Alternate Realities - sound for “Warren's Vortex”

Premise: Warren finds a strange, reality-warping portal in his garden shed. In his comfortable, Lower-Hutt-minded suburban bliss, he can’t find any better use for it than disposing of his lawn clippings – until his daughter is unexpectedly sucked into it. Hilarity ensues.

Warren’s subscribes strongly to the brand of NZ comedy that is now firmly part of our national identity. Laid-back, non-pretentious, comfortable-but-not-wealthy, capable but not over-aspirational. The best time to be had is a back yard barbie with your ragtag bunch of neighbours and mates.

For this reason we set the scene with typical suburban ambience –birds, lawnmowers, occasional boy-racers, distant sports games and neighbourhood kids. Given the premise of the show, this is continually subverted as our main characters are transported to various ‘alternate’ New Zealands. From frozen, to apocalyptic, to historical, to deserted, to gamified, each trip through the vortex explores a different version of what New Zealand could be. Correspondingly, the background sound must convey this to the audience, even before they work out what reality they are currently in. With the sound department working in tandem with the colour and VFX departments, there is a meticulously crafted reason that each new place immediately feels cold, hot, dusty, barren, dangerous or twee. The atmosphere has been established for the characters and their performances to exist in; we as the audience are there already, waiting for the story to unfold.

There are multiple creatures and entities throughout this series that have their own sonic flavour. These draw from a mixture of pop-pākeha-and-māori-culture, recent and canonical. As with shows like Wellington Paranormal, the creatures and situations have to have be somewhat scary, but never in a way that overshadows the comedy. Because, like all good stories, it’s as much about Warren’s fatherly relationship with his teenage daughter as it is about the absurd worlds they visit together. Underlying this is the sense of community of the local neighbourhood, something that has drastically eroded over the last few generations.

Warren’s depends heavily on a savvy audience, already familiar with the language of portals and current tech. This means we can leap into the design without tons of exposition. We can subvert the sonic conventions almost as soon as we have established them. This becomes crucial in a show that only lasts half an hour, including ad breaks. Set ‘em up, knock ‘em down, laugh, move on.

Warren’s Vortex is on TVNZ 2, Sundays, 7pm; and on TVNZ+.
August 2025.