Post Magazine

April 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 32 POST APRIL 2018 just letting the music open up into the surrounds so that everything isn't fighting for space upfront." Another tactic that Richardson employs when mixing in 5.1 is to use multi-channel ambiences whenever possible. "There are so many more sound effects libraries available in 5.1, like Immersion 5.1 by Point One Sound Inc., which have ambiences that were recorded with a surround microphone setup and that have the sub channel built-in. That makes a huge difference. It will make a mix sing when you can use legit 5.1 sound effects," says Richardson. Richardson has been mixing commercials in 5.1 ever since the HD broadcast revolution began. "We have a client in town who had a mandate that any- thing they did was going to be in HD and mixed in 5.1. So anytime we worked with the Richards Group that was how we worked," says Richardson. He re- cently completed 5.1 mixes for their Choctaw Casino & Resort campaign called Mind Your Manners. The campaign features a "50's educational video" style announcer talking about proper manners. The voiceover juxtaposes scenes of people letting loose at a casino. Originally, the agency bought and edited an actual 50's educational video recording, which they used to build the first commercial in the campaign. Richardson then recorded a sound-alike announcer for two additional spots. "The two that I recorded had to match the sound of the original. I recorded the announcer using a ribbon mic to get that vintage sound, and then we tried some plug-in processing. We were blending multiple techniques together, adding in the speed up and slow down of a record effect. The challenge was getting everyone happy with the effect," says Richardson. All three spots aired, but "later the agency came back and recorded the announcer (who did the oth- er two spots) reading the lines for the first spot. This way all three spots had the same announcer and it was more consistent. That would have made my job easier, if we had just done that in the beginning, but it was good exercise for my ears trying to get those to match," concludes Richardson. HE ARD CIT Y Award-winning mixer/sound designer Mike Vitacco at Heard City in New York, NY (http://heardcity.com) has worked on several commercials that aired during the 2018 Super Bowl, including the movie trailer spoof that ad agency Droga5 New York created for Tourism Australia titled, Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home. The spot starred Chris Hemsworth as an Australian guide who shows the supposed son of 'Crocodile Dundee' (played by Danny McBride) around the country. Vitacco played up the movie trailer tropes to perfection in this spot. In the 5.1 surround mix, he placed low-end impacts in the LFE channel to hit the title cards and immersed the viewer into the landscape shots by adding authentic Australian ambiences in the surrounds. It's a given that commercials will be mixed in Mind Your Manners for Choctaw Casino. Heard City mixed this spot for Geico.

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