James Lucero is the lead sound editor at Star Trek: Lower Decks and recently received his second Emmy nomination for his work on the program. Together with his team, including Drew Guy, Mark Kellerman, John Wynn, Michael BrittAnd Amber FunkLucero provides the sound for the animated series, which deals with life below deck in the Star Trek universe.
Over Zoom, we spoke with Lucero about how he brings the sound of The Inner Fight and the rest of Lower Decks to life. He shared his philosophies on how sound supports stories and how to collaborate. Lucero went into detail and talked about his joy in creating unique soundscapes for each moment, from the desolate crystal rain in The Inner Fight to the futuristic sounds in the season finale. Read on to read the full conversation.
Ayla Ruby: It’s really wonderful to meet you and I love Lower Decks so it’s very exciting to chat about it.
James Lucero:Oh, that’s so great to hear. Yeah, it’s definitely a special project for me. I’ve been in the sound field for about 25 years and I have to say that this is at the top of the list for me with some of the projects I’ve worked on. Yeah, yeah.
Ayla Ruby: Congratulations on your nomination. This is your second for Lower Decks and overall. It’s pretty cool.
James Lucero: Yes, that’s true. In fact, I believe I’m the first sound supervisor to be nominated for an animated series that was combined with live-action.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, wow.
James Lucero: Yes, yes.
Ayla Ruby: That’s huge.
James Lucero: It’s just the greatest honor to be recognized, yeah. It’s very, very heartwarming to be honest, yeah.
Ayla Ruby: What was it like to find out? What was that moment like? Can you tell us a bit about it?
James Lucero: Sure. To be honest, I definitely wasn’t expecting it, even though I’ve been nominated before. Like I said, it’s such a huge honor that, to be honest, it took me a few days to really realize it. In fact, CBS/Paramount sent me a bottle of champagne with the Lower Decks logo on it.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, nice.
James Lucero: That’s when it really hit me. I work in this job every day. I’m on several different shows. I don’t have time to think about these things and my deadlines. When it came out, I was still a little bit shocked, to be honest. It doesn’t matter if this is my second or first film, but it definitely makes it all worth it, to be honest.
I’m so happy for the team because I know how hard we work on this show. Our deadlines are pretty tight. We don’t have a lot of time and I know what we all put into it. To be recognized really means a lot and it makes me so happy for the people I brought to this show as well. It’s pretty spectacular.
Ayla Ruby: I want to ask that too, but before that I want to say that tone is very important to world-building in any show, but it’s especially important in Star Trek. How does it work to bring it all together? How do you balance it to tell a story, because it’s part of storytelling?
James Lucero: Absolutely. I tell my team that I have a general theme when I work, and I’ve said this before. We’re here to support the story, and not just the story, but every moment in the story. I look at every moment as literally the most important moment of the episode, whether it’s a comedy, a serious moment, or an action moment. My job is to make the creator feel like I understand what he or she has put together. That’s my role.
I try to figure out what the personality of that moment is. How can I support that with sound? Not just music, because we’re going to do a score, but who is that character in that moment? Is he panicking? Is he silly? Is he serious? In animation, we don’t have production sound to help us. We have to create every single sound that’s there, except for dialogue and music.
James Lucero: Some characters have very specific movements depending on their personality. I mean, even in the details of some characters’ steps. Are we going to have them plod or are they going to have real weight and momentum? Again, that’s at the most basic level. When we see a new alien ship, is it menacing? Is it evil? Is it a little more futuristic than the era that this show is supposed to be set in? There are a lot of factors that go into not only the characters, but the character, whether it’s aliens, alien ships, weapons, or the worlds that they’re in. There’s a lot of thought behind that.
Ayla Ruby: You mentioned tight deadlines. How does it work working with the writers and even the director? How does it all come together?
James Lucero: I meet with the creator, the producer and the director, we go through an episode and talk about it. I never watch it beforehand. I don’t want to have any preconceived ideas about what we should do. I want to watch each episode as a viewer and ask how that moment affects me. We start talking about ideas. It’s all about collaboration.
As I said, my role is to support the creators and we will work together. I want to hear some of their current ideas and then it’s up to me to figure out what sounds can highlight the moment we’re talking about or the characters, or whether it’s an alien again or a ship or weapons or something like that. We’ll talk about that together.
Ayla Ruby: You’re nominated for “The Inner Fight.” What do you think of this episode? Why does it stand out so much? What was really challenging or exciting about this episode for you, just in your role?
