When Hulu/FX’s The Bear premiered back in 2022, the world was still reeling from COVID and all the bad that came with it. Collectively, we needed a place to get lost in. Who knew it would be a very shouty restaurant kitchen in Chicago? For five seasons, we’ve watched Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his dysfunctional crew through a variety of ups and downs, including romance, a loud and violent family dinner, the most swear words and a freezer malfunction. Now, in its final season, we get to watch these characters grow up.
Over the years, we’ve checked in with The Bear’s sound crew to talk about reining in the sound of chaos, and it felt right to do it again. Here, they weigh in on what they’ve accomplished sonically over the seasons and how it’s translated to yet another Outstanding Sound Mixing Emmy nomination for their work on Season 4. So far, the team has won two Emmys for sound mixing and another two for sound editing.
Once again, we spoke to Sound Lounge partner Steve “Major” Giammaria (supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer), Scott D. Smith (production sound mixer) and Sound Lounge freelancer Evan Benjamin (dialogue editor and re-recording mixer) about their work on the show.
How early were you brought onboard, and how did that help?
Scott D. Smith: I was brought on when the pilot for the show was shot, starting in July of 2021, which gave me a head start in terms of what the subsequent seasons might entail.
Evan Benjamin: I and the rest of the editorial team was brought in right before the episodes were ready for us. At the start of Season 1, we had a Zoom meeting with The Bear showrunner Chris Storer, where he laid out his goals, one of which I remember as “I want this show to be so stressful people will want to turn it off.”
By the start of Season 5, there are no real surprises, other than the fact that there will be surprises. Part of the fun of doing this show is coming up with creative ways to deal with those surprises.
Steve “Major” Giammaria: I was brought on when the show went to series. We touched up the pilot and dove into the show. It’s been great being able to be involved for five seasons and get to evolve that collaboration with everyone.
What direction did you get from showrunner Chris Storer for Season 5?
Smith: Based on meetings and discussions with Chris, we knew that Season 5 would entail a lot of water work, as well as an extensive cast and some challenging camera setups.
Giammaria: At this point we know how to make a standard episode of The Bear; it was just nudging each episode in the direction it needed to go. Obviously, with the addition of score instead of needle drops, and thunder and water everywhere, it was a new texture for us to play with. Keeping the pace and tension up when appropriate and releasing it at the right moments is always the directive.
How has the sound for The Bear evolved across its five seasons, from your Emmy-nominated Season 4 episode “Scallop” to what we hear in Season 5, and how has sound followed the characters’ journeys?
Smith: From the perspective of the production sound recording, there is not too much that has changed in our approach for either Season 4 or 5. The shooting style and cast count hasn’t changed substantially, except for the water work involved with nearly all of Season 5, and we haven’t made any substantial changes to our setup. We did have some very challenging scenes in terms of cast count and the water SFX, which meant having a much larger sound crew than what would normally be required for a show of this sort. The sound in relation to the journey of the characters over the span of the five seasons is something that is dictated more by editorial decisions and the final mix, as opposed to what we do on-set.
Benjamin: I think as the show has progressed, we watch the characters slowly make peace with themselves and their demons. So for me as the dialogue editor, that translates into trying to make the dialogue reflect that. It can be as subtle as taking out breaths and noises I might have left in before. In Season 5, there’s a bit less shouting, but a lot of rain. This presents its own serious issues and requires some new ways of dealing with them. But the goal is the same.
Giammaria: Looking back at “Scallop” from Season 4, after finishing Season 5, I realize that we did go on a sonic journey. Seasons 1 and 2 were setting the baseline of chaos. Seasons 3 and 4 became slower and more peaceful (sometimes!) and had quieter moments. And Season 5 roared back into form with thunder and rain and more shouting and chopping. The nature of the chaos evolved, the tools we used evolved, but the heart of the show’s sonic signature stays consistent throughout.
As mentioned, there is less yelling/fighting in Season 5. Carmy is definitely quieter. How did you tackle the quiet moments?
Benjamin: I try to emphasize that shift and enjoy the peace and quiet. But seriously, quiet moments are often more challenging, especially if the scene is music-free, as there’s nothing to cover up any issues.
Giammaria: Like Evan said, there’s no place to hide in the quiet moments. Season 5’s quiet moments aren’t actually that quiet, though, compared to Season 4. In Season 5 there isn’t yelling, but there is always rain and thunder and prep going. Season 4 gets sparse. It’s a fine line to clean the dialogue just enough not to be distracted by variances in noise but not so much that it becomes unnatural. Evan does a great job of cleaning Scott’s tracks just enough, and then I just put a shine on them.
How does Season 5 use rain, flooding, thunder and lightning to heighten tension while also making sure the audience isn’t distracted by it?
Giammaria: Human hearing responds the most to changes in sound, so if it’s consistent noise or a gradual change, then your brain tunes it out. We use this all the time in audio post to sneakily introduce new sounds. The rain is a constant presence across the first six episodes; though it changes from room to room, it’s always there. We played with pushing and pulling it in various scenes, almost like you would a score, to try to heighten whatever emotion was going on. Someone’s yelling outside? Let’s add a texture of rain on metal. Is it a quieter scene? Maybe a softer rain? Maybe less rain? Smaller drops, bigger drops… the size and length of thunder cracks? Our sound effects team (Jonathan Fuhrer and Matt Snedecor) did an amazing job of giving me all of the textures to play with.
What were the biggest challenges of capturing overlapping dialogue with so many speaking characters, improv and minimal ADR?
