[screaming]
Narrator: That scream you're hearing
in this one moment from "Venom"?
That's not Tom Hardy.
That's Scott Whyte.
Scream artists are some of Hollywood's best-kept secrets.
Like, actually secret.
Take Ashley Peldon.
[fearful scream]
She's one of the most accomplished screamers in Hollywood,
but you might not know where to find her,
as productions don't always want audiences to know
that their stars have been dubbed.
[screaming] No!
Narrator: This makes nailing both the emotion
and the actor's voice that much more important.
Here's how they get the perfect ...
[screams]
I'm sure I blasted you guys.
Narrator: A lot of the sounds captured on set
aren't actually usable,
so they have to be rerecorded later.
Peldon: They great background actors
who were there on set that day probably weren't miked,
or maybe there was too much going on in the noise.
They'll have wind machines going and sound effects,
or you'll have the stuntman or the director
yelling at the actors.
Narrator: But when it comes to screams,
sound quality is just one factor.
Screams are physically difficult.
Just look at this clip of Hugh Jackman
dubbing some of his noises from "Logan."
[grunting and huffing]
So if an actor wants to keep their voice intact,
these skilled recording artists can help.
You know, maybe I'm more expendable,
'cause for a session fee I can blow out my voice.
Narrator: Peldon and Whyte first need to know
what type of scream they're doing,
as that will impact their performance.
One of the most common screams you'll see in movies
are fearful ones, but they're not actually realistic.
Peldon: Now, what's interesting is in real life,
most people will probably freeze up
and not a lot of sound comes out,
but it's not as dramatic on screen.
So we want to make sure that it's a big,
loud, terrifying scream.
Narrator: Determining where in the body fear comes from
can make the scream more believable.
Peldon says fear screams should feel involuntary,
even if they aren't.
So she puts her diaphragm to work.
Peldon: You want it as messy as possible
to get it the most realistic.
So, like, if you hear just a [screams],
you know, really clean, short, or contained kind of scream,
it's not really as realistic
for somebody who's in a lot of fear.
But if somebody is fearing for their life
or in a really terrifying situation,
it's got the adrenaline pumping,
it's got the sweat, it's got the movement.
So it's going to be more of a [terrified scream]
kind of a feel scream.
Narrator: You can see and hear this
as Peldon watches an old horror clip.
Peldon: Where it's the building tension
is what's important there.
This one to me would feel more of a fear
[gasps and screams],
building kind of scream rather than a [screams],
you know, blood-curdling scream.
Narrator: But what makes that scream ...
[fearful scream]
sound different from this one?
[screaming in rage]
Peldon: Rage is the emotion of anger, right?
So it's screaming with the intention of pent-up emotions.
You need to let it out.
Narrator: Screams that come from a place of anger
call for a clenched mouth and tighter body position.
And a more empowering rage scream
calls for Peldon to fully open her mouth.
[screaming in rage]
Whyte will do the same when recording war cries
for games like Call of Duty.
[screaming in rage]
For other roles, Peldon will channel grief.
So, grief has a different feel because this is pure pain,
but not physical pain, right?
This is just emotional pain.
I tend to think of this as the most uncontained
and unhinged kind of feeling.
Narrator: When syncing to a clip,
she'll often need to give multiple options.
This is a "no" she's saying.
Narrator: Listen as she tries one scream with the word "no."
No!
Narrator: And one without.
[screaming in grief]
Convincing screams involve much more
than just incorporating dialogue.
Darth Vader: No!
Narrator: Listen to all the extra pants
and breaths Whyte adds to his screams
during a fight scene from the video game Days Gone.
[screams]
[huffing and panting]
These wordless physical reactions are called efforts,
and they're crucial to fight screams.
It's different then when it's a scream of fear.
That's more of a pull-in sensation.
Usually these are more of a push-out kind of sensation.
There's an impact attached.
Narrator: Each breath and grunt will have subtle differences
based on the type of distress their characters experience.
A gut shot would knock the wind out of you,
which is more of a [huffs].
