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Audio for TV In Walking Dead, industrial and traffic sounds are absent, but bug sounds are enhanced. sirens and closing doors, which would have called for ADR in the past. "iZo- tope has been one of the biggest changes to my job," he says. ADR is most often done now to add lines of dialogue not recorded on set or to change lines in hindsight. "It's rarely to change a performance," Donald reports. For each episode he prepares a prepro voiceover intro on set with one of the three stars; it serves as a placeholder until the epi- sode wraps. Then a final version is recorded in the studio with Donald directing the session. For season two's frequent flash- backs to World War I and the 1920s when vampire Aidan was making his mark on vampire society, Gertsman made a point of doing research to ensure the sound effects match the era. "We won't use any modern sounds. We researched the tram sys- tem used in Boston at the time and the cars and horns," he says. Gertsman's studio at Premium Sound is outfitted with an Avid Pro Tools system. His preferred plug-ins for Being Human are Audio Ease's Altiverb for reverb, Native Instru- ments' Kontakt for sampling and Spec- trasonics' Omnisphere for synthesiz- ers and lots of strange organic sounds. The series is mixed in 5.1 sur- round at Premium Sound by Philippe Espantoso using a 160-input Soundtracs DPC2 console. WALKING DEAD Jerry Ross started his career with one apocalypse and is currently in the thick of another. A supervising sound editor with Warner Bros. (www.wbpostproduction.warner- bros.com), he began work in 1976 in the Phillippines on Francis Ford Cop- pola's famed Apocalypse Now. Now he's in the midst of a zombie apoca- lypse with the second season of AMC's hit series The Walking Dead, which netted him and his team an MPSE Golden Reel Award for best sound editing. The show is shot on-location in the Georgia countryside with interi- ors shot in studios built nearby. Loca- tion sound mixer Bartek Swiatek and his team do such a great job of 40 Post • April 2012 www.postmagazine.com recording sound in the field, despite myriad challenges, that they got a standing ovation for their work when they ventured onto the mix stage after shooting wrapped. "They do a phenomenal job under tough circumstances," "They capture amazing says Ross. location sound day and night, even though the locations are on the flight path to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Interna- tional Airport. What we're able to save is a tribute to their hard work and diligence." The Walking Dead focuses on a band of survivors after the zombie apocalypse has mysteriously devas- tated the world. Large-scale industrial and mechanical sounds and traffic are essentially absent from the country- side where they struggle to maintain an outpost of civilization. "Because the apocalypse has hap- pened, things are quiet," Ross notes. "We can get away with the [location] sound of bugs and even augment them with other bugs that we feel would be part of the natural soundtrack. In fact, it was established early on by [former series executive producer] Frank Darabont that the bugs are the real survivors in the zombie apocalypse!" Foley artists David Fine, Hilda Hodges, Greg Barbanelle and Pam Kahn, along with Foley mixers David Jobe and Stacey Michaels, not only cover footsteps on many different kinds of surfaces but also have fun crafting the kill sounds for zombie and human victims alike. They go through a lot of fruits, vegetables and meat — watermelons remain a favorite for head splats and raw chicken is good for evoking gut- wrenching eviscerations. Creating sound effects for The Walking Dead is "a layered process," Ross says. "We save the good pro- duction sound and support and aug- ment it with Foley that matches and blends seamlessly; sound effects edi- tors Tim Farrell and Phil Barrie cut most of the sound effects from libraries and custom recordings." Actor W. K. Stratton heads the ADR loop group, acting as chief zombie wrangler for the actors, who shamble in to record fresh zombie passes to picture for each episode. In two sea- sons the show also has compiled a library of custom zombie vocalizations.