Anthony Vanchure
Anthony Vanchure and Michael James Gallagher work well together. So well, in fact, that the pair earned an Outstanding Sound Editing Emmy nomination for their combined work on the doc Lucy and Desi.
They teamed again recently, this time for the Roku biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which is a fictionalized version of the parody singer’s life starring Daniel Radcliffe. Supervising sound editor Vanchure and sound designer/sound editor Gallagher worked out of the Formosa Group.
How did you get involved with Weird: The Al Yankovic Story?
Anthony Vanchure: I work with Formosa Group, and Weird was brought up on a sales call. I knew we had to do it. I grew up loving Weird Al; UHF was a favorite of mine growing up. I dressed as him for Halloween years ago, and we sent of picture of me in costume to the producers and director. That picture helped get me a meeting with director Eric Appel and editor Jamie Kennedy! We hit it off and really agreed on what the sound for the film should be. I got the call a few days later that they wanted me on as supervisor.
Michael James Gallagher
Michael James Gallagher: I had already seen the Weird teaser trailer. I remember thinking, “Man, I’d love to work on this.” It’s an intersection of my childhood watching Weird Al and all of my comedy influences.
Can you walk us through the needs of the project?
Gallagher: Weird has all the ingredients of a classic biopic, but because it’s a parody, it has a variety of other genres thrown in the mix. On top of all the musical needs of the project, there are also a ton of cinematic moments in various styles that had to be covered.
When we started the job, my first thought was about how the comedy was going to play aurally. Eric, the director, mentioned the word “earnest” more than once when describing the feel of the film. So even though I grew up watching Weird Al videos like Fat, which are full of sound effects right out of Looney Tunes or The Three Stooges, we played the comedic sound in this film pretty straight. There’s no shortage of cinematic moments, though, so there was still plenty of room to play it huge and heightened.
There are some really fantastic set pieces, and Eric was super-supportive of all the bold ideas we were bringing forward. Once our work was done, our re-recording mixer, Tony Solis, helped bring all these moments to the next level. (In fact, Solis was nominated for his fourth Emmy for his work on the show.)
What were some of those ideas you mention?
One of Madonna’s sound signatures in the film is the intermittent pops of her bubble gum. There is a particular moment when Weird Al is heavily under the influence of alcohol, and she hands him his car keys. Very pleased with her dubious plan, she blows a bubble, which I was then able to accompany with maybe the biggest bubble gum pop ever heard in cinema. This explosive, sudden sound has a long tail that ominously leads the audience into Weird Al’s lowest point in the film.
This was a completely new idea for Eric Appel, and it just immediately clicked with him and everyone on the mix stage. It was one of those adds that completely changed the vibe of that moment, but Eric was always open to these types of ideas.
Another moment is in the pivotal LSD trip scene, when Weird Al gets his inspiration to write “Eat It.” Dr. Demento, as Weird Al’s muse, magically taps his spoon twice on the cereal bowl as he recites what would become the lyrics to the song. I had the idea to add the actual opening notes of “Beat It” to each spoon tap as if Weird Al was forming the pieces to the song in his head. I love ideas like that; they are ear candy but also make perfect sense storywise.
I had the musical score for my final week of sound design, so I was also able to seamlessly integrate the notes into the score. The first time Eric heard this idea was definitely a 
memorable moment during the mix. He looked blown away that we were able to accomplish that moment. I could also tell Eric that I didn’t actually sample Michael Jackson’s song “Beat It” — and that the notes were just pulled directly off of a patch from the Synclavier II.
People might be surprised by all the action scenes involving guns that crop up toward the end of the film. I wanted the sound of the guns to be shocking and nothing like how you would think guns might sound in a Weird Al biopic. My inspiration was the massive gunshots that happen in Michael Mann movies like Heat and Collateral. I love their memorable, raw power. Again, Eric was unfazed by the bold choice. One day he walked onto the mix stage during a particularly loud scene and validated my direction: “Wow, those guns sound badass.”
What were some of the interesting or unique challenges you faced on the project?
Gallagher: I was editing crowd sounds for one of the big performances in the film, and there was a section where we needed a crowd enthusiastically yelling “no,” which was impossible for me to find anywhere. It also needed to be a stadium full of people, so I couldn’t just corral some colleagues together and record it.
