Emmy-Nominated Sound Team of ‘The Bear’ on Creating and Controlling the Chaos and (occasional) Quiet of the Groundbreaking Series

Mixing and editing the sound for The Bear is probably not the easiest job in television. In fact, as I was about to begin my conversation with with the Emmy nominated trio from the show, Supervising Sound Editor Steve “Major” Giammaria, Sound Mixer Scott D. Smith, and Dialogue Editor Evan Benjamin, I jokingly said, “Well, you guys must have the easiest job on television.” “A cakewalk,” Major quipped. Few shows on television (past or present) are as inventive and challenging in their use of sound. Many scenes are wildly chaotic and anxiety-inducing one moment, and then the show can suddenly turn very quiet–sometimes from episode to episode, or even within the same episode.

The ability to maintain consistency when managing the sound of a show that is all about the inconsistency of life, the chaos that family and restaurant work can bring, while also accounting for the high level use of song and score to create a cinematic reality that is entirely convincing, is, well, no cakewalk. In our conversation, “Major,” Evan, and Scott speak to the sometimes confounding challenges of managing the sound of The Bear: Part Two in a way that is authentic to its tonal changes. 

Awards Daily: When you took on the challenge of this show, did you have a sense of what you were getting into? Because this is a show that if read in the most simple way, is about a brother who takes over his dead brother’s sandwich shop. And that’s really not telling you anything. 

Evan Benjamin: When we started this, all I had was a name. I didn’t know anything about it. I asked somebody that was working at the facility–me and Major were there–I found an assistant and said do you know what this thing is, The Bear, that’s coming up? And he said I think it’s a cooking show. (Laughs). So, yeah, we didn’t really know. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: I had seen the pilot and it had a certain flair to it. I didn’t have a chance to work on the first episode. I had a scheduling conflict. I was lucky enough to be asked back for the series, but it definitely set the tone. That first opening of the pilot when Jeremy (Allen White) comes in, it’s like this thing is amped up. All right, we’re going to have to bring it, which I hope we did.

Awards Daily: I spoke to Oliver Platt about the show recently, before season three came out. I asked him what we can expect from season three? He said you can expect more of the same in that it will be different. Talking about the difference between season one and two, what were the differences for your team? What challenges did you have in illuminating the characters through sound, some who previously were more in the background? The second season, you bring them foreground and the sound in those episodes speaks to their personalities too.

Steve “Major” Giammaria: The conversations we had early on were, in these first two episodes, we need to re-establish what The Bear sounds like, which is the chaos from season one, but instead of cooking sounds, it’s construction sounds now. We really wanted to make sure we established that chaotic base. In the first part of S2.E1, you get in there and it’s construction and yelling, and Carmy’s working out the budget on the pizza box–we’re back at The Bear. We got it, we’re into one of those classic Bear scenes. It was really important to establish that baseline. Then we could go away from it and you could feel the difference and sometimes the similarities. You go to Copenhagen and it’s introspective and really soft, or then you go to “Fishes” and you have the same kind of chaos and you see where that’s born, in their life, in their mother’s substance abuse and anxiety. Then in “Forks” you’re showcasing a different restaurant that has the same intensity, but it’s a measured intensity, it’s a controlled intensity and how Richie fits into that world, and then some quiet moments with Richie, which is something we hadn’t gotten before. And then bring it all back around in the last episode to this is the new normal for The Bear and where we end up sonically. 

