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audio for Animation and to work in the mix. You need close peo- ple and distant people; you need different voices and reactions." While Rhodes was creating the voice of Polly, the Dodo-parrot companion of the Pirate Captain, he contacted an ornithologist to find out what a Dodo might actually sound like. "Having done massive amounts of research into what Dodo's actually sound like proved to be a bit of a dead end," he jokes. Polly needed to be a cross between a Dodo, which is thought to have a bassy voice, and a parrot, because there is some confusion in the film that people think she's an over- weight parrot. Rhodes and his sound crew worked together to record the voice of Polly. "We all had a good go at the squawkings. Tim Hands, my dialogue editor, is very good at vocal sounds, and he did quite a few. He starred quite often as the voice of Polly, but Polly consists of the work of about three or four different people squawking or purring and that sort of thing. We didn't want the sound to be character-ful, because she could have easily stolen the show. But like all living things, Polly has moments of happiness and sadness, so we tried to give her a bit of nice- ness as well as just being a squawking bird." Register Now for Free! Since Paterson was on board from the first temp mix to the final 5.1 mix, he was able to try different techniques, such as applying reverb to the dry studio recordings to bed the characters into the space on screen. "Quite often in animation, the voices are kept very dry, but in The Pirates! there were spaces on the ship, in the large halls, and some fun exterior places as well, where we could use reverbs and those sorts of things to help tell the story. With the temp mixes, you get to try something and when you revisit for another temp mix, you can change your mind and try something else. It's nice going into the final mix knowing what I'm going to do with a scene because I've already tried it different ways." One challenge to mixing The Pirates! was maintaining a dynamic mix through the big action sequences that included a lot of dia- logue. "It's a big movie from the first frame really," says Paterson. "There are some big moments that happen with a lot of dialogue in them, and finding that shape where we don't drop all the energy away just to hear a piece of dialogue takes a lot of work, a lot of crafting. With animation, there is no reason why it can't sound exactly like you want it to. There are no noisy sync tracks or bad recordings, so that can be both a blessing and a hindrance. I think, in the end, we got the right balance. It's big, yet dynamic." THE KRAKEN The Kraken, sea legend of old, bottled up in potent black rum of the same name, was brought to life in a TV ad campaign by the agency Dead As We Know It. The striking Song Loft's Chris Villepigue created music and sound design for The Kraken, which promotes the black rum. BIGGER AND BETTER FOR 2012! DV Expo East returns to New York for the second year at a new, bigger location with more exhibitors, education, networking, and conference content. DV Expo East is quickly becoming the premier destination to explore the latest technologies, learn from world-class professionals and connect with peers who share your same passion for video. PRODUCT SHOWCASE June 20, 2012 Metropolitan Pavilion, 123 W. 18th St., NYC WWW.DVEXPOEAST.COM Free admission if you register in advance at www.dvexpoeast.com with code ADPOST. EXPERIENCE DIGITAL VIDEO EXPO EAST! If you produce, direct, shoot, edit, create or engineer video or film for any application, invest a day at DV Expo East and advance your knowledge and career! Produced By: