Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1469840
30 S U M M E R 2 0 2 2 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y localized versions for the end credits. David relied on the performers, especially Edmar Castaneda. They had these music styles in their DNA to give him advice on the differences between the music styles and their characteristics. Although it doesn't necessarily need to be Colombian, it has to marry with the Colombian-inspired music throughout the film, with a wider Latin American perspective. It has to be authentic, but it also has to flow naturally from the composer's idea to the story as a whole. As David mentions, "It wasn't a music documentary, but it was a film that embraced Colombian culture." Due to circumstances, instrumental parts were recorded by sections and not as a block. Although it gives more flexibility for the final mix, David considers the ensemble and the interaction of all instruments and the room very important, and that usually makes decision-making easier. For this film, he delivered a very wide stems layout with 12 LCR lead vocal stems, four 5.0 group vocal stems, more than 20 instrumental stems where drums and bass were 3.1, orchestra was 5.1 by sections, some elements were Quad when center channel wasn't needed, and electronic stuff was mostly stereo. The track count got very high, and this was just for the songs. The plan for working on the music worked very well because both David Boucher CAS and Alvin Wee, the score mixer, were working in the same building at Fox, so the collaboration, file transfer, decision-making, and answering questions was easy. "David Boucher is a mentor, he has a lot of experience. Without his faith, it would've been really hard. When he believes in you, he will support you," shares Alvin. Alvin Wee: Scoring Mixer Alvin Wee is from Kuching on the island of Borneo in Malaysia, where he grew up playing music in a band and learning to do arrangements for other bands. After school, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to study contemporary music writing and music production and engineering, which provided his first encounter with Pro Tools and pro audio equipment and technology. In the meantime, he was still working with the Malaysian music and film industry. He began working with a music producer after he moved to Los Angeles in 2013, and started to expand the scope of composers that he was working with. This is how he met Germaine Franco, the score composer. Alvin worked with her a few years ago while he was assisting other people and was offered to mix the score for a film Germaine was working on. They have collaborated on projects since then and she trusted him for Encanto. She promised Alvin "something cool," and as soon as Alvin watched a sequence from early on in the process, he immediately jumped into the film. "I'm very grateful for these people because they are accepting, embracing, they believe I can do it. I'm very grateful for Germaine, she gave me the first opportunity and now we've been working together on different projects." Working in different places and with different people led Alvin to improve his craft and art to be part of Encanto. The connection of people through the films, through the music, is one of the most rewarding things for him. Before he started working on the film, Alvin did a lot of research in Colombian music. He watched a documentary about Cumbia and other traditional music types to be able to identify the differences between various styles and instrumentation. Alvin wanted to understand the essence, the source, and authenticity of the music with enough flexibility to make it universal at the same time. "I understand how important it is to the people to get the music right. If you grew up in a certain region, you know and you feel the music and you feel identified by it," says Alvin. Alvin tried to have as much input as he could in the recording process of the score, but couldn't attend all the remote sessions because he was already mixing what was recorded. However, Germaine produced all the sessions and "the process worked because everyone was professional, everyone was incredible," he adds. Similar to the process that David Boucher CAS had with the songs, the full orchestra was recorded by sections. Strings one day, woodwinds another day, brass another day, and so on. Almost all the original recordings made the final mix except a few pickups like guitars and baby bass, but most original recordings. The choir and background voices were recorded in Bogota, the arpa [harp-type of instrument] player and other musicians were recorded in New York. There is also a lot of accordion in the score, recorded by Alvin at Village Studios in L.A., that Germaine wanted to make sure was properly captured and honored in the film. Other very important elements for storytelling through sound are SFX and Foley. They really add that level of realism to the films, especially for animation with all the subtleties. It's a blank canvas ready to be painted with sounds. There is a lot of Foley in Encanto, carefully planned so SFX and Foley wouldn't clash. They would cover different aspects or work together to achieve the desired sound for a particular element in the film. For instance, the tiles and cracks were recorded and created for the film by Shannon Mills, the supervising sound editor, while the sand was a mix between Foley and SFX. Many musical elements covered SFX and many SFX and Foley covered musical elements. The sound design team tried to match as close as possible to the music. In Encanto, it was favorable to sync the Foley to the music rather than to picture because of the nature of it being a musical film. For that, Scott Curtis, the Foley mixer, would send the music cues to Foley artists John Roesch and Shelley Roden so they could have a sync reference for the performance that was based on the music rather than just the visuals. They presented Foley elements to give options and, unlike some musicals, Encanto used more of the Foley during the songs than traditionally it would. Scott Curtis: Foley Mixer Scott Curtis began playing music in bands in high school, which led him to pursue a career in the recording industry, eventually shifting to sound for motion pictures. He realized that Foley was something that could provide a balanced schedule while applying all the concepts he had acquired