Evan Benjamin: I love that the episode “Forks” is all set in this restaurant that’s much more focused, and it’s intense, but it’s quiet, and people treat each other respectfully and what that seems to do to Richie’s psyche over the course of that episode. It’s this guy’s journey in one very short episode, like he was primed maybe to be that person, but he was never that person in The Bear. At The Bear, guys are screaming at each other, a lot of aggression. You go to this place, and yes, it’s intense–really, really intense. But the staff have this respect for what they do and for each other that I think rubbed off on him. And that’s a beautiful thing to watch. Culminating in that great scene at the end with him and Olivia Colman, which might even nail the whole season for me. That “every second counts” thing, which is really beautiful to look at so that’s what’s great. I think that the kitchen just sounds so much different. Everything sounds different in that restaurant. And that makes Richie reflect more and makes his transformation more obvious to see. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: We tried to punctuate that with his movements being more from The Bear. Like when he’s on that epic pizza run in “Forks,” he comes in and sets that pizza box down. It’s a very Bear sound, because he’s in this other world and doesn’t quite know how to fit in yet. His intensity isn’t quite as measured as the rest of these folks with their precision of cutting out little holes and putting micro basil on the plate and all of that. We tried to highlight that to see that Richie’s fitting in, but not quite. 

Awards Daily: The show has the front of house sound, and that sound is supposed to be quiet. When the utensils are placed on the table on the napkins,  they land with a great softness. But then in the kitchen, you have the chaos of the tines, the utensils, the clinking and the clanking is almost like industrial music. When you’re thinking about going from that space to the other space, obviously the contrast is really significant. It makes a statement about what you see, and what you don’t see as a patron in a restaurant.

Steve “Major” Giammaria: I would say it starts with the track Scott gives us and what they do on set, obviously. And it depends on which restaurant we’re talking about. If we’re talking about Ever and in “Forks.” The kitchen and the front of house obviously sound different, but the front of house there, everybody’s whispering, it’s a little more high end. It’s polite conversation. And then if we’re at The Bear on friends and family night, it’s friends and family. So it’s a little more jovial, a little louder, the music’s popping a little bit more. There was a very conscious effort to keep those two worlds apart. Let’s talk about episode 10 of season two, where we’re going back and forth. We’re following these people back and forth between the two worlds, and they are definitely two worlds. There’s literally a plane sound when they go through the door, because it’s just an absolute difference. I think we’re pretending that door is a little more soundproof than it is. We went from source music in the dining room to score in the kitchen–that helped it along too. That came by design from the editors and the music editors. And we were able to find that balance of the chaos of the kitchen and hiding the chaos from the customers. The details of the Foley, like a fork down in the kitchen versus a fork down in the dining room, are going to be two completely different experiences sonically for sure.

Awards Daily: I have this theory that the kitchen chaos reflects the life chaos of the characters, and particularly Carmy. I have people tell me all the time, I love the show, but it makes me so anxious. I think what you folks do is create the sound of anxiety. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: That conversation definitely happens for sure. Scott, what’s the conversation on set about that sort of thing? Those parallels between Carmy’s life and the kitchen. 

Scott D. Smith: It just is what it is. I don’t know if Chris (Storer–show creator) had any specific intent about how those two environments are juxtaposed or not. It’s just kind of the nature of what it is. Because of the way we shoot it, except for a couple of scenes, it wasn’t even immediately apparent to me how those were gonna play against each other because we’ll shoot something one day and another scene another day. So it wasn’t until it was cut that I kind of got the direction that it was taking. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: That’s interesting because we talk about that a lot in the spotting sessions and that sort of thing about how we can indirectly bring the anxiety, whether it’s ticket printers, whether it’s fires, whether it’s people, all of those things that kind of work at the peripheries. That’s the trick with sound, is that we can affect you without you knowing it sometimes. And then if you’re in the service industry, there’s specific triggers for sure. My brother in law refuses to watch the show because he used to own a restaurant, and he saw 30 seconds and was like nope, can’t do it. So we got it right. (Laughs).

Evan Benjamin: Our first Zoom meeting with Chris was him telling us that he wanted it to be very stressful. That was a real point. And I think that when they’re in the kitchen, they’re all so comfortable in the kitchen, it’s almost like the perfect distillation of their personalities comes out in there. More than when they’re in their real life–they’re most themselves when they’re in that kitchen, all of them. So that’s an interesting thing to watch too. They’re all just showing exactly what they are there.

