The Sound of ‘Sinners’: Behind the Scenes of Skywalker Sound’s Latest Collaboration with Director Ryan Coogler

Skywalker Sound’s Benjamin A. Burtt, Steve Boeddeker, and David C. Hughes detail their team’s role in bringing this musically-charged, supernatural period piece to life.

By Jay Stobie

Written and directed by revered filmmaker Ryan Coogler, Warner Bros.’ Sinners (2025) is a captivating thriller that finds Michael B. Jordan in the dual role of Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore, twin brothers whose move home to start over and operate a live music venue is interrupted and besieged by supernatural vampires. Coogler’s latest critical and commercial smash represents yet another collaboration with Jordan, as their dynamic alliance contributed to the widespread success of projects ranging from Creed (2015) to Black Panther (2018).

With a blues-infused score from Ludwig Göransson, a composer whose résumé includes Creed, Black Panther, The Mandalorian (2019–2023), and Oppenheimer (2023), and a strong emphasis on the special power of music, Coogler enlisted Skywalker Sound to utilize their expertise to complement the film’s unique story. As Sinners is poised to hit select IMAX screens across North America on May 15, Skywalker Sound supervising sound editor Benjamin A. Burtt, re-recording mixer and sound designer Steve Boeddeker, and sound effects editor David C. Hughes graciously sat down with Skysound.com to discuss their team’s impactful work on the film.

The crew on the mix stage, L to R: Andrew Bock, David Butler, Tina Anderson, Sev Ohanian, Brandon Proctor, Serena Goransson, Ludwig Göransson, Felipe Pacheco, Zinzi Coogler, Ryan Coogler, Steve Boeddeker, Benjamin A. Burtt (Courtesy of Benjamin A. Burtt).

A Sundance Story

Burtt (Jurassic World [2015], Top Gun: Maverick [2022], Elemental [2023]), Boedekker (Tron: Legacy [2010], Lincoln [2012], [Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022]](https://www.skysound.com/projects/black-panther-wakanda-forever/)), and Hughes (Rango [2011], Ant-Man [2015], *Thunderbolts** [2025]) had worked alongside Coogler on Creed and Black Panther. Skywalker Sound’s initial introduction to Coogler came through mutual connections at the Sundance Institute, and their first collaboration was Coogler’s feature directorial debut, *Fruitvale Station*, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013.

“I love that Ryan is a student of film in every aspect,” Burtt recalls. “We’ve been working with him on and off for a decade, and there’s a trust between us. We want to end up where he envisions a movie going, but he gives us freedom to use our best judgment for what we think a scene needs. He’s open to opinions and fresh takes.” Reflecting on their rapport with Coogler, Boeddeker concludes, “The Skywalker-Sundance connection made this relationship happen.”

Sammie (Miles Caton) in ‘Sinners’ (Credit: Warner Brothers).

Setting the Stage

When the time came to partner with Coogler on Sinners, the familiarity and friendship that he and Skywalker Sound had forged paved the way for yet another fruitful collaboration, as the director recruited the sound team during the film’s preliminary stages. “Ryan brought us in at the script level. We had all kinds of conversations about the music, sound, and everything else before they shot a single frame,” Boeddeker remarks. “We talked about the shoot and how they were going to do it, and it was so fantastic to be a part of that process.”

Burtt, who was finishing up on Twisters (2024) when Coogler first contacted him about Sinners, emphasizes the complexities inherent in mapping out the sound design for a film which relies so heavily on live music played on set, stating, “We got involved early because there was going to be a lot of production music, and Ryan was trying to find the best ways to capture that. We gave suggestions for recording techniques and details to be on the lookout for. At times, we joked that there’s more music than movie. There are moments where there are live performances happening in the juke joint or train station, and there’s also score playing.”

