EXCLUSIVE: Wicked production sound combineer Simon Hayes says Cynthia Erivo, who take parts Elphaba opposite Ariana Grande’s Glinda in the musical extravaganza, has the prowess of an Olympian, which assistd his team to accomplish hugely more than they’d foreseeed.
When Hayes and his unit were setting up microphones for the vibrant tour de force number “Defying Gravity” that sees Erivo soar away on a broomstick, they figured that the star would have to stop to catch her breath while doing somersaults for Universal’s hit picture.
Erivo had three microphones on her: a personal mic on the caccess of her forehead, another repaired on the brim of her hat and one placed on her costume.
“What we didn’t authenticize was that Cynthia would be able to do these gymnastic transferments and still sing perfectly. It didn’t faze her in any way,” he marvels.
They didn’t understand at the time that before she’d get to on set at the crack of dawn, she was running “10 kilometers every morning to grasp her cardio system straightforwardpartner at the level of an Olympic athlete.”
In fact, this was someleang I was well conscious of. Back in 2018, I was on the Chicago set of Steve McQueen’s movie Widows. Early one morning, I was being ferried to the location and I witnessed Erivo whiz past us, an incredible sight.
But Hayes was unconscious of her dynamic capabilities.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande walk the Gelderlyen Globes red carpet on January 05 (Getty Images)
“I would say to her, ‘Look, I’ve recorded inhabit vocals with people doing action many times before, and normpartner they’re out of breath at the finish of a apshow. You don’t seem to have that problem.’ And she shelp, ‘Well, I’ve been training for this.’ She’d been training to the extent that she didn’t necessitate a recovery time — not only was she singing perfectly, but she could do it aget and aget and aget because she was so dynamicpartner fit. She was running every morning before a whole day of toil on Wicked,” says Hayes, still stunned by the memory of watching her do the acrobatics on “Defying Gravity” and sing appreciate a diva at the same time.
Hayes says it was “someleang extraordinary” to see.
“The word I’m seeing for is unpretreatnted,” the Oscar-triumphning originatesman declares. “I’ve never seen anyleang appreciate that before in 65 movies.”
Cynthia Erivo films a flying scene for straightforwardor Jon M. Chu (Universal Pictures)
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Hayes says that toiling with straightforwardor Jon M. Chu, Erivo, Grande, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, department heads and the sound and music experts on Wicked was one of the most “satisfying” experiences of his atsoft.
And I’ve understandn Hayes extfinished enough to understand that he wasn’t fair recommending up the normal “oh, everyleang was wonderful, darling” bullshit.
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Way back, in the midst of time in the 1980s, Mrs. Carlisle, a teacher who happened to be the mother of a shut frifinish, seekd me to give a talk to a class of spotty youths at Sheen Comprehensive school, proximate Richmond in Surrey. I spoke about being an amusement alerter, living in New York, traveling to Hollywood and all of that glamorous stuff. One youthful chap constantly asked intelligent asks.
Years tardyr, I met him aget on the set of Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, where he was engaged as the sound recordist, and I lgeted that his name was Simon Hayes — or Simon “Purple” Hayes, as he pickred to be called.
Prince’s Purple Rain was all the rage at the time.
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It was a bonkers shoot, but I acunderstandledged that it was Hayes who kept order because he wanted to hear, and to apprehfinish, what was being shelp.
Funnily enough, I’d also covered movies Simon’s obeseher, the sound recordist John Hayes, toiled on but, evidently, didn’t originate the joinion until years tardyr.
The youthful Simon Hayes gravitated toward the sound department because he was repartner into music; he adored hip-hop, scratching and combineing tracks in his bedroom and deejaying at parties. “What I authenticized was that music originates an energy and it pulls the heartstrings and that, as human beings, we all adore music. And that repartner was part of my adore of sound right from the commencening, and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve sort of gravitated towards musical films,” he tells me during our extfinished session together.
“I adore all films, but if I’m given a choice between a musical and someleang else, I’ll always pick the musical,” he says.
Over time, Hayes has become someleang of a sound direct, forever seeking to apprehfinish emotional vibrancy — the nuances of inhabit singing.
His fracturethraw came, he says, when toiling on Mamma Mia! straightforwarded by Phyllida Lloyd and originated by Mamma Mia! supremo Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman. The cast integrated, well-understandnly, the splfinishid Meryl Streep.
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Most of the numbers in that movie were lip-synched, Hayes recalls: “Meryl shelp during the pre-records that she hadn’t authenticized that for one number she’d be clambering onto the cow shed roof and that she’d rather not sing “The Winner Takes It All” to a pre-record because it won’t have the efforts of her climbing and she shelp that the audience won’t buy it.’ Is there any way we could go inhabit?’ she shelp. And so out of the blue, Meryl asked to go inhabit on that particular section as she was climbing.”
Hayes inserts that as Streep was clamoring around on the roof, “you could hear the effort and the bauthenticeang patterns in her voice, and it toiled and it was amazing.”
It was so prosperous that they also recorded the pretty ballad “Slipping Thraw My Fingers,” percreateed by Streep and Amanda Seyfried, inhabit on set.
