The Chilling Sound of ‘Candyman’ – and how Michael Babcock sculpted the film’s unique sonic vocabulary:

Director Nia DaCosta's horror film Candyman — in theaters now — takes a unique approach to storytelling, using both unique visual elements and important social issues to explain the existence of Candyman. Here, sound supervisor/sound designer/re-recording mixer Michael Babcock talks about the role of sound as a storytelling tool, and how he created the sonic vocabulary of this film.

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Interview by Jennifer Walden, photos courtesy of Universal Pictures

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Candyman isn’t a typical horror film about a psychopathic killer who murders people for fun. Instead, director Nia DaCosta uses the horrors of racism and the grave social costs of gentrification to explain Candyman’s raison d’etre. He’s not a random crazy guy, but rather the result of inhumanity.

Visually, DaCosta takes an artistic route for Candyman’s backstory by using paper puppets to show the terrifying history of Cabrini-Green — the Chicago neighborhood where Candyman lives.

Sound is another storytelling tool that adds to the deepness and darkness of this tale. Michael Babcock — supervising sound editor/sound designer/re-rec mixer at WB Sound in Burbank — built layers of detail into every aspect of the film, from expressive backgrounds that communicate what’s happening in different neighborhoods to sonic stories of torture that emanate from behind closed doors.

Here, Babcock talks about how he created the unique sonic vocabulary for Candyman by using bees, how he designed the backgrounds to tell off-screen stories, the challenges of working and mixing alone during COVID, recording custom sounds for Candyman’s character, and so much more!

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Candyman – Official Trailer

Who were your point people for sound direction, and what were their goals for the sound on Candyman?

Michael Babcock (MB): They were director Nia DaCosta, executive producer Jordan Peele, and producer Ian Cooper, who’s kind of Jordan’s right hand person.

We actually did the post sound in the middle of COVID. In fact, COVID happened just as I was starting the movie. I’m definitely happy with how Candyman turned out but it was an exercise in trying to figure out a workflow for COVID — even for how people communicate. We had our crew of people, all working at home, all of a sudden. The biggest challenge was ADR because we had to figure out first how to get it. Basically, people with iPhones were recording their lines in closets. And that’s what ended up going in the movie.
 

That blows my mind! It doesn’t even sound like there is ADR. There weren’t any lines that sounded out of place or didn’t blend well…

MB: Good! I’ll take that as a big win.

I watched the movie last night in a theater just to see it with an audience because I never got a chance to see it with other people. I mixed this alone. A lot of the interactions I had at the end with Nia, Jordan, and Ian were all basically over Zoom, phone calls, or emails. So it was me judging it with them remotely. It was nice being in a room with people watching the film.

This is not just a straight ahead horror movie. It’s much bigger than that. The social commentary is there and it makes it more interesting.

The audience got all the nuances — not just of the sound, but of the story. Sound-wise, there were some references to the original Candyman (1992), but the bigger picture issues that were going on — about gentrification and social issues, and the artistic elements — the audience got all of that. This is not just a straight ahead horror movie. It’s much bigger than that. The social commentary is there and it makes it more interesting.

There weren’t any jump scares in it; there’s a couple of things that are very purposely dynamic but there isn’t really a gigantic, horror film jump scare, which I think is cool.

There’s one scene when Anthony goes into a building in Cabrini-Green, and he uses his camera’s flash to look at some graffiti on the wall. There was a noise that caught his attention and I think that’s the only spot in the movie where there was kind of a jump scare…

MB: Yeah, and that sound actually helps to serve the story more than just being a jump scare.

It’s like you’re surrounded by this feeling of desolation.

They wanted Cabrini-Green to feel really distant from Chicago, but there are a couple of very definitive sounds that carry over from the previous scenes. In much of the first part of the movie, you hear sounds of gentrification. There’s always construction going on in the background. There are all kinds of pile drivers and backup beeps and ‘construction bangs,’ I would call them. There’s a very rhythmic pile driver that actually follows you through Cabrini-Green that gets farther and farther away, slower and slower, creepier and creepier as you go deeper in there. It’s like you’re surrounded by this feeling of desolation.