By being a part of Coogler’s vision from the ground up, Skywalker Sound helped ensure that the original production recordings were largely able to be utilized to preserve the realistic atmosphere throughout the film, particularly at Smoke and Stack’s juke joint. “We had several meetings with the production sound mixer [Chris Welcker] and music editor [Felipe Pacheco] who were onsite and offered some suggestions. In the end, they did a great job recording the performances on set, and we were able to use a lot of the production recordings so that they didn’t have to replace the live performances with ADR or re-records down the road and try to make it match the picture. In that case, it might’ve felt more like a music video as opposed to a live performance,” Burtt notes.

Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) in ‘Sinners’ (Credit: Warner Brothers).

A World to Witness

Sound also plays an essential role in establishing the film’s atmosphere and building a world that enables Coogler’s narrative to take center stage. “Part of our job is to immerse the audience in the world and make it feel like Mississippi in the 1930s,” Burtt declares. Whether finding sounds for era-appropriate antique cars or filtering out noises from anachronistic jets flying overhead, the Skywalker Sound team employed its skillset to bolster the director’s storytelling efforts. “My friend who lives in the South did some recordings for me at various times of day. Since the movie takes place over 24 hours, the ambiences could follow along as the day goes by and you feel time pass.

“Our job is to sell the time period so that the audience is focused on the story and characters on screen rather than thinking about what’s going on around them,” Burtt continues. “Along with that is defining spaces.” For example, there was a desire to demonstrate that Annie’s (Wunmi Mosaku) home was located miles away from the center of town. “So, we set up Annie’s house to feel more like nature — serene and peaceful with insects and birds.” Meanwhile, across town, the sounds of a bustling and busy street served as a distinctive barrier between segregated neighborhoods.

One of Burtt’s favorite worldbuilding memories revolves around Stack and Sammie (Miles Caton) meeting Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) at the train station for the first time. “On set, there was an old depot, but there was no physical train, just a bunch of green screens and people walking around in the background. The train was eventually added via visual effects. This was a fun opportunity to bring the station to life with sound. You can get a sense of the train’s size and weight as it chuffs by and slows to a creep before you hear the cars eventually clatter to a stop. The train almost seems to be catching its breath while people load and unload. We hear it purge steam, clank, and toot.”

Pearline (Jayme Lawson), Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), Smoke (Michael B. Jordan), Sammie (Miles Caton), and Grace Chow (Li Jun Li) in ‘Sinners’ (Credit: Warner Brothers).

The Subtlety of Storytelling

Skywalker Sound didn’t merely set the tone for audiences to enjoy the film’s plot; they also aided the storytelling process in a more direct fashion. Burtt illustrates this by referencing the scene in which Delta Slim recounts a tragedy that befell his friend Rice years before. “While Delta Slim is talking, we hear the music and happy voices, people having a great time, but as the story turns, we hear the crowd turn into a mob, brutalize Rice, then lynch him. We don’t see the images on screen, but you are seeing it in your mind. Slim sits there for a moment reliving the horror of it before channeling that into a song that helps take him out of that memory. It’s a really powerful moment.”

As extensive as Skysound’s influence on Sinners is, Burtt describes the film’s sound design as subtle. “There aren’t obvious high-tech ships or weapons, no big magic, and although we have vampires, Ryan wanted them to feel more human than beast.” Boeddeker agrees, noting his work “was all about respecting the story, the racial issues, and the music.” Even so, such subtlety required a wealth of persistence and an ear for detail, as exhibited by the process of portraying the vampires as Coogler envisioned. “When they attacked or were more aggressive, we used a combination of vulture screeches, snakes, and other reptile vox to make them something a little more than human,” Burtt explains. “In addition to the vocals, we also had to cover a lot of violent stabs, gore, and bleeding.”

Hughes highlights how the subtle approach flows in tandem with the plot, asserting, “There’s a whole subtext we generally try to work on, especially with a film like this, where it gets creepier and creepier. The audience doesn’t quite know what’s happening, and you can use sound to heighten that, either by how chaotic the juke joint is or how quiet we get it. That can, without the audience realizing it, raise or lower the tension.”

