Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1314046
36 FA L L 2 0 2 0 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y WF: The one word I heard from many of my crew was "Amazing." We thought it's almost sort of a magical thing taking this big room and putting it in this little box. ST: What is your impression of the new Sony headphones developed to work with 360 VME? WF: I picked them up and they were super lightweight and super comfortable; both important if you are wearing them all day. They were also a lot more powerful than other headphones we had been using and can handle the low end without distortion. ST: What would you tell people who are going to try this technology to expect the first time they put on the headphones? WF: Be prepared to not believe your ears. Q. How does the low end translate? A. LFE is surprisingly good. The low end translates very well. The only thing you don't get is any kind of body concussion feeling. So, one thing we asked for is to send the LFE out a separate output and to a subwoofer in whatever room we are in. It feels more like the stage if you feel the air moving. Q. When will this be released to the public? A. When we started, it was in Beta, but it has now reached a very mature stage and they must be getting close to making it available to more people. Now we have the plugin and a standalone app which can be used with the Dolby renderer. And in fact, you can send the output of Pro Tools directly to the app and you hear everything in your session in the same virtual room. EXCEPTS FROM THE AUDIENCE MEMBER Q&A PORTION. Q. How does this translate for directors and producers and how does it influence their workflow? A. A question we've been asking a lot. Currently, the client would need to have their ears sampled on the stage. But once that is done, we could even stream over Evercast or ClearView a mix with their ears baked in. Of course, we would need to send out multiple streams to different people. The engineers are currently working out how to abstract the room from the ears so we could have multiple rooms sampled ahead of time and then sample someone's ears with headphones so that they wouldn't need to come into the stage. Q. How do you feel this translates Atmos and how does this make you feel about the processes we use to get our soundtracks? A. Anytime you have technology that reduces the friction in the creative process, it's a good thing. When it started, they were thinking of immersive audio and now it's really cool you can hear a 9.1.6 mix with just a pair of headphones. Q. When we get back to a normal of being on stages, how is this technology going to play in the workflows given that it's a new tool and not replacing, but adding in. A. I think a lot of people will continue to use it. If I'm working in my home studio, I like to put on the headphones and check how it will sound on the Cary Grant. I think a lot of people will use it that way. Q. Any final words? A. I wish we were all there in person so everybody could hear this and see each other and hang out. But at least we get to do this virtually. It's one of those amazing things in terms of the timing. Who could have predicted it? Images of the Cary Grant Theatre Above left: Photo courtesy of Sony Post Production Services Left: ©Mel Lambert/content-creators.com. All rights reserved.