By Luke Harper

Dune, Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner 2049 and over 125 more films. Six Oscar nominations and two wins. Educator. Musician. Formosa supervising sound editor/sound designer/re-recording mixer Mark Mangini is pretty much a Renaissance man of audio.

As an audio post pro myself, I enjoyed getting to know the human behind those Oscars and the ridiculously impressive resume.

Mark Mangini

His latest feature is the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which stars Seth Rogen, John Cena, Jackie Chan and many others. In this version of the Turtles tale, the brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers.

Mangini has worked on many animated projects, starting with The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour in 1976. “I started developing my chops in the genre and eventually was asked to work on what some call the Golden Age of Disney Animation: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.”

I spoke to Mangini about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), his process on the film and his philosophy about the work.

Let’s talk about Turtles. How did that process begin?
Director Jeff Rowe and I hit it off and had a pretty clear understanding of what we wanted to do — and maybe, more importantly, what we didn’t want to do.

Jeff pitched the story, some early concept art and some very crude animation. This got me excited because stylistically it felt different, almost impressionistic, which I liked. I hadn’t seen that as a visual form in what we might call “young adult entertainment.” (I hesitate to call it a cartoon.) Thus began a conversation about tone and style.

When you’re approaching a project like TMNT, how do you make choices about tone?
It’s always a discussion. I have been around long enough that the director usually wants to hear original ideas, if I have them. I am lucky at this point to be afforded that luxury because not everyone gets that. And sometimes I don’t even get that. As you can imagine, there are directors who have a very clear vision of exactly what they want, and there might not be room for a second opinion. I’m happy to work on those films as well, but they’re not nearly as gratifying.

So it’s almost always a conversation and a collaboration. We talk about metaconcepts and universe-building first. I steer the conversation toward a sonic aesthetic. By the time I am brought on, the director has conceptualized style, tone, color, lens choice, perspective, etc. All of those concepts can be translated into the sound world. They can be adapted and appropriated to create something that fits what you’re going to be seeing.

I like to start the conversation with, “What do we want this movie to feel like?” and we explore “what if” questions extensively. For example, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, we create two distinct worlds. There are two hyperdelineated visual styles, one above ground and one below. Below ground is the safe space. Even though it’s the sewers, it’s the space they know.

Conversely, above ground is a dangerous and unknown place that Splinter [the mutant rat] is quite terrified for the baby turtles to experience. We see all this in the early part of the film. So right there, we have created a sonic restriction or a universe/set of boundaries within which we can work.

Once the guidelines are firmly established, we can start to bend the rules a little bit. When April [the Turtles’ human ally] comes into their lives, it’s a ray of sunshine. She is their connection to the human world. With her we can introduce more friendly sounds as part of her universe and as we get to know her better.

For instance, in Reel 1, when we were outside with April, there was still a sense of a threatening city around them. Sirens, jackhammers, oppressive traffic. But as we move forward in the story, the ambiences start to lighten up and become something different. We can appropriate a narrative structure from the film and apply it to sound and find lovely ways to support and reinforce picture.

Another example would be when I worked on Dune. We sat down to talk about the universe and what it’s like aurally. Denis (Villeneuve) started the conversation saying, “I want Dune to sound like and feel like we dropped a documentary film crew on Arrakis, and everything seen and heard is perceived through that prism/microphone.”

That speaks to a very clear approach sonically, which was very simple to interpret — no electronica, no theremins, no electronic sounds, no boops and beeps.

Everything would start life as an acoustic recording, even if it was meant to morph into something entirely new, like an ornithopter or a worm. The sound needs an acoustic basis. So there was our palette.

I feel like you start and move sonic fads.
I feel no currents because of an early lesson I learned. I wanted to imitate my heroes, the Alan Splets and the Ben Burtts — significant artists in our community when I was just starting. This would have been in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. The mistake I made was trying to imitate them because that only resulted in a pale imitation of them. I wasn’t speaking with my own sonic voice. So I learned to be as true to myself as possible. I assiduously try to avoid following any kind of sonic trends because it’s anathema to what I know. The answer, for me, lies in the film and in the film’s narrative.

Every film is unique, and I know that when I plug into that narrative, I am going to find a novel approach. Novel not just for me, but for that particular film and for the sound community. It’s not because I am trying to be something else with my approach.

I’m not trying to be hyper-realistic or cliché or tropish or cartoony or any one of a number of adjectives. What I am trying to be is “Dune-ish,” “Blade Runner-ish” and “Mad Max-ish.”

By dedicating myself consciously to that approach, I feel as though I always find a great way to express myself sonically. In so doing, as any artist will tell you, you have hits, misses, wins and fails. Dune happened to be a great film, and Theo Green (sound designer/supervising sound editor) and I made it sound “Dune-ish.” That’s why it’s so good! Because it’s so unique! We didn’t try to be anything else.

That’s a hallmark of pioneers, being intensely brave on their way into the unknown.
Great observation because that was the footnote I wanted to add. It does require a great deal of bravery, and I am not saying that to cover myself with blushes. I know that I can’t succeed unless I take risks and fail often. But I fail less often at 67 than I did at 47 or at 27 because I have learned from the failures. If I don’t accelerate the failure process, I won’t get to the successes. I know it’s a trope, but you just can’t get to success without failure.