Any effects added by Skysound also had to be balanced with the characters’ dialogue and the film’s score, as Burtt elaborates, “With the movie being so heavily music driven, we had to find ways to have the sound effects work with the music, whether that was finding an ominous tone or whoosh or sound that was in the same key as the music, or whether it was footsteps, hits, kicks, and stomps cut in rhythm with the music.”

Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) in ‘Sinners’ (Credit: Warner Brothers).

A Collaborative Crew

From Burtt embellishing a rattlesnake’s signature sound by rattling around a bead-filled gourd to Hughes painstakingly syncing a slow motion shot of Smoke firing his gun with the film’s music, much of Skywalker Sound’s work is hidden in plain sight. Take the need to make the juke joint feel alive, with dancing and joy in abundance. “We had several layers built up to give the juke its energy or din. I had some wild recordings from production of the people dancing in the juke without any music,” says Burtt. “I stripped out any talking or dialogue and was left with a nice layer of bodies moving about. On top of that, I had the foley artists give me a few wild takes of some dancing feet, each one at slightly different rhythms. I took those and put them on my keyboard and was able to create a bigger crowd layer of dancing feet.

“Then, on top of that, we added a thick layer of crowd walla. Combined, this gave the juke the sense that there was a dense crowd of people moving about and dancing,” opines Burtt, who linked up with Boeddeker on the task. “Then, during the mix, Steve was able to bob and weave around the dialogue and music as needed, or pan and EQ the wall of noise as we moved to different parts of the juke. This helped keep the energy up throughout the juke regardless of where in the juke we were.”

The crew often bounced ideas back and forth with Göransson, as well. A late-night session inspired Boeddeker to have the scream that Jane (Lola Kirke) unleashes after Remmick (Jack O’Connell) turns her husband echo into the next scene, but he was worried that it would interfere with the score. To his surprise, Göransson encouraged him to add more screaming. As Burtt puts it, “Joan’s scream now crosses several cuts. Her scream goes across a cut to the moon, across Grace [Li Jun Li] painting the juke sign, and all the way to the guy on the ladder connecting the line to the telephone pole.”

Ludwig Göransson, Felipe Pacheco, Ryan Coogler, and Steve Boeddeker on the mix stage (Courtesy of Benjamin A. Burtt).

The Skysound Spirit

As exciting as Sinners’ supernatural elements are, Hughes views the film as something much deeper, commenting, “One of the reasons Sinners is appealing to audiences is that there are a lot of layers to this film. It’s not just a fun, popcorn vampire story. There’s a whole subtext of trying to find your place in the world, and conformity, and racial tensions.”

Just as the film’s depth amplifies the audience’s appreciation for it, Skywalker Sound’s team offers a special blend of experience and innovation which permeates every project they tackle. Burtt credits the company’s entire staff for making Skysound such an exceptional place. “Everyone here is wonderful to work with. Most everyone is open to sharing ideas or trying new approaches to something, and so when an idea is tossed out, we will explore it. More often than not, that exploration leads towards something that helps propel the story onscreen. On Sinners, there was a lot of back and forth between different locations and Skywalker made it possible to work from just about anywhere without any hiccups.”

Hughes concurs, relaying “What has always made Skywalker great, in my estimation, is that they have been willing to create an environment that pulls the right people together and gives them the space and resources to do work that is pushing the edge. We try to figure out ways that we can tell the story with the sound and mixing choices we make.” Looking back on his time on Sinners, Boeddeker summarizes the experience as “one of the most creative, collaborative, and fun projects I’ve ever done.”

Don’t miss Sinners, playing at an IMAX cinema near you starting May 15.

Brandon Proctor and Steve Boeddeker on the mix stage (Courtesy of Benjamin A. Burtt).

Jay Stobie (he/him) is a writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to ILM.com, Skysound.com, Star Wars Insider, StarWars.com, Star Trek Explorer, Star Trek Magazine, and StarTrek.com. Jay loves sci-fi, fantasy, and film, and you can learn more about him by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

Visit Skysound.com and follow @Skywalker Sound.