Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1197255
After 25 years as a boom operator, I decided to start my career over as a sound mixer. I had to start with local French TV series, but I quickly got the opportunity to work on international productions again—from English-speaking movies, to Italian, Israelian, and French-Moroccan films. I received my first sound award in 2016 for Bogdan Mirica's Caini, a Romanian-speaking movie. Needless to say, I still don't speak Romanian to this day. At the awards ceremony in Bucharest, I had to admit that I was a crook because I was rewarded for the sound of a film I did not understand a word of! I received a second award in 2017 for Samuel Maoz's Foxtrot, an Israeli movie shot in Hebrew. After a 30-year career in cinema, the two films for which I had received awards were in foreign languages. MOST RECENT MULTILANGUAGE PROJECT: POSSESSION Written by Shahar Magen and Valérie Zenatti, Possession is a TV series for France's Canal Plus, starring a French family with Djerban origins (from the island of Djerba in Tunisia) immigrating to Israel who are confronted by the country's unique culture and multiple languages. Hebrew is the official language, but there are also local Arab dialects (similar to Lebanese), French, and English. Directed by Thomas Vincent, the story will evolve in this fresco of cultures and languages—and around a murder. Vera Peltekian, the producer from Canal Plus, told me that "For Possession, we wanted a mixture which was very modern, and incarnates the globalization which is an essential element of realism." While I could discuss the Zaxcom Fusion and Deva 24 recorders and Oasis mixer I used, or speak of the quality of the Audio Ltd. wireless, I want to focus on the multiple languages that were captured and the artistic—as opposed to technical—performance. LANGUAGES SPOKEN BY THE CAST The French Family: They speak French to each other and the police and sometimes English with other characters. The Police: They speak Hebrew to each other, French with the family, and English with some characters. The Man from the French Embassy: He speaks French with the family, English with police, and Israeli Arab with some characters. TECHNICAL CONCERNS I was concerned about the fact that we were supposed to keep each cast member in their own language. Full production would be used for the original version (with all four languages present) but flexibility was needed for the dubbed versions in French, English, or other languages as needed relative to distribution down the line. For this to work, I had to record each actor as cleanly as possible and try to detach them from the acoustics so that those dubbed lines could be inserted as needed in the other versions. To help with post, and given this scenario, I recorded a lot of backgrounds and silences to serve as production fill. THE DIRECTOR'S APPROACH TO THIS MULTILANGUAGE SERIES The artistic vision of the program is that of director Thomas Vincent. Thomas is a French director who has worked in cinema and television and has been involved in multiple international C A S Q U A R T E R L Y W I N T E R 2 0 2 0 61