Theres a lot going on in the darkness. Kevin Emmott meets sound mixer Maurizio Argentieri to find out why it was so important to amplify the silence in the Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley.
By Kevin Emmott
Published: April 4, 2024 Updated: April 5, 2024
There's a lot going on in the darkness. Kevin Emmott meets sound mixer Maurizio Argentieri to find out why it was so important to amplify the silence in the Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley.
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> There's a lot going on in the darkness. Kevin Emmott meets sound mixer Maurizio Argentieri to find out why it was so important to amplify the silence in the Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley.
https://www.tvbeurope.com/audio/the-sounds-of-silence title=Share via Email class=share-email>
The problem with silence is that it is so terribly noisy.
We've all been sold a lie. In reality, nothing in nature is truly silent and there's a lot going on in the darkness; the sound of your own breath, the wind in the trees, the distant hum of an engine.
The new Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's classic book The Talented Mr. Ripley is all about embracing those moments. And while Ripley is darkly quiet, it is far from silent. Just how sound mixer Maurizio Argentieri likes it.
Sound mixer Maurizio Argentieri on the set of Ripley during the Covid pandemic Filmed on location in Italy over 10 months during the Covid pandemic, Argentieri set out to capture the silence as loudly as possible. Carefully choosing equipment from both ends of the digital and analogue spectrum, his diligence meant it was also a quiet day for the Foley artists, with 90% of the sounds he recorded on set making it into the final mix.
Even when there was almost no sound at all.
When I talk about an atmosphere of silence, it means footsteps, the rustle of fabric, all the tiny details, says Argentieri. There are many scenes in Ripley where the silence drives the story like another character. It is so important to the plot that as a sound designer I wanted to create the sound live on set to give the audio team as much information as possible when they came to mix the show in post-production.
Shifting the vision
Argentieri has always been fascinated by the effect of audio on an image. Starting his career as a musician and recording engineer, he got his break in cinema working under the Italian director Mario Monicelli.
When I was 22 years old, I discovered how audio can change the meaning and emotion of images, he says. It seemed like a kind of magic, and I was fascinated about this as a creative process, so I tried to bring that same elegance I learned in the studio to working in the field.
Elegant is a good way to describe Argentieri's approach. For Ripley, Argentieri's aim was to not only recreate a soundscape that was sympathetic to the 1960s setting, but to also complement the artistic direction of the material. Like many Patricia Highsmith adaptations, Ripley is deeply noir, and with every aspect of the production reflecting that, Argentieri went big on authenticity. As did Oscar-winning writer and director Steve Zaillian.
The audio cart for Ripley with classic analogue tubes on the top Bringing the authenticity
The show is in black and white which drives the emotion in a very specific direction, says Argentieri. Steve shot it like a noir, and I knew I needed to find something special to contribute to that atmosphere. Steve's approach was all about authenticity, so I knew I needed to design a very specific workflow to match his vision.
I used a tube pre-amplifier to record all the dialogue on set, along with large diaphragm microphones to capture the richness of the voices where I could. I designed an elastic suspension to hold these heavy microphones properly, and on the input I applied some light compression using a tube compressor from the 1960s. I wanted to have my signature on all the recordings. Creating the right atmosphere was so important I wanted to get it right at the beginning of the process.
Making friends with the enemy
Ripley's focus on the finer things and its enthusiasm for authenticity meant that Argentieri found himself working in some very difficult environments, like large and expansive buildings filled with stone and marble. These are always a challenge for sound designers as they fight to control the reflections from such reverberant surfaces.
Tube compression was added to all the dialogue mics But not for Argentieri, who took what he had learned in the studio and applied it all on location.
I completely changed my approach, he smiles. I became friends with the reflections and all the ambience was completely authentic!
I understood very early that we needed to invest a lot of effort into capturing the unique sounds of these locations. I designed a specific immersive rig with a double MS configuration to capture the ambience of those locations and applied the same technique that one uses to record a drumkit. When recording drums, you close-mic the kit and place more microphones some distance away to capture the room ambience in order to enlarge the sound. I used the same technique with the immersive rig, placing it away from the set to capture its beautiful reverberations in an immersive format while using close mics to record the dialogue.
Argentieri also treated the recording of vehicles in Ripley like a drum kit, dividing the car into 12 sections and using 12 microphones to record different elements as isolated outputs (ISOs), including mics inside both the engine compartment and the car. This allowed the post-production team to change the sound of the car however they liked.
Maurizio Argentieri's immersive rig with a double MS configuration Mixing digital with analogue
Co
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Theres a lot going on in the darkness. Kevin Emmott meets sound mixer Maurizio Argentieri to find out why it was so important to amplify the silence in the Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley. 
