Murder on Middle Beach: Creating
Sound Palette for HBO Documentary

By Patrick Birk

As the saying goes, there are two things for certain: death and taxes. But for most of us, death will come through natural causes and not murder. That cannot be said for the mother of Madison Hamburg, the filmmaker behind HBO’s Murder on Middle Beach. This four-episode docuseries focuses on Hamburg’s investigation of the 2010 murder of his mother, Barbara. Murder on Middle Beach eschews simple shock and spectacle, and instead takes viewers on a journey, as Hamburg wades through a troubled family history and miles of red tape.

The sound for this documentary is composed, quite literally, of many moments tied to Hamburg’s life. Myriad interviews and undercover recordings, compiled over the 10 years since his mother’s murder, are seamlessly woven with audio from home videos dating back to before his birth, and punctuated with the cold, dry click of a VCR. Sonically, we are transported into Hamburg’s world and experience a glimpse of what it means to unflinchingly examine your entire history, in search of justice and closure.

To find out more about the audio post side of the film, I reached out to supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Annie Medlin and sound effects editor Alex Loew.

There were many audio sources on this — VHS tapes, cell phone recordings, interviews. How did you mix them into a cohesive whole?
Medlin: In order to turn this around so quickly, I dove into the world of Madison’s story. I then brought up and edited the dialogue as part of the mixing process, so I would know how the pieces would fit together. That informs how much something needs to be cleaned up.

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