‘Wicked’ – A Mix of Sound and Song, Part 1

Los Angeles, CA (December 3, 2024)—Director Jon Chu’s Wicked—a two-part musical film adaptation of the acclaimed stage musical—stays true to its Broadway roots, using all the songs from the original production’s first act in the film. And just like the stage musical, the songs in the film were performed live on-set.

“Jon Chu, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande wanted to do live vocal performances on the set,” says Simon Hayes, the film’s Oscar-winning production sound mixer who has become something of a specialist in capturing on-set vocals, having worked on musical films such as Les Misérables, Mary Poppins Returns, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and others. “The moment they started singing, everyone on set felt that energy. There was a magic and a truth to the live vocals that just brought something extra. It was a lightbulb moment; we just knew this is what we were doing.”

The trickiest part of any musical film is making a natural-sounding transition from dialog into a song. Historically, there’s been a noticeable difference between the dialog, recorded with movie industry lav and boom mics, and the song vocals, recorded with music industry mics. While Hayes and Oscar-winning re-recording mixer Andy Nelson were working on Les Misérables, they discussed a potential methodology for matching studio pre-recorded vocals to live, on-set vocals, eliminating that often rough transition.

“During vocal pre-records, the studio will use typical large-diaphragm mics. We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if pre-records were also covered on booms and lavs?’” explains Hayes, who tested the technique after Les Misérables and has been using it on musicals ever since. “This would allow the re-recording mixers to very gently—over the course of the song—seamlessly blend the dialog into the on-set vocals into the studio vocals.”

Supervising sound editor Nancy Nugent Title adds, “That really alleviated a lot of matching issues going back and forth between the on-set vocals and studio vocals. Robin [Baynton, vocals editor and mixer] worked syllable-by-syllable, weaving the different sources together in a really seamless way to get the very best performance.”

LIVE ON THE SET

For production sound, Hayes chose Schoeps CMC6 boom mics with MK41 capsules and DPA 4061 lavalier mics, the latter for their transparent sound, flat response, and ability to handle high, sustained sound pressure levels. “I’m looking for microphones that sound like the person who’s singing,” Hayes says. “DPAs are the only lav mics on the market that can capture that flat response and also deal with the extremely high SPLs of Cynthia Erivo singing numbers like ‘Defying Gravity.’ Cynthia can carry beautifully sustained notes louder than most people can shout. The DPAs don’t sound brittle when you’re hitting them with those SPLs.”

Hayes worked closely with costume designer Paul Tazewell to find the best mic placements on each costume, which was particularly challenging for the character of Glinda, played by Grande, due to the low-cut design of her dresses. Instead of having a centrally placed lav mic near the neckline or under a hat brim, as he could for Ervio’s character Elphaba, Glinda’s dresses concealed a pair of lav mics—one near each shoulder—that were recorded onto two separate tracks.

“If Ariana turned to her left, she was completely on-mic,” Hayes explains. “If she turned to her right, she was completely on-mic. It also solved another issue: Glinda’s dresses were often frilly and made of chiffon, so there was an element of clothing rustle. By giving Nancy [Nugent Title] two separate tracks of Glinda, she could cut between them—so if there was a slight rustle on one of those microphones, potentially there wouldn’t be on the other track.”

“We had coverage one way or another. We received an immense amount of material, which was a blessing. Simon captured incredible sound on-set,” confirms Nugent Title, who worked with dialog editor John C. Stuver on the film.

By singing live on-set, the actors could let their dialog delivery naturally develop into a song. They could take their time getting into it before the orchestration kicked in. “That’s always lovely because the transitions are what most people are very aware of,” notes Nelson, who handled dialog and music at the final mix. “In this film, they’re extraordinarily seamless due to a variety of reasons, like the miking, the picture editing by Myron Kerstein, and also the freedom to start a song at their own pace.”

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR PART TWO!