Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/830490
18 S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y The whole team worked together focusing to achieve the director's sonic vision for the fi lm continually asking themselves "How do we help support the story?" "I love to have an editor sitting next to me so that I can focus on the mix. Dialogue editors are the best de-essers in the world—editors have so much better a skill than I do. Dialogue editors know how many takes there are or alts, and they are constantly looking at sync. Sound effects editors know the library so well. Music editors know the inner workings of a score, all the layers and can tell what the composer's intention was for a cue. I could turn to any editor on Dory and it would be done. Having people that are so good at their jobs right next to me, it makes my job so much easier. "When you have a team working like this with another set of ears and eyes on it, who is paying attention to other aspects, [we've really learned] that you can take things away, you can work on what is important for the story." Something that may seem counter to the idea of being a re-recording mixer, which people associate with adding and clarifying sound, is the strategic removal of sounds to serve narrative. "A director I worked with recently said that he'd never realized how much clarity comes from us taking things away. Movies are now so visually loaded that if we do the same with sound, the viewer doesn't always know what to focus on." Sound has always been a part of fi lmmaking, even during the silent era, when the restriction of sound in movies was a technical issue rather than an actual storytelling choice. We often forget that the choices of when and how to use sound are just as important as how much sound is used. "In Dory, we had choices to make. Do we employ that sound which viewers associate with being underwater—that low tone—throughout the movie? Suddenly that becomes messy. The viewer knows that the characters are underwater, the brain knows the sound—you don't need it all the way through. You establish it and then sneak it out and return it when you need it (like when music goes out). Like a traffi c scene doesn't need to be wall-to-wall traffi c sounds. We really used sound to help establish where the characters were at physically and emotionally. We did a lot of that. Helping establish locations and then get out and let the story breathe so that the sound doesn't eat up too much attention. It's one of the great things with fi lm sound you can do. "We are storytellers. We need to know what the emotional beats are for the story and use the sound to help match those beats." Michael tells a story about working with a director on a scene that they were struggling with. "He left the room, and we stripped the scene down, we took everything out. When he came back in the room we played it, and he noticed what was missing and what we needed back in to tell the story. You start to know what you really need. In Dory, we had a lot of those moments. The team we had made the mix really easy. Pixar does such a great job with putting teams together—and they usually get the sound team involved really early, and they always give us enough time. "In the end, it's about making a great movie ... and they [Pixar] will really go to the nth degree to make a really good product. "Sound has grown," Michael adds, "I've seen visual effects grow and grow, but sound has grown along with this. Directors are seeing this and, even though we're often the last step, more and more fi lms are being made with us in mind, which is great." Michael mixes through a Neve DFC 3 standalone console, having the automation separate from the Pro Tools, which he likes, but he discussed the other systems available. "That companies are investing, developing, and putting research into consoles, semi-consoles, or control panels for us is always a good thing. That companies are generally interested in helping us perfect our tools is a wonderful thing. It could easily fall by the wayside, could be seen as not profi table, so it's great. "With sound changing now from 5.1 Dolby Atmos to 7.1 Dolby Atmos, consoles have to change to accommodate that. They 're still evolving. When I started mixing, the sound effects console was 24 inputs wide and that's it! Now you have, what, fi ve thousand! It's certainly gotten more complex!" Once again, though, Michael stresses the importance of keeping his approach simple. "These movies can very easily get out of hand sonically— and fast. Putting yourself in the place of the audience, you have to know what you should be listening to. There are times when big sound is needed and times when it isn't. However, it's very rare that sound ever drops off completely. "Moments that you may think are silent very rarely are. You've got to be loud when you need to be loud, and if you use it well, that contrast can make sound more powerful with the slightest changes. You don't need to push the audience away. The internet has been a wonderful thing in that people are now more interested in how fi lms are made top to bottom. Having that awareness across the board helps push us to be better." Sound is so often tied to the emotion of the story. As the old adage goes, "It's invisible until it's a problem." Understanding that idea, that the intimacy of the moment can be focused by, not only the visuals and the acting, but by