James Lucero: There’s a moment with Mariner where she’s stranded on a planet with her enemy from the episode. It reminds me of… what’s the name of the movie? Not The Bridge on the River Kwai, but two people stranded together and they have to figure out how to survive. There’s a long moment where this crystal clear rain is falling. I watch that. We don’t want it to just sound like broken glass. We’re creating an atmosphere here that shows desolation, this loneliness of the two of them together. I really want to amplify that rain, give it that kind of crying rain sound. How do we get out of here together?
I put in a lot of different layers, from Foley layers where people are stepping on glass, but I manipulate them to maybe slow it down a little bit. I use some chandeliers. I use a couple of other layers that are almost like soft glass, where it’s not there to cut them, but still have this dangerous but also celebratory background. It actually took me quite a long time to create that, so I’m really proud of it. It doesn’t contradict the dialogue, it just reinforces that “They’re alone, how can they work together?” There are all these challenges that they’re trying to overcome.
Ayla Ruby: I know the scene you’re talking about, and I want to go back and listen to all these different pieces now and see if I can figure that out. That’s really cool.
James Lucero: Yeah, yeah. With sound, there’s never… for example, there’s a robot. I don’t have a robot sound. It’s about creating with lots of different layers, even with punches. I don’t just use one punch, so to speak. It’s also about who this character is. Is it extremely powerful? Should I use mono and stereo and fill in some frequencies so that you really feel the power of this character if it’s a powerful character?
Ayla Ruby: Was there anything this season from Lower Decks… it could be in The Inner Fight, it could be anything this season, I guess… that was just really, really fun or really challenging?
James Lucero: The last episode was a little longer. In Lower Decks… I’ve said this before… it’s almost three or four stories in one. It reminds me of Seinfeld in some ways because it has a lot of comedic elements, but then it goes to the next level where you learn so many individual lessons in each episode. You grow with each episode.
In the last episode of the last season, season 4, they’re trying to convince the perp. He’s turned into a god, a headless god so to speak, and they’re trying to calm him down while he’s basically destroying their ship. Of course, a headless perp is weird, but he also has power. He has his own ship. Again, Lower Decks is kind of living in the next generation, and his ship is basically from the future. We’re trying to make this now so that it’s not totally different from the next generation world, but it’s kind of futuristic for them.
We travel between sound worlds in this episode. That’s what I really wanted to do: we go to many different places in one episode. I love challenges like that because we have one personality that goes through the show and then we have to slip into a completely different personality.
Ayla Ruby: Oh, that’s great. Maybe it’s not, but how is Lower Decks different from other works you’ve worked on, like Human Resources or Frog and Toad? I mentioned that because my daughter loves Frog and Toad, so I feel like I need to comment on that.
James Lucero: Yeah, I like that. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, interesting. Frog and Toad, again, sound, we’re here to support the story. Frog and Toad is very quiet. That’s interesting because Lower Decks has a lot of quiet moments too. There may be some similarities because again, it’s so dialogue-driven. Going back to the glass rain, it’s not meant to be the main character. It’s meant to be very subtle, but we really want to feel it.
I think the differences between some of the shows I’ve worked on, whether it’s Big Mouth, Human Resources or The Hospital, is that they go from a lot of action and very creative, futuristic sounds to something that’s now getting a little quieter. We’re back in history. Let’s be subtle about it.
There are a lot of beings that come into the ship and maybe have sonic personalities. They need to be very recognizable, but they also need to be very subtle and subliminal. We want them to be recognizable, but we don’t want them to dominate the scene, because it’s about the story and the development of the characters. I would say that’s the difference: we can go anywhere and then come back down.
Ayla Ruby: That’s great.
James Lucero: In those quiet moments.
Ayla Ruby: I know we’re almost out of time, but is there anything else people should know about Lower Decks or about you and your work?
James Lucero: I would say it’s a huge honor that they chose us. I didn’t expect that. I give it to our team. I’ve auditioned for a lot of different shows and been lucky enough to win a few of them. Our reputation preceded us and they chose us. We didn’t have to audition for this show. I would say the biggest honor of being involved in Lower Decks is being able to create sounds that can become part of the lexicon of Star Trek sounds that enjoy iconic status. That’s something I’m extremely proud of and very humbled by.
Ayla Ruby: That’s fantastic and I think it’s a wonderful way to end. Thank you for the interview.
James Lucero: Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s great to meet you.
Ayla Ruby: It’s nice to meet you too
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
