Interview: Discussing ‘The Fall Guy’ With Supervising Sound Editors Mark P. Stoeckinger and Paul P. Soucek

Supervising Sound Editor Mark P. Stoeckinger has worked with director David Leitch since the first John Wick movie and is continuing his collaboration with the filmmaker with his latest work, The Fall Guy (raved about by Joey here). According to co-Supervising Sound Editor Paul P. Soucek, the two have established a language that they still develop from movie to movie, as he explains to Awards Radar on Zoom: 

“When David says, “I want this to sound blue,” you know what he’s talking about.  You have that language, which has fostered everything moving forward. When you have somebody like Mark working with David, and you’re letting the filmmaker know how much value a thoughtfully prepared soundtrack brings, it’s not just a wall of stuff, which many action films lean towards. When the filmmaker knows the value of it, that enhances the relationship they’re moving forward. They’re thinking about sound as they’re progressing. David and his wife Kelly McCormick, the producer and the editor, Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, trust us and let us play.”

Stoeckinger describes his experience with Leitch as extremely collaborative, based on the genre he plays around and the aesthetics of the movie’s soundscape: 

“Frequently, in the films I work on, I have access to the dailies of their shooting. Not that I’m sitting there and watching dailies every day, all the way through, but I can target certain aspects of it. With that, I get a feeling for what the film will be and cumulate some questions I can ask. With David having that as a background to our first conversation, one might say something like, “What are some of the most important things to you?” and see what he has to say. 

Having worked on David’s previous films, we discussed genre. Of course, it’s The Fall Guy, and the sounds were slightly more obvious in that era’s television shows and films. Then he would talk about specifics like the broken alien voice and how he wanted to play with that and have fun with it, or the car roll since it’s monumental and breaks a record. He wanted it to be intense. 

Those were some of the aesthetics we discussed early on, and I’m sure there are some others along the way. We do scenes for him in the AVID. So, as they cut the picture, they get used to the ideas we want to share. That can be as much of a spotting session and an aesthetics-establishing procedure as anything else we do. We get some ideas out there and float them out soon enough because, as you probably know, when they’re when they’re putting a film together and cutting it, they’ve got ideas for all sorts of sounds. And I’m not just talking about sound effects, but music.

David’s really attuned to music, but being from the stunt community, he loves the sound of it. He starts to understand his film’s orchestration and where it will be. He has an idea of that frequently going in, and he’ll communicate that. It’s then up to us to facilitate that and deal with it or even solve challenges like in that karaoke scene. There’s a high shot of the bridge that goes into the tunnel, and we’re trying to figure out exactly where we can have music. We’ll make contributions like that along the way, too.”

The Fall Guy deftly blends high-stakes action with comedy, which can be challenging when mixing the movie’s soundscape, as scenes continuously change tone and aesthetics. During our interview, Soucek described the process of working on the movie, stating that there is levity in even the most harrowing sequences of the film and that there is always an element of play in the sound design: 

“We’re mirroring what’s going on dramatically. The dumpster chase is a fairly long, complicated sequence with people getting pummeled and our heroes getting beaten up by the bad guy there. But there’s also some levity, and I think a lot of that comes from the framing of it. You’re going back and forth between this karaoke bar and the truck. When I first saw it, it felt very comedic to me. David’s also into that sort of absurd humor, and you’re going with that. That’s consistent throughout the movie, where stuff is slightly off the wall. 

Like, why is there a cockatiel in the apartment? There’s no reason for it for the audience, but it’s a funny cutaway that we eventually develop, such as Colt’s [Ryan Gosling] dog. We respond to what the scene is about. For example, even the most harrowing scenes, when he’s tied up on the dock. There’s levity there. He goes into the whole thing about carbs, and so on and so forth. I don’t think there is a scene in the film that is straightforward and threatening. There’s always an undercurrent of levity, even in these most threatening moments. From a sound perspective, if you go through the track and look at even the heaviest stuff, except maybe for the car roll, there’s an element of play and fun.”

During our almost half-hour audio conversation, seen below, we also discussed the multiple roles of a sound editor, the differences in mixing for multiple theatrical formats, the process of editing Colt’s ‘drug trip’ scene, and how they highlighted the work of stunt professionals within the sound mix. 

You can check out my interview with Mark and Paul below and see The Fall Guy in theatres today:

[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]