Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1122868
38 S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y What's your setup? We use Pro Tools as our recording and editing platform with Millennia Mic preamps. We use various shotguns and other microphones that are set up around the room so that we can move from sound source to sound source. That gives us the advantage to record efficiently with each sound being tailor made for a specific scene or shot. We cover all similar surfaces at once, like wood floors, linoleum, etc., for all the characters and then move on. The key is to make sure every sound blends naturally into the mix. You were also nominated this year in our "TV Movie or Limited Series" category for Escape at Dannemora. Any recollections of your work on that project? Oh, yes. We were asked by sound supervisor Jacob Ribicoff to record all the intricate sounds for the long sequence where Paul Dano and Benicio Del Toro escape from prison. The tricky part of the escape was that it took place through an air-conditioning system. It was a very enclosed, suffocating type of sound that we had to generate. Between Marko and myself, we recorded a couple of different approaches that were actually used throughout the scene. That was fun. What do you like to do when you're not in the studio? I still love watching movies and TV even though I work on them daily. I love to learn and get ideas from listening to other creatives' sound design and the work of other Foley teams. Now that it's getting warmer, I plan on spending some quality time with my family in the outdoors. STEWART LERMAN: Scoring Mixer Stewart Lerman is a two-time Grammy Award-winning producer with a long history of music engineering and producing. How did you get started in the recording industry in New York? I grew up in the Bronx, went away to college, and came back. A couple years after returning, I was in a band with a childhood friend, Andy Ebberbach, who spent some time in LA building recording studios. We went to the AES Show, I think it was in 1984, and saw some of these smaller, more affordable consoles and tape machines. We bought a 16-track Fostex 1/2" deck and moved into a space where all the music lofts were on 30th between 7th & 8th Avenues. In 1985 in midtown Manhattan, unless you had major funding, it was difficult to find affordable recording studios. But we started doing publishing demos for some major labels and those relationships grew to where they were having us record for actual label releases. None of it was intentional, we just liked good music and one thing led to the next. Were you engineering on some of these projects? I was engineering and that led to me producing records in the 1990s. As a producer in the '90s, the budgets allowed for you to hire an engineer, which I preferred. However, toward the end of '90s as budgets got smaller, I went back to being a producer- engineer. How did you get involved with the music side of film and TV? The industry was changing in the late '90s as a result of Napster and all that stuff, so some of the artists I was working with were getting involved in soundtracks. I'd be hired to work with them on something for a movie. I just followed the people and the art and that led to me doing work on music for film. So, your skillset and relationships with artists led you to the movie screen? It did, but one of the most significant things was that I started working with Randall Poster. He is one of the preeminent music supervisors and played a pivotal role in bringing me into the film world as a full-on music producer for film and TV. Was there a project that you worked on where your involvement made you think, "Man, I have made it in this area"? I would say Scorsese's The Aviator is when I felt like, "Wow, I'm really here." We were recording full-on big band and orchestral music and then having the actors perform to playback. It wasn't my first playback, but it was the first project of that scale. It was just massive. You realize that the music you are producing is driving the camera. Without this music and this tempo, the scene might be different. Had I known that beforehand while recording, I would have crapped myself! Seeing it happen on set was amazing and a formidable moment in my understanding of what I was getting into. Stewart Lerman at Electric Lady Studios