MPSE Wavelength

Murch recalled beginning his career in sound editorial on Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People. Starting after picture was locked in January of 1969, Murch cut the soundtrack on a Moviola, performed his own transfers from Nagra to 35mm on an Omega transfer machine, and recorded all of the sound effects and Foley by himself in George Lucas' Hollywood Hills house for fear of being shut down as he was not in the union at the time. Ahead of the late-August release of the film, Murch moved north to Coppola's American Zoetrope in order to mix the film. Utilizing only one of a handful of KEM mixing units in the United States, the 8-transport machine allowed Murch to premix up to 18 tracks at a time. The rare KEM unit had been upgraded with two- time saving features not available until then, punch-in record and high-speed rewind. That same 20-input, 4-output board built by KEM served Murch through THX 1138, The Godfather: Part II, and American Graffiti. Even after the machine was demoted from primary service, it was still used for regrouping on Apocalypse Now almost a decade later. Known and respected for his incredible talents as a sound editor, re-recording mixer, and picture editor, Murch discussed how on his latest project, Coup 53, the documentary film on the 1953 war in Iran that overthrew Prime Minister Mosaddegh, he was able to both edit the picture and pre-dub the music within Adobe Premiere. Using the rubber band to volume graph the 22 music stems as delivered by scoring mixer Robert Miller, Murch dovetailed the stems against themselves, the dialogue, and sound effects all within the video editing software before delivering to re-recording mixer Martin Jensen at Boom Post in SoHo London. In their discussion, Blake brought up a significant point, "When you started, so many things were new or didn't exist like hitting rewind and going back. I don't think that people really understand, it was uncommon that you would hit stop and rewind and listen" simply due to the laborious mechanical process of having to stop down, roll back, and re-sync the multiple decks in the machine room. Murch retorted that "It's easier [now], but it's relentless. Because you hit a button and you're back at the beginning!" While he recognizes and appreciates the positives that technology allows in his workflow, Murch laments the loss of those moments in a workday that afforded mixers and editors to take a mental break while waiting for the technology to be ready for the next phase in the process. "Throughout the whole 1970s, there was the Ping Pong table [on the dub stage] so at the end of a reel you'd say, 'OK, take it back to heads' and the mixers would play Ping Pong for five or 10 minutes to get the blood going again. It's significant that the Ping Pong table in mix rooms is an extinct species because of the instant access to every single track and instant access to wherever you want to be in the film at that point … however many geologic layers you want to drill down into the sound." In spite of the uphill battle that sound has against vision simply due to the physiological wiring of the human brain, Murch reminded us to recognize the influence that sound can and should deliver to audiences. "Sound has this incredibly powerful ability to modulate what is being seemingly presented frontally by the camera and by vision. The more we can find different ways to exploit that, the better. My ideal for the audience experience … is that when you watch a film, you are being hypnotized, lightly. And in a sense, you have leapt out of the chair that you are sitting in, into the screen, like Alice through the looking glass, and you're in that world." That level of mesmerism is a noble goal that we should all strive to achieve, but Murch warns us to remember that "with great power, comes great responsibility." Opening the event Friday morning, supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer Larry Blake discussed The Role of Art and Technology with the legendary Walter Murch. Having the perspective of 50 years in the sound for picture business, Murch's ear for art was never at the mercy of the technology available to him. DAY ONE Keynotes from Key Pros Walter Murch WALTER MURCH Sound Designer Film Editor LARRY BLAKE Supervising Sound Editor/ Re-Recording Mixer

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