Transforming one of the most beloved and enduring stage musicals, Wicked, into a feature film is a monumental undertaking. Add to that the additional challenge that all of the vocal performances were to be recorded live, on-set, during filming. A very tall order that only the finest of filmmakers can achieve. Wicked is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights), and stars Grammy-winning, multi-platinum recording artist and global superstar Ariana Grande as Glinda, a popular young woman gilded by privilege who has yet to discover her true heart, and Emmy, Grammy and Tony winning and Oscar®-nominated powerhouse Cynthia Erivo (Harriet, Broadway’s The Color Purple) as Elphaba, a young woman misunderstood because of her green skin who has yet to discover her true power.
I had the unique opportunity to attend a sound show discussion with some of the major players who contributed their talents and artistry to the soundtrack.
The Wicked sound show event included: John Marquis – supervising sound editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer, Nancy Nugent Title – supervising sound editor and sound designer, Andy Nelson – re-recording mixer, and Jack Dolman – supervising music editor. A powerhouse team of the best of the best.
Although he was unable to attend this event at Universal’s Hitchcock mixing stage, a key player on the sound team was Oscar® winning production sound mixer Simon Hayes (Les Misérables) who was tasked with recording not only the dialog but also the vocal performances during filming on set. Ariana Grande talked about the care taken by the location sound team. Ariana: “They made sure everything we did was perfectly recorded. We were lucky to have the best of every department working all-hands-on-deck. Singing live was crucial not just because we’re all theater people, but also for the emotional element. Some songs just need to be live, especially in this environment.”
Simon did join the discussion via taped messages and spoke about his process recording this immense production. SIMON: “You know, whenever we capture live vocals on a movie set, it’s going to be full of challenges. But what we get is just so unique. We get effort that matches exactly what the vocalist is doing on screen in front of us. We can hear the effort in their voice as they’re moving around the set. And there is just something that brings the performance to life that really, really enhances the experience for the cinema audience.”
Andy Nelson, re-recording mixer on the film, talks about the scope of Simon’s skill; ANDY: “I’ve known Simon for many years and … I think he’s just at the peak. There’s no question. His ability to get in with the wardrobe department, the lighting camera people, everybody that he needs to be involved with to get to capture it the best way he can, he will … he did an extraordinary job.”
Simon detailed the precision required for capturing the live performances and recording everything possible for the post team, SIMON: “How do I do it? I do it by close miking everything, putting two lavaliere mics on, one on the left, one on the right, a boom as close as possible. And really just supplying as many choices as possible to the sound post team. You know, that’s what it’s all about. It’s about giving choice. It’s about giving different mics so that wherever the actor goes with the performance, wherever the head turn goes, they’re absolutely on a really, really well placed microphone that can emulate a studio recording. But also have all of that life and reality of the visual movement that the vocalist is giving as they perform.”
The performances can only be as good as the material and the iconic score of Wicked is based on the generation-defining musical stage play with music and lyrics by legendary Grammy and Oscar® winning composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman, from the bestselling novel by Gregory Maguire. The screenplay is by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox and the film score is by John Powell & Stephen Schwartz, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz.
Jack Dolman, who served as lead music supervisor on the film, spoke about the exhaustive work on the vocal aspect of the production and his tight collaboration with Robin Baynton, who was the supervising vocal editor and mixer.
JACK: “Well Robin came on the project well before production began because of course there were pre-recorded instrumentations for the songs, pre-recorded vocals. And so, from an early stage Robin was the most acquainted with the breadth of the vocals that were already involved in the songs and that were going to be shot. During the course of the shoot Robin was instrumental in keeping track of all of the hundreds and hundreds of brilliant takes that were available, starting to line them up and make them available to us in post-production. And then over the course of post he was constantly working with us to refine the live vocals, get them to match in and out of dialogue, working very closely with Nancy. So a hugely important figure in the whole process of getting the vocals right.”
