Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
118 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 118 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 As a production sound mixer, I admired those mysterious men and women in dark, quiet rooms who manipulated my raw material by marrying music, sound effects and magic into a finished product. It wasn't until I visited Lee on the mixing stage that I discovered his gift for blending a storytelling sensibility with a passion to make it sound just right. On one particular visit, I recall watching him mix a film on which he noticed the fall-off in volume of a seated actor who unexpectedly turned his head, eluding any chance for the boom mic to follow. Without any fanfare, Lee rolled back the dozens of 35mm Magna-Tech film recorders and, punching "record," added a subtle boost of level and EQ to make a seamless improvement in the final product. This took place at a time when he was the sole mixer at the console, responsible for all the tracks delivered by editorial. If you allow for the hundreds of similar or more dramatic refinements Lee has implemented on each film, you only begin to appreciate how fine a creative artist — in technician's clothing — he is. Over the course of the four decades I have known Lee, he has mixed at least 10 of my films. Significantly, his influence goes well beyond the hundreds of production mixers he's served so masterfully, as noted by an equally impressive list of devoted directors and producers. Danny Michael, CAS Colleague; Production Sound Mixer n I t seems that I have always known Lee Dichter, although I didn't meet him until 1986 at Sound One while he was mixing Hannah and Her Sisters. We went to lunch to get acquainted and he was so kind and gracious. I instantly felt that we were old friends because of his warmth and class. I was so impressed. I asked him how the mix was going on Hannah. It was his first day on the mix, and he said that he had final-mixed three reels that morning as the lone mixer. He characterized Woody Allen's film mixes, at least back then, as a "couple tracks of dialogue, couple tracks of music, couple tracks of effects." Lee is the master of making great film mixes out of little to work with. He is clever and passionate, and always contributes so much to every film, earning the reputation as New York's most respected film mixer. I see Lee only occasionally because we're on opposite coasts but, throughout the years, he has always felt like a close friend and professional brother. He will always be the standard of New York sound professionals that all should inspire to be. Michael Minkler, CAS Friend/Colleague; Re-Recording Mixer n I have known Lee Dichter for only 40 years, and I've had the experience of spending a month in a mix with him on only 14 films. So that's more than a year of my life in a dark room with the Vladimir Horowitz of film mixers. They have been some of the best times of my professional life. Lee is the rarest of rare people: a man of incredible integrity, intelligence, humor, intense compassion and a talent that is unsurpassed. He brings those talents and qualities to his job every single day and adds to the cinematic stories we tell a dimension that is both under-appreciated and massive in its importance. While those of us below the line are mostly unknown to the millions of filmgoers who watch our tales, we all know how incredibly lucky we are to have Lee as a cohort and a leader in the post community. I am so honored to call him a friend. Andy Mondshein, ACE Friend/Colleague; Picture Editor n W hen I first met Lee, I was impressed by the way his fingers stroked the column of toggle switches on the Photo- Mag mixing board, creating a sinuous image of the desired EQ as the picture spooled backwards. In those days, most mixers sat back and smoked a cigarette while the film rewound. Not Lee. He heard the EQ better, he said, when he wasn't distracted by listening to what the actors were saying. That was 1981, when I was mixing an early cut of Woody Allen's Zelig. We didn't release the film for another two years, but this gave us a chance to pick Lee's brain. Most people who see Zelig are enthralled by Gordon Willis' cinematography being indistinguishable from the interwoven archival footage. Far less attention is paid to the sound. We'd recorded on period microphones, but we also used Lee's knowledge of the history of his craft. He described and we mimicked the technical limitations of 50 years prior. No problem, said Lee. Lee is renowned for making every syllable of the dialogue crystal clear, which is vital for Woody, who refuses to use ADR. Gunshot obliterating a word? No problem. But it didn't stop there. Lee also helped us turn MOS scenes shot on the soundstage into an eerie evocation of a 1920s Eastern European city for Shadows and Fog, create an homage to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds for Radio Days, and turn another MOS scene in that film into a heart- wrenching depiction of efforts to save a little girl who had fallen down a well. But personally, my favorite memory was 30 years ago, when I made the then- unheard-of request to breastfeed my newborn son in the isolation booth while listening to the mix over headphones. No problem, said Lee. Susan E. (Sandy) Morse, ACE Friend/Colleague/Mentee; Picture Editor n L ee Dichter's astonishing, yards- long list of credits, spanning more than 50 years, speaks for itself — particularly when you realize how many directors and producers kept returning to work with him: Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese,