Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1434375
60 W I N T E R 2 0 2 2 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y To gain some insight, I spoke with an old co-worker and longtime friend, scoring mixer Greg Hayes, as well as a new friend and colleague, composer Sherri Chung. Both are heavily active in today's scoring world. Scoring Mixer Greg Hayes You may not know Greg Hayes, but you know his work. F9: The Fast Saga, Frozen II, Perry Mason, Dear Evan Hansen, the list goes on and on. A few weeks ago, we had a long video chat on the subject. How are you introduced to a project? It depends. It generally starts with the type of project it is, you know, is it episodic, a miniseries, a film for either theatrical or streaming. What type of score is it? Is it going to be all live instruments? Usually these days, it's a hybrid of live and electronic, synthesized instruments that, for lack of a better word, we call "pre-records." You also have to account for what pre-records are eventually going to be replaced or augmented with live instruments. What are the steps for your involvement? I usually get involved shortly after the film has been spotted. [We need a cue here, and it should feel like this and so on.] It's usually done with the music editor, the filmmakers, and the composer. After this, the composer's starting to write, and maybe they already have [musical] themes that they are writing to picture. Sometimes that's when I get involved, and others a little bit later. The next step is the pre-recoded master sessions get laid back. The composers are usually working in a sequencer like Logic, Cubase, or Digital Performer. They output their work [MIDI/sequencer sessions] as audio stems and that is imported into Pro Tools and synced with the picture. Next, whatever cues have been decided to be recorded first are sent to the orchestrator. The orchestrator is, basically, [translating the composer's MIDI and audio stems into notes on a page] and putting those parts out to the band on a physical score. So, that helps you visualize the pre- records as sources you need to capture? Correct. At this point, [knowing what we need to record instrumentation-wise], I need to design a layout for the room. I make decisions about where we are going to place each instrument; violins, violas, cellos, bass, woodwinds, brass, percussion, guitars, whatever the score is requiring. From there, I'm interfacing with the studio regarding my requirements for the set up. Am I bringing my microphones and mic pres, reverbs, and speakers? I give them the blueprint of the room, an input sheet of microphones, instruments, [and how they should lay out on the console]. We usually need a day of set up for that. The following day, we start recording. Each session is broken up into three-hour chunks. During COVID, we've really only been able to record one group of instruments at a time. So, we are not able to have a full orchestra playing together. Although that's changing with different productions, for the most part, we've been recording string parts one day, then shift the setup and record all the woodwinds, and then the brass, and so on and so forth. Scoring mixer Greg Hayes "Stems can be pretty wide. For certain shows with a dense amount of material, I've printed over twenty 7.1 stems." –Greg Hayes