Regarding the instrumental aspect of the score, Jack praised the work of Greg Wells, a Grammy award winning record producer. JACK: “What Greg brings to the table is the impact of the rhythm that you’re hearing. Greg is a multi-instrumentalist. He plays all the drums that you hear in the movie. He plays all the bass guitar. He plays all the keyboards. He really creates that kind of pop rock energy that you hear in the undercarriage of the music. So when we came back from London after doing the orchestral recording, Greg had been busy putting together all of the rhythm tracks. And once we had all the orchestra, it was about blending all of those elements, strings, woodwinds, brass, orchestral percussion with the studio drum kit, piano, keyboards, synthesizers, bass guitar, all that stuff, not to mention the vocals. Greg was sort of the record producer turned film music mixer who gives the songs the dynamic impact that you’re hearing, especially in a piece like “Dancing Through Life”.”
Background voices that provide atmosphere in crowd and party scenes, often referred to as loop group, are a key component for filling out feature films’ soundtracks. Foley, generally referred to as the recreation of human sounds in post production, is another major, yet invisible piece of the post audio process. However, in a musical film, the requirements become very different since it’s not just voices and actions being recorded, but being recorded in sync with the musical numbers. Nancy Nugent Title said that it was important to cast professional dancers to do the background loop group recordings for the on-screen dancer’s vocalizations during songs, which all had to be in performed in time with the score.
NANCY: “Simon was able to record multi-track recordings of the dancers on set, emoting, and their movements. We had to cast actual dancers to perform the loop group for these songs. So, I got to work with Christopher Scott, the choreographer for the film who is just amazingly talented, and he cast a group of dancers and went to the stage, and they watched the piece a few times and got the rhythms of it.
When we had normal loop group sessions with our regular voice actors, once we got into these sections, they were kind of lost. You know, they’re great at what they do, but they don’t do this. And it was vice versa. You know, the dancers weren’t there to do, you know, the parties or whatever. They did this. And, and it was just so fun. It was great. And it just adds between Simon’s recordings on set and our more dancer group. It really elevates it.”
In a film so rich with sound, John Marquis, supervising sound editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer on the film, spoke about navigating the mix of sound design elements against the story and songs.
JOHN: ”It’s reactive at the beginning. I’m focused on where’s my eye going or where am I feeling I want to hear something. And so, usually I’ll just do these spotted little moments where I’ll hear what I really want to hear. Or here’s where I want to hear a book slam or something. And then as you get a little through, it’s just pass by pass. And you find – my attention’s over here now. The good thing with a lot of this music is there’s a lot of room. There’s a lot of air. So, there’s space for sound. And this isn’t the case with a lot of movies. You’re always fighting music and effects.”
ANDY: “I would say that one of the things that really helped in this mix was the fact that the film was paced in such a great style. Leading up to “Defying Gravity”, there hasn’t been a song for a little bit. So, there’s that, you’re not crowding things. They really allowed time to develop, and I think that helped us tremendously with the dynamics of this film. We weren’t trying to go from song to song to song, which is often one of the things with a musical, because you’re trying to get it into one film. I think John brilliantly decided to make it two, because it allowed it to flesh out and tell much more of a story. And you weren’t trying to turn these sharp corners, which happens so often when you have so many songs to put into one film. So, I think all of those reasons benefited something like “Defying Gravity” tremendously, because you’ve got this wonderful lead up to it, and then it just lets go.
Often the case where a piece of music will start in a film musical, you know you’re going to go into a song. I don’t think we ever really had that. And that was a big part of the gluing together … was how the music underneath is helping you through those transitions. Combine that with the fact that you’ve got the genius of Simon’s recordings and the work that Nancy did to put everything together and Robin Baynton. So, I was just handed this lovely way that I could put all these things together with the music and know that you were never going to feel a transition.”
One of the unique things in a film of this scope and budget was the choice to create many of the effects as practical effects, built on or into the stage itself, instead of relying on CGI or other computer graphics. I don’t think I’m spoiling the story to mention that there is a Wizard that appears in the film.
