Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1314046
48 FA L L 2 0 2 0 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y This panel was moderated by Tom Kenny who is the editor of Mix magazine. The panel consisted of four experts: Scott Kramer, manager, Audio Technology at Netflix; music scoring mixer Dennis Sands CAS, a six-time CAS Award nominee with a win for Forrest Gump, in addition to the CAS Career Achievement Award, an Emmy, four Oscar nominations, and 370 feature film credits; music scoring mixer Phil McGowan CAS, Emmy and CAS Award nominated; and re-recording mixer Larry Benjamin CAS, eight- time Emmy nominee, eight-time CAS Award nominee. The panel discussed the oddities of monitoring in a home studio, not only for the mixers, but for the clients in their homes. Scott explained that Netflix jumped in quickly to make sure that everyone was monitoring the same way at home, using headphones, laptop, and television. Larry Benjamin of the Formosa Group explained that he mixed in the studio with Kevin Valentine and played back to clients on headphones. The clients have a good relationship with the mixers and trusted their judgment, hearing it in the proper environment of a dub stage. As Phil McGowan pointed out, score mixers generally work at home already so they may have had a head start over dubbing mixers. Phil is currently upgrading to Atmos, and is used to mixing at home, knowing that it will translate well to dub stages. Adding confidence, Dolby aligned his home studio. Dennis Sands works in a gorgeous home studio owned by director Andy Davis. He has been using the facility for 15 years. Dennis uses different speakers for different media: large speakers for film, with different monitors for 7.1, 5.1, and stereo. Regarding speakers, Dennis adds, "Buy the ones that sound the best to you. Monitors are personal technology. What sounds good to one person may not to another." Larry Benjamin adds, "You want the highest quality representation because certain speakers might mask problems in the mix." Both Larry and Phil use PMC speakers as their main speakers. Larry added that he uses "bookshelf" speakers and a sound bar as additional playback options. All of the mixers have multiple sets of speakers for different formats. Larry also explained, "What our sound supervisor Nicholas Forshager hears in his room is what we hear on the stage; same with our music editor Stephen Lotwis." Dennis used the ClearView service for his latest score for Alan Silvestri, with people all over the world. It allows anyone to use a web browser to hear stereo sound in sync to picture with as many as 30 users. Dennis used 15 and said that it worked flawlessly. Larry explained, "We have to be careful not to overuse the LFE channel; not a lot of people will hear the result of that." Dennis added that "Low frequencies are the most difficult and challenging thing to control in any room. The LFE should be used judiciously for impact. If you hear it once in a while, it's 'way cool.' If you hear it all the time, it's 'way annoying."' Scott Kramer summed it up nicely: "The sound crew is always the most important part. Fold-downs are their specialty, not the client's, so they make the final judgments. The clients trust them."