Face punch would be more of a quick strike,
like [grunting].
Narrator: While this effort ...
[grunts and shouts]
fits in perfectly when White's character delivers a kick,
this one ...
[grunts]
matches when he swings a machete.
All these variations help keep the scene alive.
All of the energy when the camera's not on my character
to keep that character going in the background.
Narrator: But some screams don't fit neatly
into one category.
For example, in "Incredibles 2,"
Whyte had to create the scream for a pilot
who's thrown out of a helicopter.
Whyte: The fear of being pushed out of the helicopter,
which then turns into anger, like,
"Ah! I shouldn't have been kicked out of that plane!"
You know, or whatever.
So it couldn't just be a fear [screams]
and then you hit the water.
It had to have a little two-part act.
And once you hit water,
you're not going to hear any more of the "ah!"
You don't hear the arc of the voice.
It's just [cuts off scream].
[cartoonish scream]
Narrator: This process gets even trickier
when scream artists dub for a high-profile actor,
like Whyte did for Tom Hardy
during the motorcycle chase in "Venom."
Whyte first needed to study the actor's voice
to figure out what makes it unique.
So, Tom Hardy has sort of a gruff,
sort of a lower sort of a voice thing.
So I knew going in that it had to have
a little more grit to the voice.
Narrator: Next, he did what's called "chasing the scene,"
where he watches the sequence from start to finish,
adding all screams and efforts as the scene progresses.
[screams]
[huffing]
Cut two. Now this is when you breathe
and don't pass out.
Feeling a little light-headed, but you push through.
Back to it.
[grunts]
And you can tell it's a workout.
One short few-minute scene in,
and I'm already sweating bullets.
Narrator: After that breather, Whyte looked for specifics.
We're really trying to hone in on the actual scream itself
and analyze the scream.
Narrator: Like when an explosion goes off behind Hardy.
Whyte: He's got his closed mouth, and his teeth are showing.
And so you have to yell through your teeth
to match that performance.
Narrator: Then, when Hardy flies off his motorcycle,
Whyte had to sustain a scream for nearly 10 seconds
without losing the imitation of Hardy's voice.
The art of a long scream is to kind of
tighten your vocal folds just enough
and release just enough air
that you can prolong that scream as long as people need.
When you do that, you're kind of tightening your stomach.
While, again, Tom Hardy's voice is more grittier, lower.
So you kind of have to get
that gravelly thing in your scream
while you're pinching your vocal folds
and tightening your diaphragm just to get out enough air.
'Cause if you're pushing too much air,
you're going to run out of air.
[screams]
Narrator: All of these screams,
whether they're fear, rage, or fighting sounds,
won't carry the same emotional punch
until they've gone through a layering process.
Those layers can include the actor's real vocals
mixed with the dubbed vocals and digital sounds.
Layering is especially helpful for nonhuman voices,
like when Whyte performed the otherworldly screams
of the demon from "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It."
[screaming]
Here's a demonstration
of how a sound mixer might take Whyte's raw screams
and add effects to make them more powerful.
[growling]
[screaming while inhaling]
[breathy growling]
Listen to these three elements combined in a scene.
[growling scream]
Creepy, right?
Well, adding effects like reverb to create an echo
and a rumble can make them even scarier.
[echoing growling scream]
You know, using what the human body can do
and then taking effects,
putting it all in the melting pot.
Narrator: These clips don't seem as exciting,
frightening, or sad
until a scream artist's work is added to it.
[Whyte screaming]
[Peldon screaming in horror]
[Peldon screaming in grief]
So, what makes one of Peldon's real screams ...
[cheerful scream]
sound better than this one?
[crowd cheering]
I think what makes the difference between
what sounds kind of like a generic scream
that they could just get from their library of screams
versus one that really fits the scene
is matching what we're seeing.
The actor, the energy, the emotion.
My scream isn't just noise; it's an acting burst.
"Six screams, two seconds each, go. Give us options."
And you're like,
[screaming]
You know, and then they'll grab each of those files
and use them all in different places of the game, so.