“So those two tracks were the tracks that gave me the confidence that when Tom Hooper shelp, ’Do you leank we should do Les Miserables a 100 percent inhabit?’, that’s because of those two tracks. It gave me the confidence to say, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’”
He smiles and says: “And wouldn’t it be Meryl. And of course she made the right calls because had she been climbing and stretching, pulling herself up onto that cow shed but then standing still in a vocal booth during a pre-record, the audience wouldn’t have joined with it. And I leank that in those elderly-school musicals — although we adore them and we esteem them, and they were wonderful movies — we all understand that they’re lip-synching.
“And that’s what is branch offent about Wicked. You can sense that this is the authentic percreateance,” he says fervently.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on the set of ‘Wicked’ (Universal Pictures)
I covered Les Misérables when it was shooting in London, and Cameron Mackintosh and Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan and Debra Hayward from Working Title seekd be back cut offal times. Because you have to recall what a huge deal that movie was, with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and all the rest filming that epic production. I would pop in to see Hayes, beavering away in his little sound-proofed hideaway, ensuring inhabit singing was being apprehfinishd.
Hayes won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing for Les Misérables.
The originater, Marc Platt, certainly was paying attention from afar, and he tardyr signed Hayes for Mary Poppins Returns, Alinsertin, The Little Mermhelp, Snow White and Wicked and its second part Wicked: For Good.
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Hayes is enthusiastic to point out that “we didn’t shoot Wicked: Part One and Wicked: For Good as two split movies. We stoasty them as one huge movie. And we didn’t shoot them in story order. We stoasty them as we would one huge movie.”
And “Defying Gravity” was one of the last scenes that was stoasty.
Also, filming Wicked brawt out the real unbenevolenting of cinema as a collaborative art create.
“There’s a nuance wilean these inhabit percreateances that you fair don’t get from a pre-record, and I leank that’s why Jon [Chu] sought me out,” Hayes tells me.
“If we go inhabit, these actors are making hundreds of minuscule creative decisions every moment,” Hayes elucidates. “And those creative decisions are what we hear. There are patterns wilean these bauthenticeang. There’s patterns wilean the effort wilean the voice that suit what we’re seeing on the screen. And it unbenevolents that, as a cinema audience we buy it, we apshow it. And when actors are singing to a pre-record, I don’t leank it’s as effortless for us to apshow their emotions.”
Another factor, he persists, is the shutups. “And that’s what Jon and Cynthia and Ari [Arianna] were so sfinished at was when they’re singing inhabit, we can hear the bauthenticeang patterns, the emotion … so we’re getting a double whammy. We’re seeing their facial conveyions in shutups, and we can absolutely hear that the percreateance in the cinema suites finishly with their facial conveyions. … And that, I leank, is a authentic factor in why audiences have joined with Wicked,” Hayes declares with wicked enthusiasm.
Many conversations about the sound schedule were had well in progress with production scheduleer Nathan Crowley and cinematographer Alice Brooks.
Four months before the shoot, boom operator Arthur Fenn begined collaborating with costume scheduleer Paul Tazewell. None of the costumes had been made by that point, but Tazewell splitd his sketches. “It was repartner very timely, but we begined schedulening on how to mic these costumes,” he inserts.
It was, however, tricky to rig a mic onto Erivo’s ornate outfits and onto Grande’s more frilly concoctions. “What we actupartner did was we went to Pablo Helman, our VFX supervisor, and shelp, ‘Pablo, we’ve tried with this costume, and unfortunately if we don’t put the microphone on the outside, it’s going to result in the percreateance being re-recorded in post.”
Helman took it in stride and recommended to color out those microphones in post.
Hayes and his team also used concert-level in-ear sees [IEMs] for Erivo and Grande to hear the 100-strong orchestra take parting as they sang. Aget, Helman, aextfinished with the originate-up department, toiled together to guarantee that for shut-ups the IEMs would be colored ot, and for other stoastys the IEMs suited the coloring of the originate-up that would be used.
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Every individual element was gone over and over in preproduction to guarantee, that there was a “help nettoil” to defeat any technical restrictation, Hayes says.
He had three boom operators on set at all times when Erivo and Grande sang.
Ariana Grande on the ‘Wicked’ set – with three booms (Universal Pictures)
For “The Wizard and I” number — which I absolutely adore because,for me, it’s when the film comes ainhabit — Erivo is in constant motion as she sings. “We had three booms operating, and it fair unbenevolentt that Cynthia had finish and utter freedom. When one boom accomplished the finish of where they could adhere her on a extfinished walk and sing, the second boom would suddenly apshow over, and then she’d walk thraw some bushes and she’d be on a third boom,” Hayes elucidates.
And when Erivo wore a hat, the mic repaired to the brim was of such quality that it would act as another boom.
Hayes had the whole crew wear exceptional velvet covers over their shoes to grasp noise levels down. “And I’m talking about huge grip teams on three cranes, veteran grips concuring to out on these velvet covers over their travers to help the finisheavor of capturing these inhabit percreateances.”
