Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1261193
Above: Marcello Dubaz, supervising sound editor at Technicolor Sound Services in Hollywood and Burbank. One of the biggest challenges was finding a balance between subtlety and eciency in storytelling. Our creator loves detailed soundscapes and is very sound-oriented in her writing. the importance of the clarity of the dialogue and music. I was excited about that challenge. One advantage we had was we got to start designing sounds while they were still picture editing. What was unique about this show versus broadcast shows is that we were working with one editorial crew— picture editor Philip Fowler and assistant editor Johnnie Martinez. So while they were cutting picture, they gave us a couple episodes to start design elements like the coyotes, the dog Pebbles, and the train elements. I really enjoyed the open commuication with the editorial department from the beginning. EM: Looking back, what were some of the biggest creative challenges that you faced over the course of the show? MD: One of the biggest challenges was finding a balance between subtlety and efficiency in storytelling. Our creator loves detailed soundscapes and is very sound-oriented in her writing. You want to bring those details to life, but you also have to recognize that there's only a certain frequency range that the audience can pay attention to on phones. So that was definitely one of the biggest challenges. We wanted to create something that sounded really beautiful and subtle on a nice sound system, but then we had to balance that with the reality of playing back on a phone where a lot of the subtlety drops off. We ended up finding a balance where we recognized that some frequencies and dynamics would get lost as you were playing back on a phone and others would be puncuated. Our guiding light was asking ourselves whether the main story points were still being communicated effectively. EM: When reviewing your sound team's work internally, did you monitor using any specific setups to best gauge how it would sound on the platform? MD: The easiest way to monitor it quickly was to switch to computer output here and there, and double- check the translation that way. I think it's about giving yourself a variety of speaker options. In the music world, people often play back their tracks on different speakers like a car radio to see how it might translate. So I approached working in the Quibi format by listening to our work on different speaker setups. There's nothing like actually trying it, listening to it on different setups, and seeing what works and what doesn't. EM: Did headphone playback or earbud playback play a big role in your creative choices? MD: Not as much in the sound editorial process, but we did