Smith: Since we typically have isolated tracks for all the actors, actually capturing the dialogue isn’t too much of an issue. However, capturing clean dialogue is another matter. For some scenes, we had setups that employed three (or more) boom mics, plants mics, etc. The biggest challenge is in the editing, which requires some elaborate work to extract usable dialogue from the chaos of the onstage action (including noise from props and onscreen SFX).
Benjamin: Scott always gives us stellar stuff to work with, and Season 5 was no different. But making multiple takes with overlapping rain into a coherent scene can be very difficult, as the sound of the water keeps changing on every picture cut.
Giammaria: I’m spoiled with these two capturing and editing everything so well. I honestly have the easy job. I just have to make sure you can hear all of their wonderful work.
How did the water and rain affect the way you captured, edited and mixed dialogue for these scenes?
Smith: The most significant problem with capturing the sound on-set for some of the water scenes is the issue of keeping the microphones, wireless packs and our boom ops dry. The body mics worn by the actors are the biggest problem, as mics don’t typically work too well when they are completely deluged by water (even when we use mics that are water-resistant). Whenever possible, we would try to boom any shots that involved critical dialogue, as we are better able to protect those mics from water. We also had a lot of help from the SFX department, who went out of their way to minimize the noise from water hitting various surfaces.
Benjamin: I try to make everything as seamless as possible. I’ll take extra rain from a bit of production without dialogue and run that along the next shot. This is a pretty common technique in dialing editing. Here it was a little harder because the rain had to match, and that wasn’t always easy to come up with.
Giammaria: Again, Evan and Scott made it easy. I can make a few global moves to a scene to get it where I want it and then fine-tune from there. Rain is very broadband, so there’s not much to do about it. Many gentle processes can reduce it, but mostly it’s just making it all sound as natural as possible.
Episode 506 revisits the kitchen/front‑of‑house structure from Season 2, Episode 10. How did you use sound to shape the tension, hierarchy and emotional dynamics between those spaces?
Benjamin: Scott gave us lav mics for roughly 15 to 20 people during some of the most intense scenes, and by keeping them all and laying it out in as logical a way as possible, I could give Major a lot of creative control over his choices.
Giammaria: 506 is my favorite episode sonically in Season 5. I love revisiting the format of weaving back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, but this time with a more experienced staff. Sonically, the textures are different. The way the staff moves through the world is more precise. The kitchen is less chaotic (mostly), but there is rain, thunder and a pumping score. At any given moment, it’s always about the story. What are we meant to feel? I can pull those levers with the sonic textures of the scene.
What was the most challenging scene or scenes in Season 5?
Smith: Probably the most challenging scene for production sound was the dolly shot in Episode 8, which required a crew of 10, including two production mixers and three boom operators.
Benjamin: The scenes outside the restaurant between Carmy and Syd (Ayo Edebiri), when he’s dealing with the drain and they’re arguing, were the most challenging. Second would be the scenes with Syd and Marcus (Lionel Boyce), also outside the restaurant. Basically, anything exterior in the rain was very challenging.
Giammaria: I agree with Evan; those exteriors were tough. Marcus and Luca (Will Poulter) on the roof. Syd and Carmy cleaning the drain. All tough. The pipe explosions were a fun challenge, though. Chris kept having me add more weird layers. There are children screaming, grenades, animals, balloons squealing, the AEs wailing and, of course, some water.
What have you learned from season to season? How has working on the same show made your jobs easier or harder?
Smith: Having the advantage of working on the show from the beginning and building a relationship with the post sound team have made it a little easier to determine what elements are critical to a scene. Also, building working relationships with the rest of the crew, which can sometimes be the difference between getting usable dialogue or not.
Benjamin: I have absolutely come up with new editing techniques dealing with the issues that arose on this show. When I work on other shows, it feels like a baseball player warming up with a heavy bat before picking up a lighter one to swing. This in no way is a comment on quality. It’s just the nature of The Bear and its complexity.
Giammaria: Being able to have a relationship with Scott was great. Typically the production mixer is long gone before I’m even on the project, but having an open dialogue for four years has been amazing. I talk to Evan maybe too much… he’s right next door.
Also, having a relationship with the producers and editors, I feel like it’s much more collaborative than other shows. There’s a trust that goes both ways. Because of the nature of the post process on this show, every episode is basically unlocked until it airs, so we finish each episode a few times. The picture editors will sometimes react to what they are hearing in our tracks and revise a sequence to better match or evolve our ideas. It’s great to have that back and forth. Usually it’s such a one-way street just by the nature of a locked cut.
What tools did you use?
Smith: For production, our basic setup isn’t too unusual. However, when scenes require a large quantity of microphones or special setups, things get more interesting. Over the run of the show, we’ve had scenes that require 32 tracks, maxing out the capability of the Sound Devices recorders. We also employ stereo and 5.1 surround mic setups, Fisher mic booms and other specialized equipment. Some setups have involved an extensive amount of plant mics as well.
Benjamin: I use Avid Pro Tools, of course. I also use Soundminer to be able to quickly scan production audio; iZotope RX to remove things like mouth noise or other undesirable things; Absentia DX to generate room tone and remove hum; and cleanup tools like Hush Pro and dxRevive. I use the latter sparingly, though, because I usually leave that for Major. He can judge best how much is needed after the FX and music are in.
Giammaria: I use Pro Tools. Some of my favorite plugins: Indoor, Slapper, Auto Align Post
Other software includes Keyboard Maestro, Matchbox. For hardware, I use Avid S4, Stream Deck and rollerblade wheels for my chair!
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