So actually the jump scare that you brought up was really about adding to the creepiness. It was more of a ‘What was that?’ element directing your attention to the shadow in the door. Sound is storytelling.

There is an interesting, artistic element of this paper puppet show that tells a lot of the backstory. Did they have specific directions for how those scenes should sound — how the music should play or how the dialogue should sit?

… they had me design those sequences without music on purpose…

MB: They had some specific goals they wanted to hit, specific feelings. The visual is telling the story, but they wanted to intensify that story with sound. So they had me design those sequences without music on purpose and I think they told our composer the same thing. That ended up being a good thing. It was really about keeping the narration (because certainly the biggest ones have narration) and using sound to tell the story so they didn’t have to completely explain everything with the puppetry.

Sound really added to the feeling of those, which were probably the darkest thing in the movie now that I think about it, because that’s your backstory. It really opens up your world when you have sound. And the music provided an emotional feeling to it alongside the sound design.

How did they want the horror elements of this film to sound? There’s a great gory scene where William Burke (owner of the laundromat) cuts off Anthony’s hand and he shoves the hook into the wound…

MB: The first word Nia used was organic. But also, it couldn’t be over the top.

It certainly had to be brutal, to go along with all the themes of the movie, like torture and the results of racism, which is a lot of what Candyman ends up representing. It’s brutal. It couldn’t be B-movie horror shtick, though. It had to be as organic, but as brutal as possible.

Did you end up recording new horror sound elements to fit that bill?

MB: I recorded a bit of gore but mostly I created new material with insect sounds.

Every movie has a vocabulary and on this one, it was bees.

Every movie has a vocabulary and on this one, it was bees. I took the idea of bees and ran with it. I found every bee recording and bee library I could find and manipulated those sounds to make tons of elements, even whooshes and lights buzzing. The neon lights buzzing and the lights in the hallways, all of those are bee-based.

It was a way of everything having some organic genesis. And for me — putting my sound designer hat on — and Chris Diebold, who was also a sound designer on this, it was our way to build up a vocabulary that just fits this particular movie. So that was my starting point.

In this film, the bees are sometimes on the other sides of mirrors and they’re running into the glass. So I used a Sanken CO-100k mic and basically close-miked my fingernail tapping on different plexi-glass and windshields and other surfaces that I could find. I had some glass leftover from another movie, so I was just tapping with it until I got a cool sound, depending on how it was miked. That became a part of the vocabulary in the movie also.

Every time you hear bees, you hear them running into the glass, which ended up having a creepy, iconic sound. That’s what I was trying to go for so you don’t just hear bees buzzing.

Every time you hear bees, you hear them running into the glass, which ended up having a creepy, iconic sound.

The other thing I recorded was a wheezing sound. Nia and Jordan had this idea that Candyman had this kind of wheeze when you see him. No matter where he was, whether he was in the world or on the other side of a mirror. We experimented with what they called ‘death rattles’ and rasps. After COVID hit, recording other people became extremely difficult so I ended up recording myself wheezing and I manipulated that. So a lot of what you hear of Candyman’s wheeze and rasps are actually me trying to make dying, breathing sounds.

Those were some of the major recordings I did for the movie, to build this vocabulary.

You used bee buzzes for the sounds of the lights? That’s so cool. What did you use to manipulate the bee sounds, to give them that nice, high-pitched lightbulb buzziness?

MB: It was really about finding the right recording and pitching it way the heck up. I added a little resonance to it and then put it into the space on-screen.

Light buzzes are super cool when we can get away with them. And what’s great about this movie is that they left space for them.

Light buzzes are super cool when we can get away with them. And what’s great about this movie is that they left space for them. When the camera goes by lights, the music often wasn’t playing at the time, so you could hear it.