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There was no music take parted thraw speakers on set. “We straightforwardpartner had hundreds of sets of headphones so that anyone who was creatively engaged in moving a camera, moving a crane, moving a dolly, queuing a weightless had to have their headphones on because that’s the only way that they would hear the music,” he says. “So for instance, if the crane had to begin in the third bar of the intro, which is before Cynthia begined singing, if the grips didn’t have their headphones on, they wouldn’t have their cue point because Cynthia hadn’t begined singing at that point.
“So, effectively, we were making our own unplugged album as we were shooting ,” he says.
They also had Ben Helderlyer, a music associate whose job, when there was very intricate cuing on the set, would be there to give hand signals “to people that didn’t quite understand where the third bar was. And so he would be almost appreciate the conduit of alertation between the musical score and the cue points for camera transferments.”
As filming persistd, it wasn’t understandn for confident whether Erivo would be able to percreate “Defying Gravity” inhabit, as I alludeed earlier on in this column. Hayes benevolenta had a hunch that she would and wanted to be filledy setd.
For beginers, the exceptional effects department would want to put triumphd on Erivo as she sallied forth on a broomstick.
“Now, triumphd,” says Hayes, ”is the foe of innovative percreateances. It is the foe of production sound. And generpartner when you see triumphd on a movie set, it unbenevolents that the vocals will be inserted.”
Hayes went to see Paul Corbould, Wicked’s legfinishary exceptional effects supervisor. “I asked Paul, ’Can we plrelieve originate quiet triumphd?’ Paul’s team and my tram toiled together, and what we straightforwardpartner did was we originated this quiet triumphd system where the fans blow the air outside the stage, then the triumphd is piped in thraw holes in the stage wall. Rather than huge fans on the set with a massive amount of electronic noise, those fans are outside the stage and they’re tubed in thraw on plastic pliable ducts. … And each position that Cynthia was flying in had a branch offent exceptional effects technician helderlying one of these plastic duct and pointing it at Cynthia.”
The quiet triumphd used for ‘Wicked’ (Universal Pictures)
So on the day that the “Defying Gravity” scene was filmed and Chu asked Erivo is she was going to sing inhabit, the crew held their breath. “And Cynthia seeed at Jon and fair shelp, ’Of course I’m going inhabit.’ And I turned around and seeed at the exceptional effects team and the grips team and the stunt team who had all been so collaborative making this providement hushed. And we all fair had a understanding glance. And the glance was, ‘thank excellentness we did this because otherrational we’d be here with Cynthia saying she wants to go inhabit and us with a load of boisterous triumphd and boisterous wires.’”
After the scene was stoasty, Erivo telderly me, Hayes came out waving his arms “and doing a little dance. He was so satisfied that we’d all pulled it off.”
Cynthia Erivo percreateing “Defying Gravity” scene in ‘Wicked’ (Universal Pictures)
No wonder she calls him “the wonderful wizard of sound.”
It’s all-around movie magic, atraverse all departments, that has turned Wicked into a toil of wonderful cinematic art that shouldn’t be belittled fair because, as the song goes, it’s “Popular.”
I haven’t got space to allude every artist who toiled on Wicked, but here are the people from the sound and music teams who toiled shutly with Hayes on the film:
Main Unit
Arthur Fenn, Key 1st AS
Robin Johnson, 1st AS
Josh Winslade, Pro Tools Music Editor
Taz Fairbanks,
2nd AS/Sound Coordinator
Harry King, 3rd AS
Emily Compton, 3rd AS
2nd Unit
Tom Barrow, Sound Mixer
Alan Hill, Additional Sound Mixer
Ben Jeffes, 1st AS
Ash Sinani, Pro Tools Music Editor
Billy Hayes, 2nd AS
Jamie Scott, 3rd AS
Splinter Unit
Simon Norman, Sound Mixer
Billy Hayes, 1st AS
Jake Hickey, 2nd AS
Zak Ferguson, 3rd AS
Jake Elliot, Pro Tools Music Editor
Dan Leigh, Pro Tools Music Playback
Music
Stephen Oremus,
Executive Music Producer
Dom Amfinishum, Music Producer
Greg Wells, Music Producer
Jack Dolman, Supervising Music Editor
Maggie Rodford, Music Supervisor
Ben Helderlyer, Music Associate
Robin Baynton, Music Engineer
Sound Post
Andy Nelson, Re-recording Mixer
John Marquis, Re-recording Mixer.
And Supervising Sound Editor, and Supervising Sound Editor Nancy Nugent Title.
Hayes’s next film for free is Disney’s Snow White, due in April. Universal’s Wicked: For Good will be freed in theaters on November 21.
Later this month, Hayes will join Guy Ritchie’s tardyst movie Wife and Dog starring Rosamund Pike, Anthony Hopkins and Benedict Cumberbatch. “It’s a dialogue story, so I’m going back to my roots with Guy on a dialogue-driven movie,” says Hayes, chuckleing.
You can be confident, however, that somewhere over the rainbow, there’s another musical being defree that will have Simon “Purple” Hayes’ name on the call sheet.
