Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
92 M PS E . O R G Your work has been nominated for several Golden Reel Awards—what does that recognition mean to you, and is there a particular project that felt especially validated? Mike Schapiro: In a lot of ways, it's hard for me to think about! It's very gratifying to be recognized for these projects. But I still find myself suffering from impostor syndrome, even (especially?) after my Golden Reel wins. It's hard to pick any one project that was the most validating. Star Trek has such a rich sonic legacy. How do you strike the balance between paying homage to that tradition and innovating with modern sound design? Mike Schapiro: We'll try to use those iconic Trek sounds as much as we possibly can, anywhere that it's not going to feel jarringly out of place. Or Process & Design Thinking What's your approach when designing a sound from scratch, such as a futuristic weapon or alien environment? Mike Schapiro: Ooooh, that's a loaded question! I try to start with "What's the purpose of this thing/device/ event?" followed closely by "How does it interact with the story?" Is it a beneficial thing like a medical device? Should it feel like a relief that now our characters finally get some healing? Are these aliens friendly? Inscrutable? Big and scary? Militaristic or hippies? (These are also questions I'll ask the showrunners during spotting if it's not immediately obvious.) The answers to that kind of question will greatly inform the approach! For instance, the Gorn in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are introduced as this mysterious force that's destroyed a colony and killed or captured all the inhabitants. We don't meet a Gorn "in the flesh" until a much later episode. Their ships that we see on-screen are all completely against the usual Trek sensibilities: asymmetrical, spinning wildly, moving erratically. They need to feel really alien! I tried to get their sounds to be weird and creepy, using processes I might not usually use. I'll also try, just in a general sense, to devote some kind of process to each faction we might come across. Romulans are often ringmod-heavy, and the Gorn use a strange frequency shifter element to get that otherworldly feel to them. Then I can use that piece of process for anything Gorn that comes up and still have it read instantly as "Gorn." (This can backfire! Maybe we don't want to know that a device or a ship or a space is Gorn just yet, plot-wise!) You've done both detailed effects editing and broader design work— we'll try and massage them a bit so that they aren't as jarring! For instance, Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) bridge buttons were all big chunky switches (cachunk-beep!), but everything on the bridge in Strange New Worlds is touchscreen-like. So, we pulled the "beep" elements out of the TOS sounds as much as we could and made some more beeps that felt similar but with some extra variety and tonality— familiar but different. Some of it comes from layering. The phasers have the original sounds as a layer, and we're buttressing them with more elements to expand the frequency range or add details. Then there's elements that maybe never existed before: With today's visual effects, we get a lot of phaser- bys flashing past the camera, so we get to do all new things for those elements. 74th Annual Creative Arts Emmy Awards.