James Lucero is a veteran Sound Editor with over 25 years of experience. He has worked on dozens of animated shows, creating iconic sounds for shows like Teen Titans Go!, Big Mouth, and Dora the Explorer. Star Trek: Lower Decks is the first animated Star Trek series in decades.
It is also the first Star Trek comedy show, featuring the lives of a low-ranking support crew on the Starship Cerritos in the 24th Century. It has been well received by fans and renewed for a fifth and final season premiering later this year. Recently, the episode “No Small Parts” was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing by Lucero and his team.
[Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
How did you get started in sound?
I’ve just been the biggest music fan since I was a child. After working in another field I decided to move to New York. I’m picking up a guitar. I’m going to see what happens. So we get into this world of music and meet a lot of different artists, filmmakers, writers, photographers, and such.
A good friend of mine was making an indie film and I found out that he needed someone to do the sound. So he gave me access to a studio and I learned on the job. That led to commercials. Then one day they got this gig and I pressed record for Dora the Explorer on day one, and that’s how I got into animation. I was in the right studio at the right time.
When you get involved in the world of Star Trek, how did that come about?
We do a lot of work for Titmouse and they came to us with this show. The main goal was to listen closely to those iconic sounds. Lower Decks is focused on The Next Generation era, so it’s looking at those sounds, finding the websites where we can find all the original sounds, and then trying to recreate them. We do use a lot of the original sounds, but now it’s adding a little bit of layers, adding frequencies to help them be a little more updated to today’s levels. So we spent a lot of time preparing for this show and wanting to add to the lexicon of Star Trek sounds.
Were there any particular challenges in terms of like, wow, we really need to redo this sound and how do you make that sound? And there’s a huge audience out there listening very intently…
That is a big thing. I mean, we’re not changing phasers, we’re not changing the transport, we’re adding to that. We want it to be similar. We want to add that sort of ominous presence. This comes from a lot of many years of experience. I’ve been doing this for 25 years. You have to have a lot of tools in your toolbox, your frequency changes. You’re manipulating a lot of different sounds.
I think the difference is between the original Star Trek and even The Next Generation, the philosophical lessons are broad. Whereas in Lower Decks, I love that the lessons are more personal. So when we are going into different worlds and these characters are being challenged, it’s so important for me to create an atmosphere that suggests what this lesson is about, so to speak. If there’s inner turmoil going on, even though it’s a comedy, some life lessons are going on for each of the characters in every episode. So, it’s very subtle. A very key part of Lower Decks is the background ambient sounds.
So what would you categorize as the importance of sound in animation? Seems even more important than in live action.
What I receive from them is the dialogue and some music. When you listen to just that, you see and feel how empty it is. So in animation, we have to create every single sound. I mean, you have to do that. A lot of times in film, maybe not everything, you’re using production sound as well, but in animation, it is literally every single sound we have to create.
I’m going to now go a little forward into my philosophy. Every moment is the most important moment when I’m watching, whether it’s a television show or a film, I have to understand the personality of that moment and how can I bring that out. It’s my responsibility and duty to the creator to help enhance what they are trying to convey.
Do you have any favorite sounds from this past season?
This may not sound like this was difficult, but there’s a long moment where Mariner is being showered by crystal rain glass shards. This is a real learning moment for her and we need to bring this out. I used Foley work… I have past recordings of slow steps on glass, I don’t know why I have that, but I had it. I’m manipulating chimes and chandeliers in a way.
Sometimes I’m slowing them down and if you do it wrong, it’s just going to sound like broken glass all over the place. I wanted to give it almost a musical quality to it and it needed to be sad. Raining glass is really what it was. It’s almost like crying glass. I think it went on for a good few minutes. A few minutes of sound takes a long time. That’s a good two days just to do that. This sort of crying rain of glass. There’s a lot of different subtle layers going on there.
Lastly, what’s it like being nominated for an Emmy again?
I’ll tell you, being nominated again and it’s always overwhelming. I never think about it while I’m working. That’s the first thing I can say about being nominated, especially to be nominated in a category where it’s animation and live action, because we know everyone is looking to live action and that’s the apex. Whereas, in animation, we are not given any production sound and we have to create every sound that there is. So, to be honored is like that, it takes my breath away, to be honest. It makes me so proud of the team. And yeah, it’s just something you never expect. We are in the fifth season right now, so in speaking of it, it’s an honor to work on Star Trek.
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 is available to stream on Paramount+
