The trailer for HBO’s Made For Love is a perfect example of how a well-edited spot lends itself to effective and precise sound design. The spot pairs a glitchy, electronic arrangement of Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love” with the iconic voice of Ray Romano, who narrates the lyrics in a spoken-word style. This unique choice fits perfectly with the story being told in the trailer, and it gave us a fantastic sonic canvas to play with.

In the trailer’s opening segment, we fleshed out the scenes with natural ambience and hard effects, like the splash of a character swimming in a pool, and the creak of a trap door opening from the desert floor. Once the trailer reaches the song’s chorus, however, the visuals begin to glitch out, and so do the sound effects. A glass shattering becomes chopped up and repeated. A character’s laugh detunes into a menacing synthetic warble. We also begin to play with Ray Romano’s voice—widening it, doubling it, and verbing it out. As the emotion builds, so does the intensity of the effects, reinforcing the sense that the world is unraveling into digital fragments.

NETWORK: HBO
SOUND DESIGN/MIX: Defacto Sound