‘American Primeval’: Inside the ‘Pulsing, Scraping’ Sound Design

Westerns require a certain snap, crackle and pop: the sound of a boot dragging on gravel, the jolt of a shotgun blast, the clip-clop of horse hooves. To make those noises and more for Netflix’s brutal miniseries “American Primeval,” nine-time Oscar-nominated sound designer Wylie Stateman and Emmy-nominated co-supervising sound editor Anne Jimkes-Root took their cues from director and

exec producer Peter Berg, whom they’ve worked with on previous projects including “Friday Night Lights,” “Lone Survivor” and “ Painkiller .”

“Pete said, ‘I need this to feel raw; I need the [characters’] decisions to be immediate and in the moment,’” Stateman said. That sense of the visceral is of a piece with the unrelenting tone of “Primeval,” which tells the story of an East Coast mother, Sara (Betty Gi