Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1122868
18 S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y a job as utility sound, then became a boom operator and then went into mixing in 2005. My previous mixing credits include dialogue-driven films such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Darkest Hour to musicals such as Into the Woods and Beauty and the Beast, which had a mix of dialogue, playback, and live singing. For this movie, I was contacted by Richard Hewitt, our line producer. When he told me about the project, I was very excited to get involved in a film about such an iconic band. How much time did you have to complete the production and how big was your team? I started my prep in August 2017 and we started principal photography in September. We completed filming in January 2018. My crew consisted of two 1st asssistants [boom operators] and one 2nd assistant [sound utility]. Neil Stemp was our playback operator. When we shot the Live Aid sequence, we had two additional crew looking after the PA on stage. Please describe your workflow and any problems you encountered. We had a standard film workflow. I recorded onto my Cantar X3, jammed the cameras, and used DigiSlates, so nothing particularly unusual. What was the most challenging aspect of working on this project? The Live Aid recreation had its challenges. We wanted the Live Aid experience to be as immersive as possible for the cast and crowd. Pepin Clout from John Henry's Ltd. was a great help sourcing period speakers for the stage. We also had a full line array system for the crowd of 500. We made all the stage mics live so that we could record the actors singing. We placed a Soundfield ST450 surround microphone in the middle of the crowd when possible to get 5.1 effects. PAUL MASSEY: Re-recording Mixer (Dialogue & Music) What's your background? I started as a musician right out of school playing in bands, and then became a music engineer. I worked both in studios and recording live stadium concerts from mobile trucks. I finally CAS Award Winner – Live Action MEET THE WINNERS Bohemian Rhapsody by David Bondelevitch CAS MPSE The winner this year of the CAS Award for Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures – Live Action was the team responsible for Bohemian Rhapsody, the box-office smash about the life of Queen and their lead singer, Freddie Mercury. The film dramatizes his life from just before the formation of the band through the climactic recreation of Queen's legendary performance at Live Aid. It seems fitting that I should write about this movie as I was part of it, although I am not portrayed in the film. During my second year as a student at Imperial College in London, I decided to get a flat (apartment) with my friend Les. Needing a third person, we invited Roger Taylor, a friend of Les', to join us. Walking through Imperial we saw an ad "Drummer wanted. Keith Moon, John Bonham type." Roger was a drummer so we put him in touch with Brian May, who was studying astrophysics at Imperial. They formed a band called Smile with a bass player named Tim. When Smile broke up, Freddie, who was a friend of Tim's at Art College, came in and took the band to new heights, creating Queen. As for this highly regarded biopic, the team responsible for the amazing sound includes production mixer John Casali, re-recording mixer Paul Massey, re-recording mixer Tim Cavagin, re-recording mixer Niv Adiri CAS, ADR mixer Mike Tehrani, and Foley mixers Glen Gathard and Jemma Riley Tolch. Following are excerpts from exchanges with some of the sound team. JOHN CASALI: Production Mixer What's your background? My background has always been in production sound. I started in documentaries, but soon realized my passion was film. I took