Sound & Picture: As far as superheroes go, Daredevil seems like he would be the most approachable, like a real person. Even his ‘superpower’ is down to earth. Really, he’s just an extremely sensitive guy. After going blind as a child, Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, acquired super senses, which he uses to help deliver vigilante justice to the scum of Hell’s Kitchen. The realistic approach the showrunners on Netflix’s Daredevil series take with the story is also how they approach the sound. Supervising sound editor Lauren Stephens and her team at Technicolor Sound carefully craft a soundtrack that is much like Daredevil himself — realistic and then some.
2 comments:
Knowing very little about sound design, the most interesting part of this article for me was the difference between the clean and controlled sounds and the more humanizing Foley sounds. I know that sound has a huge impact on how the audience views a work, but it is especially vital in this show because of how it ties in with Matt Murdock's abilities and characterization. I thought the way they handled Matt's increased senses in the show was very well done specifically because they tried to avoid making it "cute", as the article described. Instead of a gimmick, it's simply part of his character and doesn't overshadow any of his other crime-fighting capabilities but works alongside them nicely. I can imagine that finding that balance between kitschy and hyper intense was probably a difficult process involving many revisions, but in my opinion the final product was a fitting expression of the character's famous trait. Another thing that I liked about this article was the balance between an authentic New York sound and one that didn't overwhelm viewers. I didn't realize that this kind of balance was an issue in creating a soundscape, but it's interesting that they settled on an "homage" to New York street noise rather than a recreation.
I think the sound design for Dare Devil stands out because it is departing from the established norm in television sound. In cinema, and more-so television, a lot of audio production is focused on clearly conveying the dialogue. There is usually less focus given to providing an accurate portrayal of the aural landscape of the scenes’ locations. For example, one film that took a step away from this norm was Birdman. I really enjoyed that film because the realistic sound design, paired with the single-shot style of the filming, drew me into the film in a more tangible way. When they were on a roof-top, it actually sounded like they were on a rooftop—it was harder to hear their lines, there was more going on, just like there would be in real life. It forced you to stay engaged in a way.
I really appreciate this show’s goal to make the locations sound like they really would, as I’m a big fan of realism. I also enjoyed the descriptions of specific sounds used to identify the soundscape as new York, and how sound designers can use these to clue the audience into the show’s location without distracting from dialogue. I think it is also very impressive that the designers work up the sound for entire fight scenes, replacing the production audio and starting from scratch, and focusing on each specific impact in the scene. I also found the description of the voice actors interesting and liked how they were really utilized quite well. I think that the designers for Dare Devil have done a good job utilizing all of the “tools” available to them and that has paid off in their design.
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