Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1400557
"Nobody saw it except Jaume and myself," he recalls. "When we were working on the rapids sequence, The African Queen was something he had mentioned to me early on, before we started shooting, and he wanted to get that tone. There's a rapids sequence in The African Queen, and there was a little boat that I comp'ed in…and we had it in there for a couple of weeks because we didn't have anything else to put in there for some of the wide shots." Negron began editorial on-location in Hawaii, while the production was shooting. He later moved to Atlanta, where production continued, and ultimately to Los Angeles. Post production was well underway when COVID caused a shut down in early 2020. "Jaume likes me to go on-location because I will assemble while he is shooting, and he will come in at the end of his day, and that will give him an idea of what he might need," Negron ex- plains. "Or, we will talk about performances and shots, and he will make a plan for the next day… We were almost done with the movie. We were mixing. I think we had seven reels, and we had done six out of the seven reels, doing the mix, and we got shut down." The team then worked remotely for several months, plugging in the final VFX before opening up once again late last summer to finish the movie. Negron would receive dailies as DNx115 files for editing in his Avid. While in both Hawaii and Atlanta, the production had a remote dailies lab right next door — something he says was invaluable. "They would transfer and do a quick color pass with the DP," he recalls of the dailies process. "And if we got something that wasn't matching or didn't look correct, we just went right next door and they would redo it and it came back to us. It was amaz- ing to have that. It was definitely a benefit." Several of the film's scenes are enhanced through the edit. Early on, for example, MacGregor makes a pitch to a large group of historians, asking them to support 'his' idea of searching for the fa- bled tree. He is, in fact, presenting Lily's idea, know- ing that in 1920s London, a woman scientist would have significantly-less influence over a group of stodgy old men. While MacGregor is struggling to sell the idea, Lily is elsewhere in the hall, working to steal the arrowhead relic, which is believed to be a key in finding the Amazon tree. She is ultimately discovered, and what follows is a quick-thinking, well-timed escape with the artifact. For Negron, cutting that sequence was made easy thanks to a well-executed production. "The scene in London was a pretty straight forward action sequence, and Jaume is a master at that," the editor explains. "That's what he does. All his films have action in there, so that was pretty straight forward and worked out pretty well be- cause he shot the right angle, and the timing and way he shot it was all planned out. That sequence SUMMER MOVIES www.postmagazine.com 22 POST JULY/AUG 2021 F 9 : T H E F A S T S A G A First paired up as a team on Fast Five in 2011, the Universal Studios-based feature mixing duo of dialogue and music re-recording mixer Jon Taylor and sound effects re-recording mixer Frank A. Montaño recently tackled the latest chapter in the blockbuster franchise, F9: The Fast Saga. The film opened in US theaters on June 25th and has earned more than $300M in global box office sales to date. This sound team, including supervising sound editor Peter Brown of The Formosa Group, has worked together on Fast 5, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7, The Fate of the Furious and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and already had a strong relationship with director Justin Lin. These relationships played a key role in how the film was mixed as theaters closed down in 2020 and the F9 release date was pushed back. Composer Brian Tyler continued collabo- rating with Lin and had a close-to-final, mock- up score going into the first temp mix. The score stayed very much the same going into the final immersive mix, just being replaced with live orchestral strings, horns and percussion. "Music and the film edit are brother and sis- ter," says Montaño. "They share the same DNA because of the emotional component to the performances." Because the picture editorial team of Greg D'Auria, Dylan Highsmith and Kelly Matsumoto were working with the mock- up score, there were no surprises when new music cues were introduced. This score, cou- pled with close-to-final visual effects sequenc- es and the experience of multiple Fast & Furious films, contributed to a final mix that achieved the filmmaker's vision with very few comments. For efficiency, the mixers used both Mix 6 and the Alfred Hitchcock Theater at Universal Studios for the pre-mix and final. Taylor and Montaño would work on separate mix stages, be able to share files, and listen to each other's progress. "You can really hear the nuances that need to be uncovered or sweetened on the effects side by working this way," ex- plains Montaño. "This allows us to maximize the potential of all the tracks for that fun rollercoast- er ride that audiences want." After mixing apart, they would come together at the end of the day and clarify the strong foun- dation that was already built. A guiding mixing principle for the team has been to balance the hard driving action sequences Fast is known for with the softer character moments. "We always want the film to sound big and allow the audience to enjoy the experience like we enjoy it," notes Taylor. By using the soft- er scenes as a benchmark, they become "a sonic palate cleanser, like ginger at a sushi bar," adds Montaño. Montaño says one of his favorite moments in F9 is the launch sequence of the Pontiac Fiero. "Sonically, we have a very square edge with it launching," he notes. "Then there is some cool dynamic panning in it before we cut back to Earth with the armadillo armored vehicle roll- ing. That whole sequence is a lot of fun." For Taylor, it's the race between the Toretto brothers and the accompanying song, titled "Breathe". "It starts with the cars revving and the song's guitar opening," he explains. "The cars take off and the song pulls back for a while. Then the mu- sic has a change in it, where it drops BPMs and goes full immersive to the ceiling. It just gives you a whole different space." "Peter (Brown), the supervising sound editor, is a tasteful, imaginative, true crafts- man, who brings a wide sonic palette to the table," says Montaño. Supervising dialogue editor Shane Hayes and su- pervising ADR editor Glynna Grimala have collabo- rated with Taylor in the past and know exactly how he wants his tracks delivered. "I like the tracks laid out in a specific way and with a certain level of clean up to provide lati- tude," says Taylor. "Shane and Glynna just deliver. Same thing with music editor Joe Lisanti and song/music editor Paul Rabjohns. They deliver great split tracks that gives me the control I need to create that big sound." 80 70 70 100 10.2 7.4 7.4 100 100 100 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 100 100 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 70 70 40 70 70 30 30 100 40 100 40 40 100 10 40 40 20 70 70 3.1 2.2 2.2 70 40 40 75 66 66 50 40 40 25 19 19 B 0 0 0 0 100 70 30 100 10 25 50 75 90 100 100 60 100 70 30 100 60 40 70 40 70 30 100 40 40 100 40 100 40 70 40 70 40 40 3 40 70 40 70 40 40 100 60 A 3% ISO 12647-7 Digital Control Strip 2009 Mixers (L-R) Montaño and Taylor F9 was mixed at Universal Studios.