Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1451070
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S P R I N G 2 0 2 2 43 BEYOND THE Q&A: HUGO Released in 2011 and enjoying its 10th anniversary, the story of Hugo, set in 1931 Paris, focuses on an orphan living in the walls of a train station who gets wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton. The film was a departure from Scorsese's historic trajectory. The challenge was to create a sort of hybrid soundtrack with real and animated elements woven together throughout. Many times it was impossible to get just what they wanted from the production track due to things like the servomotors that ran the automaton's arm. Also, there were visuals that were completely CGI and had to have handmade sounds that would play correctly with the "animated" part of the film. And it all works beautifully. For the CAS & MPSE Sounding Board v1.0 event, four people from the sound crew of Hugo came together to reminisce on the construction of their soundtrack. Director Martin Scorsese has mastered the use of SPFX and animation as believable movie reality. As a master storyteller, the film won five Oscars in the categories of Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, and Sound Editing. It was also awarded that year's CAS Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures. The panel, moderated by Peter Albrechtsen CAS MPSE, consisted of Marko Costanzo, Foley artist; Tom Fleischman CAS, re-recording mixer; George A. Lara CAS, Foley mixer; and John Midgley CAS, production sound mixer. Re-recording mixer Tom Fleischman CAS started working with Marty and Thelma Schoonmaker on The King of Comedy, released in 1982, and has done practically every Scorsese-directed project since. Foley team George Lara b y G . J o h n G a r r e t t C A S CAS and Marko Costanzo have worked on projects with Tom for more than 20 years and have a very long list of top credits. Production mixer John Midgley CAS has done it all; from TV series to Star Wars: Episode 1, The King's Speech, Doctor Strange, and dozens of others along the way. So, it was a treat to sit at the feet of these giants for an hour as they talked about this great movie. The following are just a few excerpts from a fascinating hour of engagement and reflection to which I can barely do justice. TOM FLEISCHMAN CAS: It was a delight to work on, and working with Marty and Thelma is like working with one person. They have a very different process from most other filmmakers in terms of how they cut, sound preparation and editing, and so on. Prep starts very early. [Sound designer] Eugene Gearty is making sound FX for them very early on in the process. Thelma will get clips to show him and start asking for particular sound FX early on. I'm sorry that [dialogue editor] Phil Stockton and Eugene could not have joined the Zoom, as their contribution would have been quite helpful. The mix begins, eventually, when the film is in a semi- finished state. There are always picture changes during the mix. In some movies, they really rearrange entire reels, entire scenes get swapped around and moved, and the process gets stretched out a lot. [T]he cut is not really finished until the mix is finished. After Goodfellas, Thelma began to make her own temp mixes in Lightworks, and they became very dependent on those mixes. So, we've been tasked with using those temp mixes as a bible, and it's been an interesting process. Tom Fleischman CAS John Midgley CAS Marko Costanzo George A. Lara CAS Peter Albrechtsen CAS MPSE Moderator