JOHN: [Speaking about the Wizard] “Well, it’s super cool, because it’s a physical, it’s a real-life marionette that’s being operated by an operator back there, moving the mouth, the eyes – multiple operators – which gave it a real fun, whimsical kind of thing because it bobbled. It wasn’t because it was necessarily designed to do that, but just the natural physics of the thing, it just was heavy, you know, which kind of made it a bit more fun, and playful.“
The practical effects also helped Andy in making his mixing choices for the film.
ANDY: “I was very fortunate to visit the set on one day, that was actually while they were filming inside the Wizard’s Chamber. I went into this gigantic stage, and everything was practical. I mean, throughout the film, there are so many practical things that you just don’t see. Nowadays you get used to so many digital effects, but this film’s got incredible practical work in it. When we started working on the sound of that, I remember standing in there, I know what that should sound like, because it was gigantic. It was real fun.”
In productions of this caliber the skills and expertise of the artists involved is off the charts. Jack talked about all of the incredible talent involved in the creation of the film and how that can actually sometimes be problematic.
JACK: “I think we can all agree that when you get to a final mix, every department over delivers. They might not want to admit it, but every department wants to bring the best stuff they’ve got. And the question becomes on the final mix, how can we all work together to whittle down to the essential kernel of the soundtrack, what these elements should be? And sometimes that collaboration is not easy. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of things in music. It’s hard to let go of things in sound effects, etc., etc. On Wicked, it was the exact opposite. All we wanted was to arrive at that essential blend. And so, we might say, “Let’s kill this synthesizer sound in the music. Let’s kill this shaker in the music. Let’s kill this Foley. Let’s kill these crowds. Let’s find the kernel of the emotional impact of the scene. [to his colleagues on stage] And so, thank you guys for being so collaborative with that.”
Ariana and Cynthia’s stellar live performances of the iconic songs during filming had everyone involved entranced, and as Nancy noted, in fact, all of the performers across the entire cast were outstanding.
NANCY: “The people in the song ensemble were all ex-Broadway or current cast members. I mean, they have the music in them, in their blood. And you hear it. It’s wonderful. And we were very proud of our vocal transitions being as seamless as possible going from spoken to sung. And it starts with Simon. Simon would say over and over, John Chu empowered him to make those demands that are necessary to get great, great production sounds.
This is my first time working on a musical. I was terrified, but it ended up being so much fun. We had this great collaboration with the music department. Sometimes you show up to the first temp [mix] and you’re like, oh, nice to meet you. You know, this is the music editor. I do the sound.
But we met immediately at the beginning of post, all of us, and the team in England. We wanted to know immediately – what’s our template, what’s our game plan, what’s going to make this great? So, we were all on the same page from day one.
ANDY: “I have been involved with a lot of different musicals. And they’ve all been so different and so wonderful in their own way. I think the harmony of this– and what I mean by harmony is just everybody on the crew– was extraordinary. Sometimes, you know, on musicals, there’s been a little bit of push-pull between the different departments and things. There was none of that on this. It was completely unique. And a truly special experience that I think results in why we’re so happy with this soundtrack. Because I think all of that is what plays on the screen.
I really think that’s a testament to John. It’s 100% John – he’s in the zone. And this was just a real treat to be a part of it for those exact reasons. Everyone felt tight knit. Every craft was supporting the other crafts. It’s just really cool. When you have the choreographer coming by, saying really cool things. You have got the DP. Everyone’s just so in love with everyone else’s work. Yeah, it was really fun to be a part of that energy.”
JACK: “It’s family. John Chu is an incredible creator of family in every department. He makes you feel empowered to do your best work, because you feel part of this great family that is all there to support his vision. And he shares his vision with you in a way that makes you truly want, passionately, to deliver it. Yeah, it’s a real honor and thrill.”
The skill of all of these film and musical artists under the talented hand of John M. Chu’s direction is a towering achievement. I know that for me, and probably everyone who has enjoyed this film, I am eagerly awaiting the installment of Wicked part two.
Woody Woodhall, CAS is a Supervising Sound Editor and Rerecording Mixer and Founder of Los Angeles Post Production Group. You can follow him on Bluesky at wwsm.bsky.social