stars. GLOW executive producers Liz Flahive, Carly Mensch and Jenji Kohan returned to Larson Studios in Los Angeles, CA (www.larson.com) for audio post. They've previously worked with Larson's supervising sound editor John Kincade and re-recording mixers Chris Philp (dialogue/ music) and John Chamberlin (effects/Foley/back- grounds) on Netflix's hit series, Orange is the New Black. Kincade says, "We have years of trust and a real comfort factor built into our creative relation- ship. These are the best people in the world to spend time with on cold, dark mix stages making something wonderful together." Kincade and sound effects editor Colette Dahanne were tasked with creating a complete- ly believable soundscape for GLOW, from the backgrounds to the spot effects. "These incredi- ble actresses were doing 95 percent of their own wrestling stunts and it was up to us in post to make every single action scene sound as authen- tic and true as possible," says Kincade. Every movement in the ring had to be covered with believable sound in post — the wrestlers' feet, flesh grabs and slaps, body slams and all the rope impacts because these were not captured during production. For authenticity, they even re- corded foot slams to sell every fake punch (since its how they sell fake punches in the real world of wrestling). Dahanne went to a boxing gym in Downtown LA to record a library of specific wrestling ring sounds, like rope movements, hits, bounces, twangs, body lands and rolls inside the ring and an authentic vintage boxing bell. In addition, the Larson Foley artist team of Tom Kilzer, Gretchen Thoma, Nick Feil and Adam DeCoster did extensive work on the ring foot- steps, which have a distinct big, booming sound. "They don't exist in the production tracks at all. But if you listen to the finished shows you hear every single step, every detail," says Kincade. "The last episode was so huge with nonstop fights, that sound effects editor John Peccatiello had to be brought in to help cut that last monster episode on an accelerated mix schedule." The series is set in the 80s so it was imper- ative to remove every sonic reference to 2017, and that's just what dialogue editor Todd Niesen was able to do with the production track. "A true no-noise expert, Todd surgically removed any problems. We don't call him 'Captain Audio' for nothing," says Kincade. With the 2017 sounds gone, Dahanne filled in the space with 80s traffic sounds, airplanes and sirens. She used sound to help reinforce the characters' backgrounds and story. For example, two of the main female characters, Ruth (Alison Brie) and Debbie (Betty Gilpin), are good friends but have different lives. Ruth drives a rusty VW car and lives in a cheap LA valley apartment so Dahanne built her environment with sirens, city traffic, a neighbor's TV and barking dogs. "In contrast, Debbie lives a middle-class married life in a Pasadena suburb. Her sonic world consists of her own baby crying, birds, lawnmowers and the occasional leaf blower," notes Dahanne. For the gym setting, Dahanne's palette includ- ed old jet-bys, LA busy traffic, sirens, train-bys, horns and car alarms. "Those sounds combined help sell the notion that the gym is located in a rough, funky and unstable urban area," she says. Inside the gym, there is a fan blowing, a buzz- ing fluorescent light and an occasional pigeon for comedic effect. "Sound is an incredible tool to help the story, and for this show I used it to emphasize the element of comedy, with bench squeaks and pigeon coos in the gym, a toilet flushing in particular moments in the women's locker room, sloppy body lands on the ring for specific characters and so on," says Dahanne. Since the wrestling sounds had to be recreated in post, Chamberlin's challenge during the mix was to make the Foley, hard effects and field re- cordings match the quality of the production dia- logue. Before mixing Episode 1, Philp worked with the production sound, the Foley and several plug- ins — including Avid's Channel Strip, Lo-Fi and ReVibe — for settings that he and Chamberlin could both share to keep their elements sound- ing similar. "Those settings were brought into every mix and then tweaked accordingly," says Chamberlin. While the wrestling scenes were challenging, the trickiest moments were when the characters were just walking around the ring. "We had to rely on Foley feet, hands and cloth to make those moments feel like they matched production perfectly." The wrestling scenes are also chock full of dialogue and music. "At times there would be on-camera dialogue, an announcer, loud music, screaming fans, ADR and group, plus all of the sound effects, Foley and backgrounds all playing at once. This is one of the most bombastic shows I have worked on. We had to get quite creative in trying to retain clarity in the mix as well as tell the story and make it sound real. It was a really fun challenge," concludes Philp. See Part II of our "Web Series" feature in the September issue, where we'll look at video post production. Every move in the ring had to sound believable. Ring footsteps have a distinct, big, booming sound.