Ayla Ruby
While the Cerritos’ journey on Star Trek: Lower Decks is over for now, the legacy it leaves on Trek and the broader animation and sound community lives on. James Lucero, as Supervising Sound Editor on the program, recently earned his 3rd Emmy nomination for his work on show. He shares the nomination with the rest of the team, including, Drew Guy, Konrad Piñon, James Singleton, John Wynn, Amber Funk, and Michael Britt.
Our second chat with James Lucero was, to quote a famous Vulcan, “fascinating,” as his enthusiasm for his craft and the world of Star Trek: Lower Decks completely shines through. He offers a ton of insight into his nominated work on the series finale, The New Next Generation, and how his team crafted a unique palette of sounds. Lucero shares how the soundscape was designed to make you feel danger with the Klingons and explains how every moment is important. He also talks about the overwhelming joy of his Emmy nomination and shares his hopes for a future with more of our favorite Lower Decks characters. Read on for the full conversation.
Ayla Ruby: Fantastic. So congratulations on the nomination. It’s very well-deserved, and I’m really happy to speak with you again.
James Lucero: Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate you saying that. Yeah, it’s definitely a labor of love, and so to be recognized, it’s always overwhelming and a surprise and really joyful, especially for my team.
Ayla Ruby: I always like to ask people what the moment was when they found out about the nomination. So can you talk about that for you and your team? How did you guys find out? Or what was that like?
James Lucero: I had actually forgotten, it was the day of nominations, so I got a bunch of texts from the team and also from other people that I’ve worked with over the past, and I got all these texts, and I’d forgotten about it. And again, it always leaves me speechless. Even when someone brings it up right now, it leaves me speechless, but also it makes me so joyful for my team and the people that I’ve worked with, and I know how much they put into it. And also for the creators, because it’s recognition for them as well. It’s not just the work that I’m doing or that the team is doing with me. We’ve been given this opportunity by the executive producers and the creators and the writers to give us this vehicle to help it along. We’re there to service that episode and the show itself, and we’re just one part of the many cogs that go into the making of Star Trek or any show.
Ayla Ruby: Well, I have a lot of questions about that, but to kind of dig into the episode a little bit, I think last year it was The Inner Fight that got the nomination?
James Lucero: Right.
Ayla Ruby: What do you think about this episode, the series finale that kind of stood out and just from a …
James Lucero: Yeah, it’s interesting. So it’s been a while since I’ve watched, and it’s funny because these episodes stayed with me. There was a moment where, I forget which character that said, because they’re going through these fissures in space, so they’re going through the multiverse and different quantum realms, and I remember Boimler saying, “Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you exploring other worlds?” And again, I forget the character’s name-
Ayla Ruby: The First Contact lady.
James Lucero: Yeah.
Ayla Ruby: Lily Sloane, I think.
James Lucero: Right, right. Yes, exactly. So in her response, I just remember it stuck with me. “It’s helping us explore ourselves.” And so there’s so much tension in the episode that we presented, but again, it’s still … The serious part is they want to get to find themselves, even with all this turmoil going around, they’re going from one quantum realm to the next, and the Cerritos is changing from one version to another version, and they’re about to completely explode at some point, possibly. At the same time, they need to trust themselves with what they’re trying to accomplish to overcome this possible destruction of the universe and the multiverse. So they have to trust themselves and they have to trust their team. And I love that concept.
Ayla Ruby: How do you support that with sound? Because there’s a lot of awesome stuff. Tonally, there’s the multiverse stuff and then there’s the interpersonal stuff, and are they different from a sound perspective or how do you support the story with all of that?
James Lucero: It’s interesting. I feel the story arc, it’s always increasing, the tension was always increasing, so how can I do that sonically? So there’s always this kind of rising element underneath, and I actually did it from a sound perspective, I did it in the lower tones, lower frequencies, so it’s not going to distract from the dialogue taking place so you can kind of more feel it.
