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in the mix Sound Lounge goes to The Place Beyond the Pines By Randi Altman EDITOR-IN-CHIEF raltman@postmagazine.com Tony Volante carefully balances score and sound design. N EW YORK — While New York's Sound Lounge might be best known for its commercial work, the studio offers a variety of audio services for a variety of project types, including television series, games, new media and films. The studio's 5th Avenue location houses nine studios dedicated to spot work, two for film and television mixing, an ADR studio and six editorial/production rooms. Their downtown location has three more studios designed for sound for commercials and television. A recent film project taken on by Sound Lounge (www.soundlounge.com) was the indie The Place Beyond the Pines, starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, and directed by Derek Cianfrance, who had previously worked with Gosling and Sound Lounge on 2010's Blue Valentine. Sound Lounge offered full-service audio post production for Focus Features' A Place Beyond the Pines, and Tony Volante, who heads up the studio's film and television division, was POST: What console did you work on? VOLANTE: "I mix on a dual-position Digidesign ICON. Dialogue/ADR and music/ sound design were loaded on one system, and sound effects, sound design and Foley were loaded on a second system. Stems and final mixes were recorded back into each system after mixing 'virtually in the box' for weeks." POST: You worked completely in the box. Can you discuss the benefits? shared dialogue editorial duties. The film is two hours and 20 minutes, but when I started the dialogue pre, I was working on an even longer version that had to be eventually conformed. Major conformed the original dialogue session, complete with all my automation... a big advantage of working in the box!" POST: You've worked with Derek Cianfrance before. Did that past experience help on this film? VOLANTE: "Derek is one of the finest The Place Beyond the Pines: Sound Lounge's Pat Christensen, Dan Flosdorf, Tony Volante and Steve "Major" Giammaria. re-recording mixer on the project. Volante is a 35-year industry veteran who started out mixing music but found his way to film and television about 20 years ago. His film and television credits include Rachel Getting Married, MacGruber, Limitless, The Sitter, Blue Valentine and Smash. He kindly took time out of his schedule for a Q&A session about his work on the film. POST: You were re-recording mixer on The Place Beyond the Pines. Can you describe the process? TONY VOLANTE: "Dialogue and ADR tracks were delivered to the mix stage by editors Steve 'Major' Giammaria and Evan Benjamin. Leslie Bloom of Alchemy Post provided the Foley, which was delivered to supervising sound editor Dan Flosdorf. Music and additional sound design elements were delivered to the mix stage by picture editor Jim Helton." 14 Post • July 2013 VOLANTE: "I use this workflow for all my mixes. It allows total freedom and creativity. I start with my basic 5.1 film mixing template, but can easily customize the console to handle whatever the film requires. On Pines, it allowed Derek and Jim complete freedom to move elements around or add new sound design quickly and efficiently. I build a master session for the film... all reels in the same session. This has two major advantages: it allows us to move elements freely between reels, and as I add processing throughout the mix, it gets implemented to all reels at once as opposed to having to apply it to separate sessions." POST: Sound Lounge provided ADR and dialogue editing as well. Can you talk about that? VOLANTE: "Pat Christensen is the ADR engineer at Sound Lounge. Any of the actors that were in New York at the time were recorded by Pat on our ADR stage and delivered to Evan Benjamin to cut. Major and Evan www.postmagazine.com directors I have ever worked with. He has a keen sense of how to express things dramatically through sound. Whenever you get the chance to work with a director on multiple films, you start to develop a workflow that promotes creativity and efficiency." POST: How involved was he in the mix? How does he like to work? VOLANTE: "Derek is very involved in the mix. I would mix for the greater part of the day with Dan Flosdorf, getting things in shape, and then Derek and the editors, Jim Helton and Rob Patane, would come by later in the day to listen. We would play a reel down and take notes, then discuss and go back and do fixes." POST: There are a lot of chase scenes and action sequences involving motorcycles. That must have been fun and challenging? VOLANTE: "Dan Flosdorf did an amazing continued on page 47