There’s a scene in the hallway when Anthony goes to visit the art critic, Finley. He’s walking through this weird hallway that’s almost semi-circular and the lights are buzzing. He’s passing by a bunch of doors and there are noises coming from the other sides. I’m not sure if people have picked up on this but each door has a sound to it and there are sounds from the older Candyman movies hidden behind a couple of the doors. We snuck in Candyman’s scream from the ’92 film behind one of the doors. Also, there’s the sound of a person getting beaten behind one door. There’s the sound of a person getting electrocuted. It’s all telling the story of the brutality of different events that have happened in that neighborhood and the racism. That was Nia’s idea, which is really great for multiple viewings.

If you watch it again, you can tell something’s off but then you start hearing that behind each door there’s some dark stuff going on, like people being tortured. It’s almost this Kubrick-esk kind of shot because it’s this very steady shot as you’re going down the hallway. And it’s just a weirdly framed off-kilter looking hallway.

Were there any other sonic links back to the original film or sonic concepts that carried over from the first film?

MB: The only other thing we brought back was Helen Lyle’s voice. Anthony is listening to a recording of her voice that he got from the library. He’s listening to this as he’s getting in the elevator.

In terms of sound design and sound editorial, what was the most challenging scene for you?

MB: All of it! We really wanted to not have a paint-by-numbers horror movie. Every detail was really thought out. For instance, when Clive Privler (the art curator) and his girlfriend Jerrica get attacked by Candyman at the art gallery, Candyman rips through a projection screen and that screen ripping had to be this scary, other-worldly, ‘What the hell is going on??’ kind of sound. It can’t sound like what it is but it has to sound organic. So even little sounds like that were a bit of a challenge.

We really wanted to not have a paint-by-numbers horror movie. Every detail was really thought out.

That’s actually something that Nia and Ian kept pushing. The scene is creepy already because you see a reflection of Candyman; it’s panned in the wrong direction on purpose because you’re seeing it through a mirror. So how can we make this even more off-putting?
They asked, ‘What if it had an external ripping sound to it?’ So I had to decode that and come up with something that had an extra layer of detail and an interesting feel to it.

For the screen ripping sound, I ended up using several layers so that it was more than just something tearing. First, it had to be the right tearing sound. And I did a recording of scraping my hand across a screen. Another layer was the tearing of a canvas sail. So it had extra detail to it.

You can feel the field; you can feel the wind. You can feel the city itself and how it’s all changing around them and losing its history. All of that had to be told through sound.

The backgrounds were a player in this movie, which I really like. I like that it has a lot of space in it. For example, Cabrini-Green had to be built in a way where it felt very full, but you’re aware that it’s definitely a different part of town. Or, you have a scene where two people are talking and you have to feel that there’s this — we used the word ‘oppressive’ — gentrification going on. You hear all this construction.

When Anthony is walking around the field and he gets stung for the first time, there’s major construction going on. You can feel the field; you can feel the wind. You can feel the city itself and how it’s all changing around them and losing its history. All of that had to be told through sound.

I love your work on the sound of the laundromat, too…

MB: Yes, that’s another example of building expressive backgrounds. I snuck in sounds of really aggressive washing machines, like they’re in an intense part of their cycle as you go by them. I even used sounds of manufacturing equipment for some of the dryers that you’re very close to as you walk past them.

…as you’re walking through the laundromat on these long shots, every machine you pass has a different sound to it. And they kind of get darker the deeper in you go.

There’s this extra deepness where, as you’re walking through the laundromat on these long shots, every machine you pass has a different sound to it. And they kind of get darker the deeper in you go.

That’s another good example of the fun sound design I got to do. I had to make a washing machine out of something that wasn’t a washing machine.
 

Candyman has its funny moments, too. Like, when Brianna goes to the laundromat looking for Anthony and she opens the basement door that in William’s office. She looks into the darkness down there and says, “Nope.”

MB: The laughter of the audience last night was great for that scene.

We very purposely made that basement seem even creepier through sound. She opens the door and there is an extra thick echo on her voice and this kind of rhythmic furnace. I added a dark rumble, which I created from manipulating my own breathing.

I made rumbles out of my breathing so whenever you’re in certain scenes and have rumbles underneath the music, I used my breathing pitched down, and bee swarms pitched down.

