“Motherland: Fort Salem” Exclusive: Vocal Coach Frédérik Robert Talks the Magic Behind the Vocal Magic
“Ladies, remember your voices are your weapons. It is imperative that the entirety of your vocal apparatus, from frontal sinus to larynx, must remain functional and sound producing at all times. Inability to vocalize can render a soldier powerless.” -Anacostia
Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem utilizes a type of magic many have never seen before. In the series, the main type of witchcraft used is that of vocal magic. There are a limitless amount of choral sequences and seed sounds used by the witches, whether they are working to defeat an enemy or conjuring up a storm.
Vocal and language coach Frédérik Robert was brought on board the supernatural series for his expertise on how to accomplish making that magic look real. In an exclusive interview with PopWire, Robert talks the lip sync work the cast needed to do to create that certain look, and more.
RELATED | Though some of his work with the actors are in the recording studio, the majority of what he does takes place on location. “I am on the set as a sort of eyes and ears on the day to make sure things are going well,” Robert tells us. “Really, my job is to support the sound designer who creates a lot of the sounds, the vocal magic, which of course, a lot of these sounds cannot be made by humans.”
That sound designer is Paula Fairfield. Her long list of credits include Lost, Lovecraft Country, and Game of Thrones. The vocal magic sounds Fairfield creates for Motherland: Fort Salem are so unique, that Robert has to work with the cast on their mouth shapes when lip syncing to them.
“[The sounds are] often treated with a lot of effects on it,” he says, “but the actor must appear to actually be making that sound.” That’s why Robert’s work on the show is really important. Not only is he there in support of the sound designer, he’s also there for the Mothertongue language creators (who can’t make it on set) to teach Méníshè to the cast. His presence on set in support of these creators is “in order to maximize the magic.”
In the season premiere, we watched as Scylla (Amalia Holm) used some of her vocal magic to close off and retract a Fetch cast by Anacostia (Demetria McKinney). “Every piece of vocal magic has a function and it does something,” he says. We didn’t get to see what kind of vocal Anacostia used, but Robert explains that a Fetch is “a sort of way that somebody spies on you. It’s a spell that blends into the environment and is cast somewhere by a witch to sort of get some intel.
“The thing is that witches know witch things,” he continues, “so when Scylla saw that, she was quite like, ‘Hey, wait a minute! That doesn’t look right!’ So she ends up shutting off the Fetch, and that’s why you see Anacostia just sort of taking it back in, and it’s just like, ‘What the…’ She sort of has a smirk on, because she’s like, ‘We’ve been figured out. She knows we’re spying on her.'”
We spy a lot more vocal magic in Motherland: Fort Salem‘s upcoming episode, specifically from Raelle (Taylor Hickson) and Abigail (Ashley Nicole Williams). We can’t wait for you to see it! The Bellweather unit has come a long way since they were Basic witches in the first season. The forces Raelle and Abigail conjure up with their vocal magic in the episode, “A Tiffany,” is astronomical. It’s enlightening to know Robert had a hand in bringing those scenes to the screen.
RELATED | Raelle Consoles Tally & More Photos From “Motherland: Fort Salem” Episode ‘A Tiffany’
While those sounds that are created by the sound designer may sometimes make his work challenging and “tricky,” Robert says he is absolutely proud of what he does and being a part of the creative team for the series. “I’m talking not only the Mothertongue, but I’m also speaking about the vocal magic and the fact that that’s a language that we’ve never seen on TV or even in film.
“It’s a unique concept that was created by our creator [Eliot Laurence] but came to life through my efforts as well,” Frédérik Robert adds. “As a team, we sort of made these things happen and they’re getting better and better with every episode that we do. It’s something that’s growing really, really well within the series. I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve been part of that. In a sense, I’m part of the creation, and that’s a really cool, cool feeling.”
Motherland: Fort Salem airs Tuesdays at 10pm on Freeform.