Awards Daily: As someone who was briefly stuck in a restaurant refrigerator once… 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: Oh no! Did we get it right? 

Awards Daily: Too right. I had to have a lie down afterwards. (Laughs). The thing that’s interesting is that those spaces are not truly soundproof, but they’re not easy to hear or be heard through. In that sequence in episode 10, Carmy and Richie are both shouting which helps make it more believable, but it’s important that Claire is able to hear Carmy screw up their relationship from inside a freezer. Was that hard to balance and stay realistic?

Steve “Major” Giammaria: I think the editing saved us. If I remember correctly, I don’t think we actually ever got more than a few words futzed through the freezer. Richie and Carmy are on a split screen, so we’re hearing them both full voice, I think we may have panned them or something. I don’t think we’re ever on the opposite coverage for more than a couple of words. When I first saw the scene, I’m like oh boy, and then when I dug in, I’m like oh, wait a minute, I’m futzing very little of this. It was a little bit of a trick because it sold it that you can hear through it, but we don’t hear through the other side of the door too much in the episode. 

Evan Benjamin: With Richie and Carmy, you wouldn’t have been able to split that apart anyway. I think they’re both yelling over each other the whole time. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: How did they shoot that, Scott? Did they just shoot that at the same time or is that a split screen? 

Scott D. Smith: Those were shot separately. When we did the outside coverage, originally, I was going to mic Carmy on the inside. Because Jeremy hadn’t had a chance to wrap his head around that moment yet, he specifically asked me not to record his dialogue inside there because he wanted a chance to be able to get into the character a little bit more. So in that case whatever you hear was only what you heard on the outside of the refrigerator.

Awards Daily: Speaking of the dialogue, one thing that Oliver had mentioned to me is that sometimes the dialogue actually gets cut down because Jeremy is such a good face actor. Is that a term? (Laughs). His expression answers the question. Does that present any challenges for you, Evan? When you’re thinking about how to get this scene across, and now we’re actually taking tools out of the box. 

Evan Benjamin: I don’t think so. I think the way they edited it is so skillful. It doesn’t register to me as any kind of a shortcoming. I think it’s beautiful. One of the reasons you’re talking about the sound of the show, and people talk about it, is because they’ve edited it in such a way that we are able to do that. So those spaces are kind of crucial. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: They set up a scaffolding that we’re allowed to play. Without that you can’t just wedge it in actually. 

Evan Benjamin: Which not everybody does. When you get this sort of standard kind of comedy for TV, there’s wall to wall dialogue and you’re just trying to make everything audible. I think this show has a lot more aspirations to something a little bit more orchestral, I suppose. That is part of what makes it so special. So, when they do those things, when you just see him staring off and his sentence is unspoken, it’s just in his face like you’re saying–by the way, I love “face actor,” that’s fantastic–those are actually kind of great. Then you’re just digging into the sounds of the environment in the room. A lot of that production sound is great, too. People forget that a lot of that sound that you’re getting with these actors when they’re not speaking is also pretty crucial. If it’s recorded well, and Scott records it well, then you get to hear it, and that’s a big part of the show, too. And those are moments where nothing’s happening. Sometimes, when nothing is happening, are the most revealing moments, or the most beautiful. 

Awards Daily: There’s the shot when Carmy takes Claire in to see the construction of the new restaurant. And there’s a sequence where she’s just framed. In an actual construction frame, there’s just silence and it speaks volumes. The only sound is just almost like hearing heartbeats. It’s really just kind of magical. 

Evan Benjamin: Then that episode switches, I think it’s the same episode, where she meets all of his coworkers. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: It goes off the rails real quick. (Laughs).

Evan Benjamin: That screaming, I think that took me half a day to sort through that little two minutes, because that’s what they do. They do these beautiful things and all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose. And then you’ve really got your hands full. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: That’s what they do really well, with the really quiet, the calm before the storm, both on a scene by scene basis and episode wise. I think “Forks” works so well because it’s right after “Fishes” and everybody was like, I need a win here. And then you get one with Richie, and that emotional payoff is so good. 