One of the reasons Dune and Blade Runner are as good as they are is because Denis encourages experimentation and celebrates the failure with you. He will say things like “Mark, I love the sounds, I see where you are going, but it doesn’t work for this, this and this reason.” Which then sharpens my interpretation of his vision. If I hadn’t tried, we couldn’t have gotten there. Denis always gives us the latitude.

Some projects are a battle of wills and ego, which can shroud or completely hide any specific vision.
Especially when you’re dealing with a team. I am lucky to work with singular filmmakers like Joe Dante and Denis Villeneuve and George Miller precisely because of their singular visions, so I don’t get pulled in too many directions simultaneously.

With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Jeff Rowe is one of those voices, a director with a beautifully preconceived vision, and he supported and loved my process of experimentation. When I succeeded, I would get so much love.

As artists, we all have imposter syndrome. We all need way more stroking than normal human beings need, and when you get it, it’s just that much more encouragement to further succeed.

That was the experience of working on Turtles. In the first sound design review session with Jeff and Greg [Levitan], a brilliant film editor, I turned down the lights, played the section, turned up the lights… and they applauded. I got applause! You know how good that feels.

My wife laughs at me because when I start a film on day one, I’m staring up a mountain, and I say to her, “How am I ever gonna climb this?” She laughs and says, “Mark, you’ve said that on every film for decades. You’ll be fine.” Then she gives me a little pat on the head.

The other perspective is that I want to do something good and new and different. That is always frightening. But if you dedicate yourself to that, you can’t fail. I’m not advocating for anxiety though!

What should we look out for while watching TMNT from a sound perspective?
One of the early design aesthetics was no “funny” noises. No cartoonish tonalities, which I have a soft spot for. Ultimately, I couldn’t sneak a single note past Jeff. We were clear that we wouldn’t make that kind of movie. We took the Turtles seriously. We took their heroism seriously. We used a stylistic approach that was, in fact, hyper-real.

Everything you hear is a real sound, maybe exaggerated, maybe pumped up a bit with extra layers of sweeteners, maybe a little goosing in the mix to make things feel bigger than they already are. But we never went to the cartoon well. Not to say that I wouldn’t sneak it in just for a laugh during reviews. Listen for things that aren’t there — mirthful sounds, comedic tones. That’s a design choice.

We wanted to make a lot out of the movement; the action; the somersaults and flips and whooshes; the kung fu-style, slo-mo speederamp shots. We spent a lot of time recording new whooshes and swooshes that were very “turtley.” No libraries were relied upon for sourcing those.

I also voiced a character, which I periodically do. They talked early on about this character called Scumbug. I ended up doing the voice for it. I’m also Commander Bashar in Dune and a goofy guy in the crowd in Mad Max. I made Scumbug hilarious and gobbly, kind of like that gobble trombone sound from ‘70s/’80s cartoons.

Are there any movies you watched in the last few decades and thought, “I wish I’d done that one?”
No. The movies that I love, to me, are perfect the way they are. Anything Gary Rydstrom has done, for instance, just knocks me out. It’s akin to the feeling I get after magnificent concerts. When I go to a fantastic concert, like Jeff Beck (RIP) or Tommy Emmanuel, I come home and just want to smash my guitars. I wanna quit; I have a great deal of jealousy. Similarly, I know if I had done a given film instead of the original team, it never would have had the same impact or been as fundamentally right.

When I see my own movies, I think, ”Oh, if I had only done X.” I am supercritical of my own movies. I wish I could go back to my own works and improve them. I don’t have a single film in my repertoire where I wouldn’t change something upon reflection.

In sound, we kind of get the dregs. There’s never enough time to do bespoke recording, never enough sound design work or enough editing time to do a polish — there’s always something that’s nagging you.

The satisfaction I have in my process is this: I have enough years under my belt to know that the process works. I know that applying myself, even when it turns out to be a mistake, will lead me to the ultimate answer — because I’ve found most answers to my most creative challenges in 47 years. So I will start with a new idea then go back to an old idea with new modifications. I know that process will lead me to success eventually. Whereas early in my career, I looked at that blank page and thought, “I will never get there.” Then you get a form of writer’s block, which feeds on itself through inertia and anxiety, and all of a sudden you have blown a day or a week, and you haven’t accomplished anything. You have to sit down and apply yourself.

Nerd time… any thoughts on any of the new AI plugs?
I have had great experiences with the new AI-based noise reduction tools. Waves Clarity is great. iZotope is tremendous, as is Hush. And then the AI-based voice iteration tools — the services that provide AI voice-generation — can be very good! If you can feed these tools a broad enough range of learning material, they’re superb.

The caveat is legality/morality. I don’t want to be the one who recommends something that’s going to put an actor or voice actor out of work. On Turtles we had a strike conundrum. We needed ADR for a temp mix, and we needed a voice-over that would actually change the plot for test screenings. We could have used those AI tools, but we opted not to go there in support of the actors. We’ve got to be sisters and brothers and honor each other.

Luke Harper has been an audio engineer and instructor of 25 years. He lives Minneapolis, where he owns an Atmos mix facility called DeCoded Audio.