Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/681510
36 S P R I N G 2 0 1 6 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I work at Smart Post Sound. I do everything over there. I'm the main Foley mixer there. I've been there since 2005. We do a lot of half- and one-hour shows. Do you use a lot of outboard equipment or plug-ins? Less is more, so I prefer not to get into crazy processing and EQing. I feel the same way! If we've got the right prop or the right pair of shoes, we will make it work. Well, speaking as a fellow Foley mixer, it has been wonderful to talk shop with you. I love what you do and congratulate you on your award. Thank you! Dean Okrand CAS: Re-recording Mixer So, tell me about working on Modern Family and especially that episode. I thought it was spectacular. It was a real special episode. Actually, I watched it at home, not in a work environment, and it just sucked me into the show. Working on it and watching it are two totally different experi- ences. Watching it, I wanted to know where it was going, the mystery of the show. What's it like working on it? Well, I've been doing it for seven years now, and I always enjoy it. I've made some good friends and, to be frank, I think at this point in my career, that's the most important part of what I do—the relationships I have with the people that I'm working with. Were there any special challenges on this one that you hadn't seen before? Well, yes. From Steve Tibbo's perspective, it was a very differ- ent show than from my perspective. He had a lot of locations going on simultaneously—the show was almost produced live and that's really different from what they normally do. Steve had his hands full and did a masterful job. From my perspective, the most interesting thing was mixing it on a dubbing stage knowing it was going to sound really dif- ferent on a television set at home. We had all of these different locations that were futzed coming through computer speakers or iPhones and they may sound great on speakers on a stage, but coming out of little speakers on a television set—it's something you have to keep in mind. On a television set, all the locations tended to sound the same, and we were trying to make every- body sound unique in and of its place—and that was a difficult challenge. But we worked on it and thought we came up with a good solution to make it work. I think so, too. Is it in your head how differently you have to make it sound? How do you know how it will end up sounding? Well, I guess, yes, it's in my head. There is one scene where Phil is way in the back in the kitchen, but we heard him through Alex's point of view on her computer, so we had to get Phil to sound far away, even though he was being boomed, but we couldn't make him sound as if he were off mic. We wanted to make sure people felt like they were watching the character in the room through the computer screen. We mix the show on the big speakers and then played it back through an actual television set. That's the only way the people in the Modern Family office hear the show. They never hear it on big speakers. And we've been doing that for seven years. This was the only time I actually watched the show before we dubbed it. It gave me some ideas on how I wanted to create the different environments. Backgrounds were really important, though we didn't play the backgrounds that we normally would. When Claire was in the airport, you didn't hear the airport until she was online. Which is crazy. Normally at an airport, you hear all sorts of backgrounds, pages, or announcements—but the thought was to bring you into the other computers, to have no backgrounds until you start to hear Claire and I think that was a good decision and played really well. It was contrary to my normal way of thinking, but I thought it was a good choice. It wasn't my idea! You could take it. No, no, it's good. It's a collaborative effort. How did you get started in this business? I started at a noncommercial radio station when I was in high school and I loved it. My brother worked at a noncommercial radio station ... you know how you are envious of what your older brother does. So, I got interested in it and had a middle-of-the- night radio show here in Los Angeles when I was a senior in high school. At UC Berkeley, I worked at the college radio station there and met a guy who was still in high school, but was an incredible music mixer at 16 years old! We did a lot of music remotes together and, I thought, this is amazing! So I came back to LA and wanted to get a job in a recording studio. It took me almost three quarters of a year, but I got a job in a studio that recorded music for television, in particular, Donny and Marie. But it was the first place other than Glen Glenn that did post-pro- duction sound for video tape, which was in its infancy. We eventually organized and got in the union. A bunch of us then went over to Glen Glenn's and things just took off from there. So you've been involved in mixing your whole career? Yes. It's all I really know how to do. And it's the only thing I want to do. And Brian is very helpful to me. Brian's father was a mixer and I worked with his dad in the '80s at Glen Glenn. Twenty years later, I was working with his dad again, and he was ready to retire. He told me, "I want my son to be sitting in my chair with you, Dean." So, six or seven years later, there is Brian sitting next to me. That's great. It's been a pleasure talking to you, Dean. And congratulations, again.