27-05-2025
‘Secret Level' sound editor Matt Yocum on using the ‘punchy aesthetic' of video game audio for new animated series
'One of my favorite parts of my job is the variety,' says Matt Yocum about the diversity of projects on which he has served as sound editor. An Emmy Award winner for The Last of Us, he has worked on both television and film, from live action to animation. 'Animation really does stand out amongst the herd of other possible choices,' says the designer, because 'you're not necessarily tied to any 'natural conventions.' You're able to bend things and go further and manipulate sounds in different ways and be more exaggerate.' Yocum has brought that approach to the Prime Video animated series Secret Level and discussed the show as part of our Meet the Experts: TV sound panel.
A self-professed gamer, Yocum delighted in taking part of Secret Level, which he describes as 'an immense undertaking.' He explains, 'Although they're all animated, each episode is in its own genre and has its own world with its own rules and set of logic and creative approach.' The first season of the show features 15 episodes inspired by 15 different games, ranging from Dungeons and Dragons to Pac-Man and beyond.
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Even though Yocum brought a unique approach to each episode of Secret Level, he introduced cohesiveness across the entire season by drawing upon principles of video game sound. He explains, 'Game audio has, in a lot of cases, this specific, punchy aesthetic. There's something hyper-real about things and impactful.' The sound editor aimed to 'bring that punch and that largeness and that impact and the visceral nature of things' to all 15 installments.
SEE 'Secret Level' creator Tim Miller explains how he gets writers to create short stories based on video and role-playing games
One of the standout episodes of the season from a sound perspective is 'Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear.' This entry was a massive undertaking for Yocum because, in his words, 'The edict from the director, Dave [Wilson], on day one of Warhammer was, 'Nothing in the Warhammer universe is small, so everything needs to be huge.' These are huge titanic marines and they're flying in big ships and they're shooting huge guns and they're carrying big swords.' From his perspective, the challenge of executing something so humongous in sound design is, 'If everything is a 10, then nothing is a 10.'
'The trick on something as loud and as big and as rambunctious as Warhammer is to create pockets in order to create contrast, because the way you achieve something feeling 10 is by perceiving it and following it with moments of fives or sixes or sevens,' describes Yocum of his approach to adding variety to the massiveness of the fifth episode. He adopted this method 'so that the loud stuff feels loud,' punctuated with 'moments of soft.'
Warhammer is also unique because of its overall lack of dialogue, save for some introductory narration and a line or two throughout. Director Wilson came into production with 'this whole sweeping, flowing backstory' that the audience might not understand, but which Yocum found tremendously helpful. 'I actually love knowing that stuff," observes the supervising sound editor, continuing, "It gives me the why behind every sound, so in those pockets of quietness, I can pull from those ideas and create things.'
This article and video are presented by Prime Video.
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