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often as possible.The movie, being in 3D, lent itself to a more wild and crazy mix.With this movie, when things are flying all over the place,we want to be flying all over the place. It's also psychological.There are sounds that motivate, or interpret, or enhance the mood for things you don't see on screen, to make the audience feel something.There were subliminal noises, groans and clicks or ticks. At times it was the music or a sound effect that was winding up or winding down. Little nuance things like that, which we were trying to float in the room, instead of just playing them up front.We floated them in the room.You don't know where, but they were there." The sound editors had a challenge which they pulled off really well," reports Minkler. "The sound designer, Alan Rankin, had to come up with a way to get human voices to seamlessly become more vampire-like, so we have a transformation to and from being a vampire, from growling and hissing, back to their normal voice. Alan did so well it made it easier on us the mixers." As for the growing popularity of 7.1, Min- kler finds himself deeply immersed in the trend. "Right now there are only about 2,000 digital screen theaters worldwide that can playback in 7.1.As we increase the num- ber of digital screens, the number of 7.1 sys- tems will increase. I do plan on using 7.1 al- most exclusively in the future, because why not? It's there. It's a simple fold-down to the conventional 5.1 once you've done it. Even going down to the Lt-Rt, it's not a big chal- lenge once you've done it. Of course it's not a straight transfer for the Lt-Rt. It takes a lit- tle bit of massaging to pack it in differently, but it only takes three or four hours to do that separate mix. So, it's easy for the con- sole to handle, and it's easy for the re- recorders to handle.We might as well do it. So if 7.1 is here to stay, that's fine with me because I'm going to do it. " The mix for Fright Night was done on a Euphonix System 5 digital console."We use the EuCon on the Euphonix, which is the in- tegrated protocol between the Euphonix automation and the Pro Tools automation," he explains."With EuCon, the Euphonix can control the Pro Tools files, as well as control- ling audio on its own console using its own processors. So basically we have two sets of processors. Other consoles can't do that. It's either done in Pro Tools or at the console, but with the Euphonix we can do both. Be- cause Avid now owns Euphonix they've opened up that protocol and now speak perfectly to one another." FINAL DESTINATION While 7.1 is a growing trend, especially when it comes to 3D and IMAX films, many big studios, like Warner Bros., are still creating impressive mixes in 5.1. For the latest addition to the franchise, Final Destination 5, director Steven Quale chose to mix in 5.1.The mix was completed on Warner Bros.'s (www.wb- postproduction.warnerbros.com) Stage 5 by Steve Pederson and Brad Sherman. Pederson, the dialogue and music re- recording mixer on the film, says,"There was a discussion early on about whether or not to go with 7.1 for Final Destination 5, but for the time, effort and money, it just felt like we didn't need to go there.And I can say having concluded the mix, we feel that al- though we may not pinpoint quite as specifically in the back as you can with 7.1,we definitely get the sound off the screen to enhance those 3D moments. We have given the film a real dy- namic spatial quality, with lots of movement and pan- ning, and getting it out into the theater, but in a 5.1 for- mat. One thing to point out in this film is that the 3D used is RealD. There are places where things will pop out at you in the theater, but Steven Quale, the director, really wanted it to be more about depth and just giving the viewers a more real ex- perience. He comes from working with James Cameron on Avatar, and he didn't want to have a film where things are always popping out at you in a silly way. He wanted the film to have a depth quality to it. There are few places that things do pop out at you and we were able to pull those sounds into the sur- rounds. Even in 5.1,we were able to do it effectively." A key scene in Final Des- tination 5 involves the col- lapse of a suspension bridge. "Before the bridge starts to give way, the char- acters are all on a company bus on their way to a re- treat," says Pederson."One www.postmagazine.com August 2011 • Post 29 by one they star t to come out of the bus, and wonder what's going on.The camera is positioned up past them, watching them exit the bus.They look past the camera up to- ward the left surround or up toward the right surround, and we would position a cable snap in just the left surround or just the right surround, then back to the left, so it was constantly ping-ponging around the the- ater.That's where the surrounds really do come in handy because the surrounds are up above your head no matter where you're sitting in the theater.When you have the characters looking up past the camera and continued on page 46