Post Magazine

50 Post • October 2008 www.postmagazine.com and then we move on." Add in numerous music cues via score/needle drop, Foley, background and hard effects, a growing palette of pyrotech- nics and you get "a fast-paced show that moves in the blink of an eye," says Klein. The two-day mix keeps up the rapid pace with Klein and Raines simultaneously working their way through the show from beginning to end. "We mix in 5.1 on the big speakers while continu- ously monitoring the LT/RT mix on the small speakers and industr y- standard meters," she notes. Klein also mixes on Digidesign's Icon worksurface for the other shows on her busy mix schedule: the new Sons of Anarchy on FX, the CBS mid-season replacement Harper's Island, and this last season of The Shield. T H E O F F I C E If NBC's hit series The Office feels like it's set in a real office, it's not due to great scripts and top acting alone. The mixing team of John W. Cook II and Peter J. Nusbaum make sure the audio contributes to the documentar y feel of the show and have been nominated for an Emmy Award for their efforts (they won last year for an episode of Scrubs). "The show is shot with a handheld cam- era, and the audio is supposed to be equiv- alent to that, with a bit of a spontaneous feel," says Cook, who is the rerecording mixer for dialogue and music. "For us that means tr ying to make the show sound great but not polished." For Cook that often comes down to "bal- ancing signals from multiple mics recorded on the set to maintain a consistent balance of close mic and room reflection.There's no ADR for the most par t, so sometimes I'm tr ying to work with production audio that might be considered marginal on another show. I'll make it intelligible without polishing it too much so it sounds real." Cook achieves this on his 192-input Harrison Seri- esTwelve digital console via notching and Cedar noise reduction. Nusbaum, the rerecording mixer for sound effects, doesn't have Foley to deal with on The Office. "On another show you'd choose to replace the production sound ef- fects — like door slams — recorded with the dialogue, but we choose not to because it adds a documentary feel," he points out. At the same time, he's "trying to create an en- gaging audio environment" and "keep the of- fice alive" with the subtle sound of copy ma- chines, phones and typing in the background. For locations and exteriors he doesn't for TV Series Universal's Peter Nusbaum and John Cook (L-R): making sure the audio for The Office sounds real.

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