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www.postmagazine.com 34 POST OCTOBER 2014 soundtrack that builds tensions and reveals the story in a precise manner. Stateman credits Dichter and Mohar as being the guiding force for his Twenty Four Seven Sound team on the film. "Lee [Dichter] is truly a very amazing talent and has a very deep understanding of the high concepts that we were going after," says Stateman. Stateman was brought on to the film by producers Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg, whom he worked with on Django Unchained. He says, "Stacey wanted to get a really great creative team to do this hyper-stylized, genre- specific film for Scott Frank. It was our little dream team: great talent at a great new facility." PostWorks New York's new Dolby-cer- tified 5.1 theatrical mix stage features a Euphonix System 5 Fusion. This was the first film Dichter mixed using a Euphonix System 5 console, having spent most of his career mixing on AMS Neve consoles. He says, "I liked the jump to the Euphonix. You can move things around, and it's more flexible. I like the sound of it. Phil Fuller of PostWorks and his team helped me im- mensely to make the smooth transition." A Walk Among the Tombstones was the first film mixed on the new PostWorks stage. Prior to starting the final mix, Dichter spent nine days with dialogue supervisor Spencer on the dialogue pre-mix. One of the biggest challenges was getting Liam Neeson's low-key performance up to the sound level of the other characters with- out it sounding forced. "He didn't project much. He was quiet, like his voice was in- side of him. I needed to make him play in the scene," he says. Dichter also observes that many actors are now miced using lavalieres, instead of on a boom mic. He feels that using a boom mic on three or four people sounds more natural, like they are all in the same space. "It's a chal- lenge to work with these lavalieres if they are not positioned right, and typically is- sues arise from the clothing and how the characters project their voice. It's a big challenge to make it fit into the scene. And that's not just with this film, it's with every film," notes Dichter. In A Walk Among the Tombstones, many scenes involve dialogue happening over the phone. Dichter typically starts with a good amount of vocal process- ing and EQ to give it a pinched, filtered, phone sound. As the conversation pro- gresses, Dichter gradually backs off the amount of processing, making the phone dialogue less squeezed. "By the end, the dialogue is 30 percent less filtered than it was at the beginning, to give the voice a richer sound. By backing off the filter- ing, it sounds a little more intimate and you can connect to the character better, as opposed to listening to a very thin, squeezed telephone sound," says Dichter. Laying out A Walk Among the Tomb- stones in 5.1, Dichter notes the dialogue stays up front and center while the rest of the 5.1 is used for music and effects. "In this film we relied more on the surrounds for the sound effects to help create a dark mood. There are several scenes with rain, thunder and lightning, so the sound effects reflect the dark storyline. In one scene there is a phone call being made to try to track down one of the killers. There is a tremendous rainstorm. The music is dark, the dialogue is dark, and the effects are dark," says Dichter. THE EQUALIZER Director Antoine Fuqua, known for Training Day, weaves internal conflict and physical violence in The Equalizer. Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, a man trying to escape a mysterious past and The Twenty Four Seven Sound team worked on A Walk Among the Tombstones on PostWorks' new Dolby-certified 5.1 mix stage. The Equalizer was mixed in 7.1 on a Harrison MPC console in the Cary Grant Theatre at Sony Pictures Post. CONTINUED ON PG 44 AUDIO FOR FEATURE FILMS