“I highly recommend to anyone who wants to be in this industry to learn Pro Tools. It's the standard. Everyone knows it. ”

Cranking the Audio to 11 

 

The challenge on this episode was to make it big, then find ways to make it even bigger. We start off big and when the giant babies come out, we had to make it even bigger so the biggest technical hurdle was trying to find the dynamic range to make sure that we hit the director’s direction of ‘Start at 11.’ 

 

We did have to find moments to bring it down or some sort of trade-off between music, effects and dialogue. In one spot when we see the energy coming out of their heads and they're fighting the giant babies, I had them screaming while they're shooting these things out and we tried to save some of the screaming but that was the wrong move. The move was to go ahead and let the sound design and music take over so when you get to that spot in the episode the screaming is actually down on purpose. The important thing was to have the power coming out of them to defeat the giant babies. That was a choice to help with the dynamic range narratively. 

 

 

Every Choice Serves the Narrative  

 

It did evolve as all tracks do. A lot of the kinetic electric power sounds developed over the edit and design. The pacing of it, the babies, some of the explosions, were already built into the track. It was my job to fill it out, tell the narrative story and find our spots to make it big, then small. It's just a slowed down baby, that's what most of the giant baby sounds are. 

 

The babies were strictly just baby sounds for the temp. They sounded great. So I kept most of them in there. The first one has a sonic boom and blasts out all this wind and air so we had to sweeten. Then we did a playback forum and did his fixes and we actually had quite a bit of back and forth once we had a mix to make sure that we got the track the way the director wanted. 

 

I use different plugins while cutting, designing and mixing and they all work well with Pro Tools. Sometimes I'll do iZotope for dialogue. Serato Pitch ‘n Time helps with ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) to squeeze and expand, sometimes even pitch a little bit. Vocal Processing you can do all sorts of fun weird pitching up and down. 

 

You can use just about anything. We have some silly ones that we put in just because we get a kick out of it. We basically do whatever we want. It depends on whatever you're trying to hit.  

 

Some tools I use in Pro Tools are quick keys. If you're an editor doing this type of stuff you have to find quick keys and shortcuts that'll keep your speed up. You don't have to slow down during a creative process.  

 

I love working in Pro Tools. I can't imagine cutting in anything else. The best thing is I have food groups. Like a lot of people do, my template has stems so not only do I have a template that I can cut in, I can also mix in the same template. So when I cut the baby stuff I can keep that in the food group in a stem. I can do explosions in a stem and put this stuff out on VCAs. Once it's all balanced out and we're putting the whole track together then we can grab VCAs and stems and that really helps with speed and organization.  

 

 

Pushing Sound to its Limits

 

I was hoping to get an Emmy nomination for the show. It’s nice to be recognized by peers. I'm proud to be part of the show but It's more about Love, Death + Robots than it is about me. It's a team effort. It takes a village to make this show. 

 

It's a very abstract episode with 100-foot golden babies attacking a post-apocalyptic city so we have a big playground to play in. There are all sorts of different things that we can do and try. It's just an interesting episode. We've tried to match it with interesting sounds to make it big, loud, fun and cool. Nobody else is taking it to 11. It's such a cool show. It's all over the map creatively and I'm lucky to be in charge of sound because I get to play on that show. It scratches every creative itch I have. 

 

 

How North Found His Purpose  

 

I grew up a musician. I wanted to initially compose. I took music composition and theory while doing college courses in high school. Jurassic Park came out when I was in high school. There was a special on TV and it had Gary Rydstrom (sound designer) talking about the sound design he did for Jurassic Park. How he made sounds and turned his little dog into a T-Rex was inspiring. I thought to myself, ‘Sound design and mixing. That's cool because it's like composing but you're using different sounds.’ So that's what I pursued. I went to a recording arts school, came out here to Los Angeles when I was 20, started working on movies and being a sound effects editor and worked my way up.  

 

Doing sound design is like composing a score because you have high instruments, the mids, the lows, how they go up and down and work with each other. The best sound designers have a music background. Mentors of mine have gone to music school, are still musicians and in bands so there's a big music element to sound design. It's a creative space. Sound is such a tool in the storytelling world. It carries a lot of weight. Sound can drive emotion or enhance anything in a scene. Sound is almost as equal to music at times. I think the best filmmakers, directors and producers know how to use that. 

 

I like playing around with different tools and plugins to see what they do, what kind of sounds they generate. I like doing a whole sound design pass on an episode.  

 

I'm a product of mentorship. I have multiple mentors including Craig Henighan (sound editor and engineer). I follow their work and take little bits and pieces of what they do. Mentorship is important. I go to different schools and talk to students. I tell them the basics, I'm open to any questions they have. 

 

 

Find Creative Freedom   

 

Stay with it. It gets hard. It's long hours. It can be difficult especially when a director, mixer or supervisor is not liking a sound that you worked on for a long time. One of the first things I was taught by my mentor was don't be married to your sounds. You can do the best you can but if somebody says, ‘Well, let's try something else, then you just have to move on.’ Continue to work hard, push through the difficult times. It's a constant learning process.  

 

I learned Pro Tools in college. I went to Full Sail, in Orlando and that's the first time I got onto digital audio editing that had nothing to do with music. I was doing composing software, and this was the first time I had full reign. When I came to L.A., Pro Tools was the editing software that everyone used so I felt fairly comfortable on it and I’m still learning different things in Pro Tools. 

 

I highly recommend to anyone who wants to be in this industry to learn Pro Tools. It's the standard. Everyone knows it. You have to be able to know the language and lexicon of Pro Tools because that's the tool we're all using. 

 

 

About the Editor

 

Bradley "Brad" North, MPSE, is an acclaimed supervising sound editor and designer renowned for his dynamic, emotionally resonant work in television and film. With over two decades of experience, he’s lent his expertise to acclaimed series including Stranger Things, Bosch, Mare of Easttown, Station Eleven, Shadow and Bone, Watchmen, and Love, Death & Robots. His innovative approach—favoring contrast, depth, and texture—has earned him five Emmy Awards and numerous nominations, including for Stranger Things (“The Upside Down”), Watchmen, and Love, Death & Robots. North began his journey inspired by the artistry of sound in Jurassic Park and trained at Full Sail University, where an internship led to mentorships that shaped the launch of his career. Known for his willingness to embrace both bold and subtle elements, he continues to push boundaries in post production sound.