Weird Al happened to be on tour when we were working on the film. He was with us every day virtually, and we still had a hole where those no’s should have been. One day Anthony off-handedly mentioned to Al, “Maybe you can record your crowd chanting tonight?” Al had an incredibly enthusiastic response, and we were all thrilled when he agreed to it. The next day we got these fantastic stereo, 96K recordings from Al and dropped them straight into the movie. The story of Al recording the crowd even made the local news in Lincoln, Nebraska.
There are a lot of big sound moments in the film, but one of the most challenging was pretty unexpected. There’s a moment when Dr. Demento squeezes his bicycle horn extremely slowly, and it needed to feel sad. The problem is that when you squeeze a bicycle horn slowly, it makes no sound at all. My first attempt was a cartoony slide whistle that was immediately rejected. We then started looking at actual horns, like trumpets, trombones and even vuvuzelas, but nothing was working for Al.
We ended up going back to the original idea that film editor Jamie Kennedy used during the offline edit, which was a dog toy. I took that idea and finally came up with some finished versions. It was pretty funny because once Al approved one of my finished dog-toy sounds, everyone on the mix stage applauded. That was an extremely unexpected and rewarding challenge.
Vanchure: Mike already mentioned our big crowd challenge, but another fun/interesting crowd scene is the one in the biker bar when Al first plays, “I Love Rocky Road.” We needed the sounds of people singing along to the song. I was having a BBQ for my birthday with Mike and a bunch of my friends. We wrangled everyone together in my garage and had everyone sing along to the song. We used a quick mic setup and did a few run-throughs of the song. Everyone was laughing and having a great time; it helped the scene so much.
Another fun challenge was for the action sequence in the diner. Mike cut an amazing set of fight sounds for the sequence. But we still needed great fight vocal efforts. Luckily, when Daniel Radcliffe came in for an ADR session, we were able to record him for that sequence. He was so much fun to record with, and he ad-libbed a great line during the fight. The director and I immediately knew we were going to use it. It made a great scene even better.
What gear did you use?
Gallagher: I love my pistol-grip-mounted Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic that always sits on my desk. I’m always recording stuff around my studio to use in projects. I also love re-recording/worldizing effects with it. If a sound effect is too staticky or pokey, I just play it over the speaker and move the mic around a little bit, and it usually sits in the scene better.
Pro Sound Effects libraries are such massive timesavers. The Odyssey Complete Library from Mark Mangini and Richard Anderson has saved me so many times. I love all their stuff.
I love plugins from Soundtoys, Tonsturm, Boom Library. Boom Library has a great plugin called Uberloud that makes it easy to reinvigorate dull sound effects. I’ve also been using Sound Particles Brightness Panner and Energy Panner plugins to add interesting movement to stereo recordings, which has been another great way to add more interest to static sound effects.
Vanchure: I love using iZotope RX. Such an amazing set of tools that helps our dialogue editing process. Waves’ Clarity Pro is another great tool to use. Another plugin we used frequently was Pitch ‘n Time Pro.
Tell us a bit about your background
Gallagher: Like many sound designers, I have a very musical background. I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, listening to bands like Nine Inch Nails, which is appropriate since Trent Reznor has gone on to become an Oscar-winning film composer.
One of my first real jobs was as a recording engineer. I was simultaneously doing that while playing in an ‘80s cover band called Werewolf. In that cover band, we would make crazy videos, and it was making those videos that really solidified my love for post and sound design. I moved to New York for a year but was only getting jobs in theater, and I knew my love was film. I moved to LA in 2009 and met Anthony that year at a Channel 101 screening, and we’ve been friends and colleagues ever since.
Vanchure: I grew up in a military family and lived all over the United States. Moving every few years, I really connected with music and movies. While playing guitar as a teenager, I taught myself recording techniques and developed a love for audio. In college, I studied recording and mixing as well as film. I took a course on sound for film and was hooked. After graduation, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in audio post. I got my start at Pop Sound as a vault clerk and moved my way up to the assistant editor. Eventually, I started supervising projects.