This goes back to the idea of creating a vocabulary for each film. I made rumbles out of my breathing so whenever you’re in certain scenes and have rumbles underneath the music, I used my breathing pitched down, and bee swarms pitched down. That’s the advantage of having recordings that are high sample and bit rate. You can manipulate them to create sounds like that.

And for mic placement, did you have it closer to your neck so you got less of the wind element of an exhale? Or were you blowing across the top?

MB: Good question! I was using the Sanken CO-100k mic and since I had to do this at home, I couldn’t use my pop filter. So I was actually using a Zeppelin cover. I put headphones on and recorded myself breathing right up on the very tip of the cover. My lips were actually touching the Zeppelin when I made those sounds.

Did you have a favorite scene to design?

MB: Watching the film last night with an audience, I definitely had some moments I was particularly proud of, that I was really happy with how they came out.

It was a chance to do a ‘What Lies Beneath’ type of sound design. I love the layered gusts they came up with in that movie.

There were two that stood out, and they’re very different. The first one is really the whole time that Anthony is spending in Cabrini-Green at the beginning of the movie, because as you’re walking through it, it’s about the backgrounds and just making things feel a little bit off with the distant construction, the distant pounding that you’re hearing in Cabrini-Green, and it’s a hot summer so there are hot summer sounds. I snuck in some creepy sounding cicadas. And there are different locations while you’re in Cabrini-Green. There’s a place where there are wind gusts through vines and grass right before Anthony meets William Burke. It was a chance to do a What Lies Beneath-type of sound design. I love the layered gusts they came up with in that movie. There is this offset of wind gusts. It’s all about the detailed backgrounds. I really liked how that scene played, because it’s shot so well.

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Brianna gets put in the cop car and the entire Cabrini-Green world — along with all the cops that are milling around — is blocked out when they close the car door.

The other favorite scene is actually the end, strangely enough, when they’re back in Cabrini-Green. There’s this gigantic gunshot and all the sound goes away and it’s all reverbed when it comes back. Brianna gets put in the cop car and the entire Cabrini-Green world — along with all the cops that are milling around — is blocked out when they close the car door. The whole world is still going on outside, but it’s extremely far away, like she’s trapped. The guns are impactful, but they’re all very filtered. Even the radio calls are filtered, and the bugs are filtered. When the officer opens the driver’s door, you get a taste of it but then you’re back in this really scary moment with the cop that’s starting to interrogate her.

From there to the end of the movie was the biggest challenge, trying to get the tone of the whole situation and make it believable. Suddenly there is his narration and Candyman himself is becoming a superhero. So you’re going through that whole journey with not a lot of dialogue going on and it’s all about the performance and just the feel of the whole thing and the dynamics of it.

I’m really happy with how those sequences came out.

You did a fantastic job of selling the car interior sound. When the door closes, you feel like you are in that confined, almost coffin-like space with Brianna because the higher-frequencies of the sounds outside the car are attenuated and rolled off…

MB: I don’t know if I should admit this, but that was one of those challenging ADR scenes in the car. They wanted to loop a couple of those lines that the cop says.

Being able to match that reflection, along with the extra challenge of using dialogue recorded on an iPhone, was tough.

Even if the actor had gone to a real ADR stage and they had really worked on matching his sound, that’s still a super-interesting challenge because everyone knows what the reflection sounds like when someone’s talking inside a car and their voice is bouncing off of the windshield. Being able to match that reflection, along with the extra challenge of using dialogue recorded on an iPhone, was tough. I’ll admit those lines, when I got them, probably had no business being in the same scene with production dialogue. There are only a few lines in there but getting that to work (and hopefully not be distracting) was probably the hardest thing that I had to do in the entire sound job.

I watched it go by last night with my fingers crossed, sweating a little bit. And I was like, “Oh yes, it works!” But I’ve got to tell you, where it ended up was really far from where it started. That was definitely the most challenging scene in terms of mixing.

Michael Babcock mixing ‘Candyman’ alone at WB Sound in Burbank

Where did you get to mix this film? Were you at home?

