Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1314046
46 FA L L 2 0 2 0 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y still wear gloves to stop me from touching my face. Netflix sent all the clients the same headphones so that everyone could hear the same mix. No live playback but Pix videos were sent to all the clients. Then I did an HBOMAX feature in North Hollywood. We could have five people on stage. All editors were off stage and the picture editor was sent live stuff via Evercast. This was theatrical Dolby Atmos. Then I went up to Skywalker and did a temp dub of a movie for an online preview. Lots of problems with people not knowing how to use microphones. Used iZotope RX a lot and found other plugins that helped. Then I mixed a feature at Warner Bros. and we were allowed seven people on stage. We were amazed in all this that we got normal notes, nothing weird. Gabriel, it seems you were on the other side of some of David's work. What was your experience? GABRIEL GUY: Animation kept going, stopping for maybe a week in March, but then production ramped up. Disney wanted to do that. It's been Zoom, it's been Evercast, it's been ClearView, it's been Pix. Home recordings from actors, so it's been shipping out microphones and helping them set up a recording process. I set up a screen share so I can watch the actors hit record. It's been full speed ahead to keep it all going. DF: Each studio seems to have its own set of rules and a COVID-19 person to set them. You have to respect these rules because you don't want to be shut down. Karol asked David if he used both Evercast and ClearView. He replied that he did but had some issues with Evercast. He added that he believes that it all depends on the quality of your connection. ClearView is moving to 5.1. Karol added that she had no problems with Evercast when working on The Dub Stage with Marti Humphrey CAS on a movie during the summer. Marc, where were you and how did you transition? MARC FISHMAN: We were in the middle of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and Little Fires Everywhere. Less people started showing up on the stage. We were mixing Little Fires Everywhere up to the day before the shutdown. We had us and one producer on the stage who signed off on the mix and the next day, the shutdown happened. We still had two episodes of Zoey to finish. Formosa was active with the city and was able to keep open with a skeleton crew. We sent stereo QuickTimes to the picture editor and showrunner to give notes. We'd send them, get notes back, and then do it again several times. And then we moved right into Old Guard. It was always remote editorial in London. We mixed it at Formosa and again sent stereo QuickTimes to the picture editor and director. They wanted to hear the Dolby Atmos mix that we had done so we went up to Ross 424, which is a big room, and played it there for execs doing proper social distancing. Then we went right into Lovecraft Country but our showrunner did not want to leave her apartment. So, HBO set up another apartment in her complex in which we set up a 5.1 playback. We would send her stereo mixes, but she liked to see a live Evercast stream and stop when she had a note. So that's what we did. I've been very lucky to be working so much. Formosa was very proactive in setting up protocols for safe working. DF: Talking about a 5.1 playback, we actually did a Dolby Atmos playback from Skywalker to Disney in a 9.1 render using ClearView. Given that, what we are missing is being in the same room and interacting. Marc said that he has yet to meet his showrunner on Lovecraft Country. To that point, everyone agreed that the social aspect of working alone has been really daunting. David did add that it's been great to mix on your own and get the mix to a place you like and then present it to the execs. Will, what have you been up to since March 19? WILL FILES: It's been surprisingly busy. When it happened, we were in the middle of a temp dub of Ghostbusters for a preview. Of course, the preview never happened. I was lucky in that I could work in my home studio. We recently did a one-day temp on the Cary Grant Stage at Sony and were happy that all our work at home translated really well. I've been bouncing around doing lots of different projects. I recently did a three-day temp dub at home for a Netflix project and streaming with Evercast to the clients. I got to appreciate how hard the mix techs and engineers work on stages since at home you have to do everything yourself. I missed, not only the social interaction of being on the stage, but also the support of being on the stage. We did the final at Technicolor, streaming on Evercast to the director. There was a mention of headphones that Netflix sent out, what headphones were they? WF: The Beyerdynamics DT 770's for my recent Netflix project. David shared that there was a list of six sent out by Netflix and you had to pick from those. He mentioned the 1706's. Gabriel had on a pair of AKG's. David also mentioned Sony's. Karol added that Westwind made sure everyone had the same headphones. She