Evan Benjamin: The truth is, nothing is loud unless something else is soft. If it’s loud all the time, then it’s not loud anymore, it’s wallpaper. So you can’t have loud without soft. And that’s what they managed to balance perfectly with obviously incredibly skillful mixing. 

Awards Daily: I want to talk about the mixing in particular. In season two, the resurrection, as I like to say, of R.E.M.’s “Strange Currencies” that becomes a thematic piece throughout numerous episodes, but begins with that “meet cute” in the grocery store. And you have to make sure that the song is very significant and hear the lyrics, but you also have to be able to hear their dialogue and find the two connecting to each other. 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: That took me a long time. Even the first episode I mixed, they had two music cues going out at the same time, and I’m like are these in the kitchen? What is going on here? They’re like oh, that’s score. So, this is the first time, and I don’t know if any other show does this, they’ll just throw a needle drop in as score and use the entirety of the song. Sometimes it’s definitely a particular challenge for me when the show runners want to hear the song, but we also want to hear the dialogue, and we also want to hear these effects. So, we take it on a case by case basis. Sometimes there’s little tricks, you start the song a little hotter at the beginning and then you dip it down. Or, particularly in season three, there was a lot of riding music up and down. There’s not a lot of breaks in dialogue in this show, but when there are, the music often gets goosed up a bit. Like you said, you don’t want it too quiet where it just doesn’t exist, and you don’t want it too loud where that’s all you’re focusing on. It’s really a narrow window to hit for sure, but it all comes back to the dialogue. Getting that in the pocket first and then mixing everything else around it is the key, because the last thing you want to do is have someone grabbing for the remote or turning on subtitles. You want to avoid that, even though 58 percent of people watch television with subtitles on and I take that personally. (Laughs). So I really want to try and dial that in so you don’t have to. That’s my goal. 

Awards Daily: We have to talk about “Fishes,” which struck me as almost Altman-esque in terms of how it handled overlapping dialogue. But the thing about Altman is you often felt like you had to pick who to pay attention to. But the thing that happens in “Fishes” is that, even with the overlapping, you’re hearing the distinctions of what people are saying, even as chaotic as it is. How did you manage that, and the dinner table conversation in particular, to make that work? 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: It starts with Scott just recording beautiful tracks. Without that, we’re sunk. And then Evan preparing them. I think he’s on record as saying this is the most difficult episode of television he’s ever done. I will say Evan is a world class dialogue editor, probably the best I’ve ever seen. Just having that team prepare the tracks for me makes it quite a bit easier. With some recent advances in technology, we’re able to use the boom and the lav together more easily. Being able to have a base of what the conversation sounds like and push certain characters, when they need to be, it really helps. With the style of editing of “Fishes” by Joanna Nagel, there’s a little bit of trickery, too. It doesn’t overlap as much as you think it does. There’s a lot of things that are really, really close to each other. There’s just no error in it. A lot of it is bing, bang, boom, not really on top of each other. There obviously are overlaps, but it’s less overlappy than you’d think. It’s just cut so tight, by request, that it just feels relentless, which is by design.

Awards Daily: I’ve interviewed her. She’s pretty good at her job. (Laughs).

Evan Benjamin: It was an incredible piece of work. That was very complicated because it’s not really that overlappy, it’s really more like there’s just no space. But that means that when they get into one of those kinds of situations where they inevitably cut to another take of it, like they cut to a reverse in the middle of one of these bits of overlap, you have a very difficult time managing the dialogue. You have to account for the fact that these actors are saying the lines at different speeds, you’ll invariably hear part of someone else’s line on the wrong person’s mic at that point, but typically every single person in every single shot is mic’d up and there are multiple booms on that scene. There might have been sixteen microphones on that scene so there’s a lot of raw material. A lot of it is not needed for that particular shot, but some of it is. The fact that you have so much to choose from means there’s a lot to go through, but you can usually find one little word that’s by itself that doesn’t have that overlap on it if you look hard enough, because it’s covered so intensely. Major’s probably using one or two of those microphones at any one moment, but there’s sixteen of them. Sometimes it’s just layers so that it’s a conversation between two other people and another sixteen microphones happening at the same time. But once you peel it all away, sometimes you can find a lot of stuff in there because Scott’s mic’d it so comprehensively.

