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52 W I N T E R 2 0 2 2 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y mixer Tim Philben work and then try similar settings on my dialogue." Larry found a lot of knowledge reading articles in Mix magazine or in books on sound he picked up at the Samuel French Bookstore. "I embraced listening to audio commentaries on laser discs by people like Gary Rydstrom or Ben Burtt, [but] a lot of it was just on-the-job trial and error, making mistakes, and learning from them to add to your knowledge base." In New York, it's still quite common to mix one person, so Tom had to find other avenues to improve his craft. Tom's first real commercial feature was Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard. On this project, Tom credits film editor Craig McKay for really helping him through the dialogue pre-mix. "He would try and guide me like 'Can we get a little bit more out of the end of that line?' He taught me you don't just let the track play, you gotta work it." Another key learning experience early in his career was on the film Honeysuckle Rose. Tom started the mix in New York, and Richard Portman finished the mix in Los Angeles. Afterward on a visit to New York, "Richard took me out to lunch and gave me a lecture about how to organize my FX pre- dubs. He had a bit of a problem figuring out what my method was, which was understandable because I wasn't sure of it myself." Each project is a collaboration so, early on, Tom took time to learn from those collaborators on the job. For David, he found knowledge and opportunity through good old- fashioned grunt work. While working with Jerry Clemans on Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light concert, the room needed to be reset every night in preparation to mix the sitcom Alice at 9 a.m. the next day. David's task was to painstakingly recall the settings of 60 faders, every eq, compressor, reverb, harmonizer, etc., so that it could be set eventually became a recordist for Jerry Clemans, who was mixing most of the music and variety television shows at the time." David shares, "Film was always my long-term goal [but] I came up through television music because that's where the opportunities presented first. Compact Video was probably the most advanced facility in town in terms of technology and personnel. It was a smallish group of people that all helped each other." These days, there is no shortage of YouTube tutorials, Facebook groups, podcasts, etc., to learn the latest plugins and mixing techniques. With so many voices vying for your attention, the quality of what's being said might leave something to be desired. So how did one learn mixing in the old days? According to Larry, "There was on-the-job mentorship. As a Foley and music mixer, I would watch dialogue Larry Benjamin CAS at Formosa