MB: I mixed this by myself at WB Sound in Burbank. I actually mixed this at a time when the lot was shut down. I got special permission to go in and mix it. I think there were six of us on the lot including the people that were working in security. It was a bit of a lonely feeling, but it was fun in that I could really experiment on my own.

I mixed this by myself at WB Sound in Burbank…It was a bit of a lonely feeling, but it was fun in that I could really experiment on my own.

But also, it was a little nerve wracking because it really is a subjective sound film. It really had to be collaborative. So I was constantly sending mixes to Nia, Ian, and Jordan and having conversations with them and getting good feedback. It really was a process for them, too. They were continuing to shape the movie up to the very end, coming up with ideas of how we can intensify some of these concepts.

The hardest part of the mix was the ability to collaborate. For this kind of movie, it would have been much better to have everybody in the same room having philosophical conversations — not just about sound, but about everything. So the hardest part of the mix was talking about it with them — just because of COVID.

What were some of the mix choices you made to help increase the scare-factor of this film? As you said, there weren’t jump scares, but there was still a creepy, scary vibe going on. How did you help to bring that out in the mix?

MB: By using scenes and cuts and pacing. There are places where I’m sneaking in the sound of bees on certain cuts. You can feel things intensifying along with the music and then on a cut to an exterior or cut to the next scene, it just stops.

There are places where I’m sneaking in the sound of bees on certain cuts.

So it’s sneaking things in the backgrounds, playing around with backgrounds and the dynamics of backgrounds, intensifying them as things happen and bringing them back as things calmed down. Or, raising up the crickets to a cut and having a hard cut on the crickets into the next scene that’s more naked or has a completely different sound. It was playing with all that real estate.

The score was a really wonderful player, too. They gave me a lot of splits on the score. So I could have the score become more immersive around the room in some scenes and bring it farther into the room, adding reverb. It was all working together — just having things ebb and flow. You hear a background bird, or a background construction bang at a very specific place so it reads and adds a feeling to the scene.
 

The score was so unique. It was really fantastic. There were some vocal elements in the beginning, almost like a growl or male vocal that could have been Candyman. Did you end up sending any elements to composer Robert A. A. Lowe?

MB: Pretty early on, I had a conversation with Nia, who is good friends with the composer. I believe he’s based out of New York. And there was definitely a conversation between her and I, and then she had a conversation with the composer and I had a conversation with a composer a couple of times because initially there was a worry that sound design and music were going to be in the same food group, and rightfully so.

…initially there was a worry that sound design and music were going to be in the same food group, and rightfully so.

As it turned out, that wasn’t the case. I made an agreement to base my sound design on organic things — things that were relatively atonal. And part of his musical composing process was coming up with what he called ‘sound design.’ So we had a conversation about what we thought was musical. And that’s actually where a lot of the idea of using bees and other things for my part of the sound design started coming from. After talking with him, it was clear where he was going.

I don’t think there was a time during the final mix where I had to pick music or sound design.

When I started hearing some of his mock-ups, I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be great. They’re totally going to serve each other.’ I don’t think there was a time during the final mix where I had to pick music or sound design. I don’t think we ever had a situation where we were in each other’s wheelhouse, in a good way. I was doing what I wanted to do with it. And he was doing the same thing. So our conversations of talking about music and instrumentation, and what he was going for, those were all about feelings. And that was just super fun.

In terms of sound, what are you most proud of on Candyman?

MB: Working on a movie that has some really cool, impressionistic sound opportunities is fantastic, but also combining that with some deep political ideas makes it so worthwhile. It’s nice to be working on a movie that has a much bigger picture than just the sound and having those conversations with the filmmakers actually carry over to the creative work that happens on it, too. That just adds an extra level of detail. It’s not that I’m not invested in other things I work on. There’s just an extra layer of creative fun that you have, and it makes it a little bit more important than just making a cool sound. And those cool sounds are derived from bigger ideas.

A big thanks to Michael Babcock for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of Candyman and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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