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Crafting sound for Emmy-
nominated Atlanta
By Jennifer Walden
FX Network’s dramedy series Atlanta tells the story of three friends from, well, Atlanta — a local rapper named Paper Boi whose star is on the rise, his cousin/manager Earn and their friend Darius.
Told through vignettes, each episode shows their lives from different perspectives instead of through a running narrative. This provides endless possibilities for creativity. One episode flows through different rooms at a swanky New Year’s party at Drake’s house. Another ventures deep into the creepy woods where real animals (not party animals) make things tense.
It’s a playground for sound each week, and MPSE-award-winning supervising sound editor Trevor Gates at Formosa Group and his sound editorial team on Season 2 (aka, Robbin’ Season) earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy Or Drama (Half-Hour). The nod was for their work on Episode 6 “Teddy Perkins,” in which Darius goes to pick up a piano from the home of an eccentric recluse but finds there’s more to the transaction than he bargained for.
Here, Gates discusses the episode’s precise use of sound and how the quiet environment was meticulously crafted to reinforce the tension in the story and to add to the awkwardness of the interactions between Darius and Teddy.
There’s very little music in “Teddy Perkins.” The soundtrack is mainly different ambiences, practical effects and Foley. Since the backgrounds play such an important role, can you talk about the creation of these different ambiences?
Overall, Atlanta doesn’t really have a score. Music is pretty minimal, and the only music that you hear is mainly source music — music coming from radios, cell phones or laptops. I think it’s an interesting creative choice by producers Hiro Murai and Donald Glover. In cases like the “Teddy Perkins” episode, we have to be careful with the sounds we choose because we don’t have a big score to hide behind. We have to be articulate with those ambient sounds and with the production dialogue.
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