Posted in: Hulu, TV | Tagged: Only Murders in the Building

Only Murders in the Building Sound Editors on Comedy/Drama Balance

Only Murders in the Building's supervising sound editors, Mathew Waters and Danika Wikke, on the balance between comedy/drama and much more.

Any time you get a chance to work with two established, legendary actor-comedians like Martin Short and Steve Martin, you must always take it. From their co-star and co-executive producer Selena Gomez, and recurring guest stars like Amy Ryan, Paul Rudd, Meryl Streep, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Aaron Dominguez, Nathan Lane, Cara Delevingne, Tina Fey, Jane Lynch to countless others, the Martin and John Hoffman-created Only Murders in the Building has become one of the biggest hits on Hulu. With rotating high-profile guest stars, whimsical writing, and robust characters played by Gomez, Short, and Martin, it's not a surprise that the mystery-comedy series has garnered seven Emmys. To complement the on-screen talent are the equally invaluable crew, like supervising sound editors Mathew Waters and Danika Benton Wikke, with a combined experience of 52 years among them in the industry. The two spoke to Bleeding Cool about getting to work with Martin and Hoffman in setting the tone for the series, balancing the excessive dialogue with appropriate ambient sound in each scene, and playing their part in the process as they can. Only Murders in the Building follows three tenants at an apartment who bond over true crime as they investigate the mysteries surrounding its residents, which includes, as the title suggests, murders.

'Only Murders in the Building' Supervising Sound Editors Waters and Wikke on Helping to Give the Hulu Mystery Series Its Distinct Sound

Bleeding Cool: How did you get involved with 'Only Murders in the Building?

Waters: Truth be told is, I saw it in the trades that they were making a show, and I'm a little bit older than my 20-year-old brethren. I wanted to work with Steve and Marty before I retired, and I thought it would be something I wanted to do. I called up Formosa Group, spoke to Jackie Jones, and I asked, "Hey, I want to work on this, who should I talk to?" She said, "Well, we're bidding on it and we could do it together," and so we did. I was lucky enough that they were okay working with me.

I'll imagine it was a dream to work with the legends and everything.

Waters: Well, that's true. They're legends. I grew up watching them and laughing, and that's one thing about this business that has always amazed me. I remember throughout my years of going and being in the movies as a teenager, and then suddenly, I'm in this business, working, standing, or talking with these people that I used to look at on the screen, and it's really been a cool job.

What was it like working with Steve and John as creatives?

Waters: They're amazing, nice, and smart. If you look at my 30-year career, I've enjoyed working with these smart people. I don't think people realize how smart they are, how seriously they take comedy, how they try and figure it out with the story and emotion, and all that stuff. It's such a well-thought-out process. It's not happenstance; that's one thing that I really admire about them.

What are some of the biggest challenges in balancing the ensemble's presence with its various personalities, while allowing the more acoustic ambient sound?

Wikke: The moments present themselves usually, right? If it's a talky-talky moment, we usually let the ensemble do their thing, because they're pretty good at it. In other moments, I feel like we know music should carry it, the effects should hit hard, or something like that. For the most part, it takes as many voices as the ones talking on camera, and there are a lot of people on the mix stage who have an opinion.

On top of that, too, it's like trying to make everybody happy at the end of the day of like, "Is this flowing, right? Does this feel right?" Something bumping us to take us out, or "Can we add something because there's now like a little bit of a dead space? What can we do to fill that?" It's all trying to keep everybody in the same zone of, "How does this play? Does it just play well?" At the end of the day, that's our goal: To sit back and let it do its thing.

Waters: Yeah, Tom. That's a good point is that we're always working till the very end, even though we edit and mix stuff. We play back, and we're like, "Oh, this doesn't work, this works, or this doesn't work, and how can we make it better?" We do that until it's taken from us, so it's always a work in progress.

What's good is everybody has a great attitude on the stage, about like, "No, this is precious to me." You can't be precious. The only thing precious is the film and story. That's something I enjoy working with people who are like that, because I've worked with people who are like, "I've delivered this, I'm done. See you later." It's like, "No, we're just starting." I will also say Joe White and his crew, who do the production sound mixing, do a great job of giving us great tracks to help us sound so cinematic. I listen back to old episodes for various reasons, and I'm super proud of how well the dialogue sounds and how well it feels cinematic and story points through all the seasons we've done.

Were there any inspirations taken from older murder mysteries with the tones and buildups factor in, or is it more a feeling-out process here? How did you go through the motions for that?

Waters: Every season, they send us the scripts ahead of time. Let's say they send the first five scripts ahead of time, [Wikke laughs] because they're still working on the other scripts [laughs]. Then we lose track of it, and when we read those scripts, we get an idea of like, "Okay, what's this going to feel like this season?" It's always going to feel similar, but there'll be a little bit of difference. No, I mean, maybe Danica has. I never watched 'The Maltese Falcon' (1941) and go, "Oh my gosh! We've got to make this work like that." No, it's its own entity. Do you know what I mean?

Wikke: I agree. Yeah.

With season five slated for release in 2025, all four seasons of Only Murders in the Building are available on Hulu.

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