MPSE Wavelength

42 I M PS E . O R G ROBERT KREKEL, AUDIO DIRECTOR: The biggest challenge the team faced by far was just the sheer scope of The Last of Us Part II. It is the largest most ambitious game that Naughty Dog has made to date. It's also the most detailed. The amount of coverage that we need to have so that we could make smart mixing decisions to focus player attention and support the story was staggering. The team did an incredible job cramming as much possible detail in as they could. They created an awesome sonic landscape to help tell the story of The Last of Us Part II. Why are the MPSE Awards important to you? ROBERT: The MPSE Awards carry a high level of prestige among the audio community. Many of our sound heroes have earned these awards in the past and are also a part of the voting body that decides who is worthy to receive them. That makes it extra special to win one. To be in such esteemed company is truly an honor. Was there anything specifi c within the story that infl uenced your decision to take on this project? ROBERT: The Last of Us Part II presents a narrative that challenges its players. It's emotionally draining and very dark. It also presented a large amount of sonic problems to solve both from a creative and technical standpoint. All the games that we produce at Naughty Dog have this tension between those two aspects. It's always an enjoyable task to come up with solutions to solve those challenges. It's part of what makes it so exciting to work on any of the projects here. How did the pandemic change the way you and your team worked on this project? ROBERT: The pandemic hit right toward the end of our development on the project. We were entering our fi nal mix phase right as the pandemic was kicking off. We had to shift everything to work from home and our IT team did an incredible job setting us up with equipment that let us continue to work on the game. It was very challenging to go from mixing in 7.1 on a set of speakers that I've knowm for a long time to all of a sudden mixing solely on headphones. We always check the game on various output devices and many different types of headphones but not being able to fi nish the game where we had been working on it for the last four-plus years was very diffi cult. Ultimately, I think the mix is very strong and ended up translating really well across many different ways of listening. Was your vision seen through from initial spot to fi nal mix or did any interesting new perspectives arise along the way? ROBERT: The biggest area of change actually came from the studios focus on accessibility. Initially, we had very little planned in terms of audio for accessibility. It was not until we started talking to our various accessibility consultants that we realized there was a lot that we could do in this area. We ended up spending a large amount of time adding specifi c audio systems and sound design to help blind players to be able to play our game. The work was very rewarding as we actually got to watch completely blind players play our game from start to fi nish unassisted pretty much just by using audio alone. It was a triumph and certainly not something we expected when we initially started work on the project. Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing Non-Theatrical Feature THE ULTIMATE PLAYLIST OF NOISE Hulu Supervising Sound Editor: ODIN BENITEZ MPSE Supervising ADR Editor: RYAN BRILEY Sound Designer: RUSSELL TOPAL MPSE Foley Editor: RUSTAM GIMADLYEV Foley Artists: BOGDAN ZAVARZIN NATALIA SYERYAKOVA Music Editor: KATERINA TOLKISHEVSKAYA What challenges did the team face and how did the sound add to the overall experience? ODIN BENITEZ MPSE, SUPERVISING SOUND EDITOR: Trying to design the sound of 100 cans of soda opening at the same time.

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