Capturing the Voices of Apple Cider Vinegar

Melbourne, Australia (May 21, 2025)—Sets for Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar ranged from tight interiors to the expanse of a tropical healing resort, requiring lead sound mixer Nick Godkin to dig deep into his collection of RF gear.

Godkin, whose credits include The Newsreader, Shantara, and Surviving Summer, recorded the production with Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless. The SSM micro-compact transmitter served primary talent, backed up by SMV and SMQV packs as “workhorses.” His receiver rack included a Venue2 system as well UCR411a and SR-series units, plus a new all-digital DCR822, all fed by a UCM16B antenna multi-coupler.

Apple Cider Vinegar is a dramatization of the real-life story of Belle Gibson, an alt-health influencer who built one of Australia’s hottest wellness brands around her miraculous recovery from brain cancer via diet alone—but her entire story was a fabrication. On-set, Godkin turned mainly to the compact SSM for use on primary talent.

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“The SSM is great because we’re hiding transmitters all the time,” he explains, “and it’s just so easy to tuck it away anywhere. The SMV serves as a sort of workhorse transmitter, then I have the dual-battery SMQV as a hop transmitter, or for anything where size isn’t as much of an issue.”

One transmitter even did double-duty as a prop. “There’s a scene towards the end where [lead actor] Kaitlyn Dever is doing a video interview with the journalist for Women’s Daily,” Godkin recalls. “As she’s sitting down, you catch a glimpse of her pack, as it’s supposed to be the pack for the interview but was also actually capturing the dialogue.”

The multiplicity of tight interiors made Lectrosonics’ range and clarity a lifesaver, Godkin recalls. “The most challenging thing, I think, is that the series was all location. We were all over Melbourne and the surrounding area. Sometimes we couldn’t even squeeze the sound department into an interior, so we’d set up outside on the street. With Lectrosonics, we’d just put up some simple antennas and the reception would be great.”