Awards Daily: Major, you had made the reference to the track. I think in music, we understand that idea more easily than we might understand it for television or film. So Scott, what does it mean to create a track? 

Scott D. Smith: I don’t even know that creating a track particularly applies to what we do, especially nowadays since I mix for dailies when we’re on set, but really we’re recording everything. So all that I’m creating, for the most part, is as many options as I think might be usable in post. Especially on a show like this, where a lot of times we truly do not know what’s going to happen. A big part of our job that became apparent pretty early on is just trying to second guess what’s going to happen and figure out how we can cover it. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don’t. If we were back in the days of actually mixing a final production track on location where I would have a point of view as to how the scene is going to play, then that would be very different. Nowadays my approach is based on what I think the shot is going to be, and just try to get as much material as I can. For example, we have scenes where there’s a group response in the kitchen, where they’re calling out “chef!” and such. Most of those tracks I record in stereo as kind of a group effect, because then I know later on Major and Evan can take those and dump them into left and right channels in front, or surround channels, and be able to establish a sonic space that you might not get otherwise. That’s really what I try to do. Years ago, when we had one or two tracks to deal with, then I would have to be forced to pick a sonic signature, or at least a point of view as to what the scene is. It’s a whole different ball game now.

Awards Daily: I wanted to ask one question about Season 3. It deals with episode one, “Tomorrow,” which is one of the most cinematic episodes I’ve ever seen on television. There’s just occasional snippets of dialogue. Almost everything is told through the visual and the sound. When you were coming around to making the sound for “Tomorrow”—because the sound is so significant to that episode between the music and what little dialogue there is, and then the sounds of the kitchen, all of that as one piece is just an extraordinary piece of filmmaking—did you think oh god, how are we going to do this? 

Steve “Major” Giammaria: Well, I’ve stopped exclaiming that at this point on the show, (Laughs) but yes, that one was interesting. So because of the schedule of shooting, we edited and mixed a version of that that’s very different from what exists now. We went in and–me and my poor assistant editor/editor this season, Craig LoGiudice–I think we had four or five hundred picture changes from the first version to the version that aired. It wasn’t big structural changes, nothing different. It’s just, we kind of did it twice. We did the first version and then there would be cards with “Copenhagen footage to be shot” because it didn’t get shot until very much later because they had to fly everybody there. So structurally we know it’s going to be wall to wall music, but Evan does his thing with the dialogue, my Foley folks do their thing, backgrounds, build it all up and then I have to play, we’ll call it the expo chef, and decide what seasoning gets put on at any one moment. Usually I set the base of the dialogue and mix everything around that, this one was more the ebb and flow of the music and then poking different elements through depending on what is needed at each particular moment. And then there were notes of, whenever it’s Carmy and the chef that is teaching him things, we want that to be more of a memory. Let’s bury that one a little bit. Other than that, it’s a hypnotic kind of meditation on Carmy’s life. It was really just figuring out at each moment, beat to beat, what the most important thing was to not have anything stand out, but not have anything get lost. It was a challenge for sure, but it was a fun one, and I hope it played well. 

Awards Daily: I thought it was extraordinary. 

Evan Benjamin: I agree with you. That opening, I’ve never seen anything like that when I watched it. I thought it was so daring, formally challenging, just clever and really risky. People who have watched it since have said to me oh, I was confused. I actually like that people will do things once in a while where they don’t play down to the audience, like maybe some people are going to get confused, but you know what, you’ll figure it out and it’s good. Make people work a little bit, that’s alright. That’s what I loved about it.