So I have this constant rise going on throughout, and it’s almost about 20 minutes in this last episode, which is beyond challenging to try to do. So I have to play with harmonics to make it … You can’t have something completely rise for 20 minutes, so you have to kind of play with harmonics and make it feel and seem like it’s rising. So it’s very subtle, it’s underneath, and again, we’re adding more layers of let’s say, possible destruction. Again, with the franticness and chaos going on within the ship and within the characters, we have to again, not do things that are going to be too loud where you can’t hear what they’re talking about. So we have to find our little moments where we can implement something of, okay, this impending doom or possible impending doom. And when the shots are in space, where the fissure is really almost collapsing within itself, we have to find more elements that are going to … And that’s where I’ll go into the higher frequencies because that kind of does something to the brain where you’re feeling like those higher frequencies can really bring in tension.
So when we’re in outer space and the quantum realms are possibly collapsing in on themselves and then the universe is about to be destroyed, then I’m really hitting the higher frequencies because there’s not as much dialogue taking place. So it’s kind of a challenging strategy of like, okay, when can I do this? When can I do that? When can I have higher frequencies? When can I have lower frequencies?
Ayla Ruby: It felt very cosmic in a sense. And I’m thinking of the fissures where there’s all the pink crisscrossing and stuff. Just thinking back to how that sounded, it was really cool.
James Lucero: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah, pink noise is a good description for certain layers that we were using for sure.
There’s tremendous amount of layers that we’re working with, and so in certain moments I can bring a couple of layers up, a couple of layers down. The energy frequencies for sure I think are really important when we get towards the end or the latter part of the episode, and that’s where I’m giving even more of a rising sort of element going on with those energy levels. Because now I think the portal or what becomes the portal is really about to implode on itself. So that’s where I’m taking those energy levels. And there’s some electrical levels, layers that are there, but I think that’s more for outer characteristics and to just kind of support the animation, but really to support the overall idea of the collapse of this multiverse and these certain energy levels that I’ve recorded over the years. And then I’ll kind of play with them and like I said, given the rising levels to where you can only go so far, is this going to completely collapse in on itself or is the Cerritos going to save the day, which they do.
Ayla Ruby: In addition to all that, you’ve got the Klingons, which are kind of an interesting sound presence in the show. Did they have anything special that kind of goes along with the sound for them or kind of …
James Lucero: So what’s been really fun about the series was we got to use a lot of the sounds from the Star Trek lexicon of sounds. And so with the Klingons, we’re using the sounds of their ship, we’re using the sounds of their, but because they were created in the 90s, and this is Next Generation, so even late 80s, sonically, they need some help so it doesn’t sound so different from what we’re creating right now. So we’ll give them layers to help them feel a little bit fuller and not as thin as they may have sounded completely on their own. So it’s a really special moment to listen deeply to what was created by sound designers from the past and to bring them up to modern day feel and a modern day high fidelity type of sound. So yeah, we did a lot with the Klingons during that episode.
Ayla Ruby: It almost feels too, just for parts of it, they feel very ominous too, just listening. I don’t know. That’s just a very interesting thing.
James Lucero: Again, that’s my responsibility, my team’s responsibility. When we see the Klingon, we need to feel danger.
So with backgrounds and ambiences, we will do something like I’ll have maybe a desolate wind type of sound in the background. Even though they’re inside in the ship, I will have a layer that will give this feel of it’s desolation and like you said, ominous. So ambiences and backgrounds play a lot into that feel of are we with the villain at the moment or are we with the good guys at the moment? When we are on the Cerritos, we are actually using some of the sounds that they used in The Next Generation, and then we’ll use our own layers as well for the ambiences and backgrounds.
Ayla Ruby: Now, were there any hallmarks of these different … So there’s a moment where the Cerritos is kind of going through the universes and the Cerritos changes, it’s got more weapons and stuff. Is there anything sound-wise that changes with the ship itself?
James Lucero: Absolutely. So the tone of the ship itself, so we developed the tone of the Cerritos way back in season one. And so when we see them go to where there are more modern or more up to date to what would be today’s starships, that’s what we were going to bring in a deeper layer of tones. More, again, in the lower end, we’ll kind of stay with that. And we’re lucky that they allow us to do that. We’re not having to use specific library sounds for the newer ships. We can do what we wanted. And Mike McMahan was so wonderful and I got to really give a shout-out to Mike McMahan and to Brad Winters, the producer, they really gave a lot of description to us and trusted us to give them what they were hoping to get from the sounds of the newer star ships.
