CineMontage

Q1 2018

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49 Q1 2018 / CINEMONTAGE I started the next day at 7:00 a.m. on Warner's Dub Stage 1 with gaffer Walter Goss, Mike Jerome handling sound effects and me on music. I asked Walter if we were starting our training at 9:00 a.m. 'Training, what training?' he queried. 'Universal Studios has booked this stage for a year; at 9:00 a.m. we're dubbing!' Walter's first request to me was, 'When I call for a square hole, make one in the music for the dialogue.' That was my baptism by fire!" Eight months later, Fernandez ended up working on Hard Core (1979) with director Paul Schrader. "Composer Jack Nitzsche needed help, I was told. Apparently, Jack wasn't happy with what was occurring on the scoring stage and wanted a 'rock 'n' roller.' At the time, I had long hair and maybe looked the part, so the sound department had me go see what I could do to calm tempers. Jack and I got along great and the film turned out well — although I got a credit as a re- recording mixer and not the scoring mixer. In those days, it was Warner policy to omit mention of the scoring mixer. Go figure." Other landmark scoring sessions with Eastwood include the aforementioned Sully and American Sniper, as well as Jersey Boys (2014). "The score for Sully was very different, with the Tierney Sutton Band that we recorded at Cow on the Wall Studios in North Hollywood for a couple of days," Fernandez recalls. "We then went back to Warner's to record the orchestra and mix the score. Clint recorded his early ideas that were then used for the score." Jersey Boys was also different, according to Fernandez. "Clint wanted the music of the Four Seasons to sound true-to-life and not over-produced," he says. "We went to The Bridge in Glendale to record the songs with four vocalists and the band, then back to the Eastwood Stage to add the underscore and mix the film." The music for American Sniper by composer Joseph DeBeasi involved a synthesizer and orchestral elements, the scoring mixer relates. "For the first pass, we also had four percussionists with three drum kits [facing the screen] across the width of the scoring stage," he explains. "For the second pass, they played large drums and taikos that Clint cued to follow the on-screen action. He also played several piano pieces, including 'Taya's Theme,' which he wrote." Most recently, Fernandez recorded and mixed the score for The Bombing, a new Chinese World War II film directed by Xiao Feng with music by Liguang Wang, due in May. "Tao Liu, the score producer, and I met while he was enrolled in the USC Thornton Screen Scoring program, with supervisor Dan Carlin, Jr., the school's program director. After the course ended, Tao Liu asked me if I would record and mix the music for The Bombing; the producers were looking for a 'Hollywood brand' on the film. Originally, we had planned to use the Eastwood Stage but, because of time conflicts, we had to move to Abbey Road Studios in London, where we worked for two weeks with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Gavin Sutherland." Summarizing his many decades as a first-call scoring mixer working on a large number of landmark films, Fernandez offers a simple overarching philosophy: "There is a hierarchy during the process. The mixer works for the composer and his creative team; the composer, in turn, works for the director. We all need to remain focused on the job at hand, and get on with the work as part of a collaborative team." f The 15:17 to Paris. Warner Bros.

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