Created by Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo, Reservation Dogs is a comedy series about four Native American teens growing up on a reservation in Oklahoma. The multi-nominated, multi-award-winning show got an Emmy nod this year for Outstanding Sound Editing for the episode “This Is Where the Plot Thickens.” Supervising sound editor Patrick Hogan shares the nomination with David Beadle, Sonya Lindsay, Michael Sana, Daniel Salas, Amber Funk and Lena Krigen.
Hogan, who has also been Emmy-nominated for shows such as Cobra Kai and American Horror Story along with several miniseries, movies, and specials, has also been nominated and/or won multiple times on the festival circuit. We talked to Hogan about Reservation Dogs sound and what went into the episode under consideration right now.
How would you describe the soundscape of Reservation Dogs? What makes it unique?
The Rez Dogs soundscape is definitely restrained and, I’d say, tasteful. Life on the reservation is different than being in the city. There are geographic and cultural differences, which we try to reflect in the sounds of the show. When we are on the reservation, it isn’t as busy as when we are in a city. There are fewer people — even in a similar location — when compared to how we would fill in the sound in a city scene. We play it sparser; we leave more space between the characters, if you will, which also leaves a little more space, sonically, for smaller sounds to play. We hear a lot of the Foley in the show. In the nominated episode, you can really hear Big’s police uniform and utility belt jingle and jangle as he runs around in the woods, little details like that. Even the sound design moments are usually one or two carefully crafted sounds rather than a large sound-design build.
What direction were you given by the showrunners?
Sterlin is actually pretty hands-off when it comes to the sound. He usually talks more in terms of the story and emotion and gives us the latitude to discover how to accomplish that in the sound. I guess, generally speaking, his main direction is usually keeping it simple and letting the characters and their experiences drive the scene. The sound subtly comments on and reinforce those experiences. But he’s really great at discussing what the intention is in a scene and then giving us some freedom to experiment in the sound. He always lets us know when we’ve gone too far and have to dial it back.
What episode did you submit for Emmy consideration and why? What was it about that episode that you feel made it worthy?
We submitted Episode 208 — “This Is Where the Plot Thickens” — for Emmy consideration. We really love this episode. It is really, really funny and also really touching and puts us inside (almost literally) Big’s head. It was an episode that had several interesting sound moments and was a great example of the “less is more” approach we take with the show. That’s what we thought would make it worthy — that combination of showcasing our sound editorial abilities while tackling some big moments in very subtle and effective ways, all without being too showy or distracting from the episode.
What was a challenging scene or sequence from that episode?
There is a moment while Big is tripping when birds chirp in the woods, triggering a flashback. The sounds of the birds transform into a police siren. It was a great opportunity to use sounds to inform the audience about what is happening and a great example of how sound can subconsciously affect the audience. I’m not even sure how many people realized they were hearing that. But it’s moments like those that I love in sound design. We spent some time on that scene on the stage, working to make the pitches of the birds match the sirens and manipulating the bird sounds and the sirens so the transformation sounded natural and had a similar pace to the visuals.
It was nice that we had the time on the stage to work through some trial and error to make it work just right. Again, I don’t know that audiences will notice it and appreciate the work that went into it, but it was a little detail that helped the audience experience Big’s drug-induced trip through his memories… and the clarity he gains by re-experiencing those painful memories.
What was an example of a note you were given by the showrunners?
When Big’s third eye opens, the showrunners were very clear that the temp sound wasn’t working — that is needed to both sound more realistic and be transformative as the drugs open up his memories. Your eye doesn’t really make a sound when it opens. But this is very common thing you encounter in sound for film and TV. You need to create a sound for something that doesn’t make sound in real life, and you have to make that sound seem realistic — if something did make a sound, what would it be? And then on top of that, what would it sound like when memories and thoughts that you’ve repressed come flooding back into you?
What tools were used on the show? Anything come in particularly handy?
We always work in Pro Tools. It’s basically the industry standard for sound editing and sound design. I don’t know all the plugins that the sound editors who work on the show use in their systems, but personally, I use Auto-Align Post, Dehumaniser, iZotope Ozone10, iZotope Trash and FabFilter EQ extensively.
What studio did you work out of?
Reservation Dogs sound post was done at Formosa Group, mixing on Stage 5 at Paramount with Joe Earle and Gabe Serrano. I have worked with Joe and the editors on this show for almost 20 years.
What haven’t I asked about Reservation Dogs that’s important?
I think what’s great about Reservation Dogs, beyond its significance as the first TV series with an all-Indigenous creative team, is that it’s both very funny and very touching. And the sound (and music) works really well within that world to help accentuate the funny moments (like the Foley for the stick when Kenny Boy pretends he is holding a rifle) and the sad or emotional moments (the low tension drone bed playing as Big remembers when he failed Cookie, which leads to him feeling responsible for her death). It’s those small details that I think make Reservation Dogs such an amazing show.
Sound is the end of a long journey in bringing a film or TV show to fruition. It starts with the writing, goes through production and direction and the actors’ performances. All of that gets shaped in picture editing, then sound brings in all the final, subtle touches that tie it all together and give it a sense of location and time. And I really think Reservation Dogs is a great example of what happens when all of those components come together and perfectly complement one another.
The other thing I’d mention is the great work our dialogue editors [David Beadle and Sonya Lindsay] do on this show. We shoot very little ADR, and it is entirely filmed on real locations, no soundstages. On top of that, the actors often improvise and try different things in each take, so often we don’t have many takes of a line. The dialogue editors work really hard to clean up the dialogue and make it all work. They use every dialogue editor trick in the book since they can’t rely on getting it clean in ADR or having multiple takes to search through to find a clean take. I’m really amazed at what they are able to accomplish with all those restrictions and how they always deliver clean dialogue tracks to the stage.