Ayla Ruby: Well, that’s fantastic.
James Lucero: Yeah, and especially, actually, these last two episodes, episode 9 and 10, because they’re a continuation.
Ayla Ruby: Yeah.
James Lucero: I would say almost all of that, 90% of that, they trusted us to completely create the palette of sound for both of those episodes. And of course, when we’re seeing the Klingon ships, like I mentioned before, we are using some past sounds from Star Trek, but then we’re able to kind of give some layers to give it that higher fidelity like I mentioned. But really the whole palette of those last two episodes, they really gave us carte blanche to develop the fissure and all the different multiverses and the quantum realms. And then lastly, the portal, where it turns into a portal.
Ayla Ruby: That’s almost like a joyful sound at the end. There’s like-
James Lucero: That’s exactly it.
Ayla Ruby: … Hopefulness with the portal.
James Lucero: That gives me chills that you say that because I’m grateful because that was exactly what I was trying to convey and create.
Ayla Ruby: It came across totally. It was very well done. So kudos to you guys.
James Lucero: Thank you. And the hopefulness is also, I hope they get to do another series because it’s like-
Ayla Ruby: I hope so.
James Lucero: Yeah, the way it ended, like …
Ayla Ruby: Starbase 80!
James Lucero: Yes. I’m so hoping because I remember designing at the end of that episode and seeing what they did with the dialogue and this potential for a possible new series. So I definitely got a little choked up to be honest with you. And that’s because as a sound designer and a sound supervisor, I’m always looking at the whole broad spectrum of each episode. But also every moment is, and I kind of mentioned this before, every moment is the most important moment to me. And so I’m really involved in listening to the dialogue and what are they saying in this moment. So to be in something like this for five years and the fact that there may be some hope for another series, but to see them, see the characters hopeful as well, definitely gave me a little choke up there.
Ayla Ruby: Awesome. So you mentioned details and how you have to pay attention to every moment matters. Were there any smaller moments that may have gone unnoticed or that may not have been … Like the big interdimensional rift that were really interesting to create or bring to light?
James Lucero: Specifically this episode, there’s so much movement, not just the ships themselves moving through the multiverse, and that in itself is already challenging, but everyone’s movement within the show, again, there’s a lot of chaos and there’s a lot of moments where you think like, okay, we’re going to mellow out, and then all of a sudden something happens again. I just remember kind of being on the edge of my seat designing sounds because there was just so much movement. And so again, I mentioned earlier how there’s this rise and almost acceleration in tension, but then there’s all these quick movements going on, whether it’s with ships, whether it’s the fights going on between the brothers, the Klingon brothers.
So what goes on in this series, what I know is there was always multiple stories going on within the one large story. And so we can be out in the multiverse, but then we have to really come down into a smaller moment where let’s say there is a fist fight going on, or the tension of trying to engineer the warp drive to slow it down or to speed up with gravitational warp speed. We have to concentrate on those moments while still in the background, we want to feel that tension.
Ayla Ruby: Awesome. And I know we’re pretty close to time. Is there anything that you kind of want people to know about the work of the team of Lower Decks or anything else that you haven’t had a chance to share?
James Lucero: When talking about animation, sound for animation, I think what a lot of people may not understand is we create every single sound other than the dialogue and the music. So even the footsteps, they are important. Every person is a distinct character. I want their footsteps to be a certain way. We get about 8 to 10 days to do 1 episode, and there’s only 3 of us to do it. So that in itself is a challenge, and I just can’t thank my team enough for the hard work that they put in given 8 to 10 days for 1 episode. So it’s a tremendous challenge, and I think they came through in such a stellar way and I couldn’t be more proud.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, that’s fantastic. And wow, that’s a short amount of time. Thank you for chatting and for all of this.
James Lucero: Absolutely. Thank you.
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