Chris Welcker Brings Heightened Naturalism to Sinners with Sound Devices Scorpio and Astral Wireless

Emmy Award-winning production sound mixer on mixing for IMAX and capturing the ‘authentic’ sound of a haunted juke joint

New Orleans, LA, October 29, 2025 — Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has been one of the most unique and memorable box office hits in recent memory. The film’s masterfully entertaining blend of action, suspense, and Southern gothic horror has resonated with critics and audiences alike while also attracting considerable attention for its technical achievements – specifically being shot in film for IMAX and the impressive ‘twin-work’ of star Michael B. Jordan as brothers ‘Smoke’ and ‘Stack’ Moore. A key aspect of Sinners’ atmosphere is the film’s relationship with sound – a heightened naturalism that draws the viewer into both the creeping eeriness of the film as well as the infectious energy of its ample, period-correct musical numbers. Emmy Award-winning production sound mixer Chris Welcker of Catgut Sound [Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, Daisy Jones and the Six, Queen & Slim] and his team were responsible for threading the needle of these two extremes on the production, for which he relied on Sound Devices 8-Series and MixPre Series recorders as well as Astral Wireless equipment.

Sound mixing for IMAX
One of the primary challenges of shooting films for IMAX is navigating around the mechanical reality of the cameras required – the noise of which typically requires ADR. In this case, Chris employed the use of sound only recordings to be done where the actors would perform without the camera running for audible dialogue recordings. Adding into that the complication of re-shooting scenes for Jordan’s multiple roles required a uniquely collaborative environment for Welcker and his team, Boom Operator and Music Playback Operator Ryan Farris, Primary Utility Sound Person Emily Poulliard, and Fill-In Boom and Utility Sound Person Charlie Nascagni to capture the dialogue and ambient sound in as natural a way as possible.

“This was an incredibly involved project for Sound Mixing because of all of the different layers we were responsible for,” Welcker explains. “We really had to be close with the director and script supervisor to create a fluid, seamless environment that would still allow the actors to perform comfortably while capturing everything we were responsible for at the highest possible level of quality.”

“We were all committed to coming up with effective solutions to accomplish what the production needed.”

The process required Welcker to think like an editor and devise a flexible capture system that could deliver high-quality audio at a moment’s notice while also offering flexible routing options for the captured audio. Welcker’s primary recorder for the production was his Sound Devices Scorpio as well as a mini-cart built around a Sound Devices 833 and SL-2 Wireless Module for exterior work and an Astral A10 Rack for Wireless via Dante. “The Scorpio is still the center of what I do, but we made use of the 833 and MixPre 6 for different situations depending on what was needed,” he says. “A major factor in Sound Device recorders that is extremely helpful to me and especially so on Sinners was the ability to route audio to different bus mixes and have so much control over what we could send, be it Analog or Dante.”

“For the twin work with Michael, we would prerecord audio from the previous take with the body double and then map it to cues of the footage with ADR beeps. Having the flexibility to route the audio to Ableton Live and then chop things up and play it back through the recorders and out of speakers gave us a system that could work quickly and preserve the energy of the take.”

“It gave us so much flexibility for some of the crazier tasks that would have been impossible to do without it,” he continues. “We put those features to the test when it came to the music shoots.”

Grit, energy, and ambiance
Music plays a major role in setting the ambiance of Sinners, from an early impromptu blues guitar performance that takes place in a moving Model T, to the lively song-and-dance numbers at the juke joint, to the final, mournful full-band performance by blues legend Buddy Guy. All of these performances were captured live, and similarly required a similar level of cooperation between Welcker, his team, composer Ludwig Gӧransson, executive music producer Serena Gӧransson, and music editor Felipe Pacheco. A musician himself with ample experience in live performance, Welcker and his team worked to dial into the grit and energy required to give these scenes maximum authenticity.

“In addition to doing justice to the music and the performers, a big element was watching the energy and intensity of what you were seeing on screen to heighten the ‘feel’ of it without making it sound unnatural,” Welcker explains. “As difficult as it could be at times technically, we had a lot of fun capturing the performances and getting all of those ambient elements – stomping feet on wooden floors, background yelling for the juke joint scenes – together. Once again, it helped to have these really powerful, compact Sound Devices units so we could be physically closer to the action without being an obstruction to the shoot, with track count determining what was used in a given scenario.”

“Often we paired this with the MixPre 6 for ambisonics and sound effects capture, which gave us even more to share with the post team and provide elements for Atmos mixing. It really allowed us to be naturalistic while still achieving everything we needed to in a technical sense.”

“Ultimately this was one of the most exacting productions I’ve ever worked on in terms of what was required technically, but at the same time, one of the most creative,” he concludes. “The camaraderie of the group really came together to create a very special film, and the Sound Devices gear gave us everything we needed to solve some very unique challenges.”

To learn more about Chris Welcker and Catgut Sound, please visit: https://www.catgutsound.com/

About Sound Devices:
For more than 25 years, Sound Devices has created premier audio equipment that helps sound professionals capture superior audio. The company's products have been used for an array of applications, from award-winning feature films and television shows, to live events, houses of worship, and educational applications. Sound Devices designs, assembles, and supports its products at their Reedsburg, Wisconsin, headquarters and their Madison, Wisconsin, and Rickmansworth, UK, offices. For more information, visit www.sounddevices.com.