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www.postmagazine.com 4 POST JULY/AUG 2022 BITS & PIECES SONY PICTURES POST PRODUCTION SERVICES UPGRADES MIX STAGES CULVER CITY, CA — Sony Pictures Post Production Services has finished the renovation of its 229-seat Kim Novak Theater. The upgrade includes a new speaker array and film screen, a rebuilt electrical infrastructure, and remodeled interior. Sony Pictures Post Production Services' William Holden Theater will receive an identical makeover later this year. An upgrade to the Anthony Quinn Theater is also planned, and will include the addition of Dolby Atmos capability. Sony Pictures has also upgraded its Dub Stage 12, adding Atmos features as it continues a multi-year effort to expand and update its sound facilities. "It's our responsibility to ensure that our clients and talent have access to state-of-the-art sound facilities," says Tom McCarthy, executive VP, post production facilities. "We are dedicated to providing a creative campus and culture that supports filmmakers in bringing their stories to the screen in the way they envision." The renovation took place under the direction of Kimberly Jimenez, VP, post production services, and Lane Burch, executive director post production sound engineering. The Novak Theater now features a JBL 5742 four-way screen array speaker system and a Stewart film screen. The stage has been completely rewired and its equipment rooms consolidated into a single space. The interior has been refreshed with new client workstations, furniture, lighting and flooring. The stage supports mixing in Dolby Atmos, 5.1, 7.1, Auromax, DTS-X and IMAX formats. The renovated Dub Stage 12 is equipped with a dual, 48-fader Avid S6 console, a three-way JBL screen speaker array, a JBL cinema subwoofer, a two- way JBL loudspeaker system and JBL large-format cinema surround. Twelve of the 14 mix stages on the Sony Pictures lot now support Atmos. Sony Pictures Post Production Services has also brought on re-recording mixers Vicki Lemar and Kenneth Kobett, who will work out of Dub Stage 12. Lemar and Kobett have been a team for four years, with credits that include Riverdale, Yellowjackets, Roar and American Horror Story. POMANN DESIGNS SOUND FOR APPLE TV+'S DUCK & GOOSE NEW YORK CITY — Apple TV+'s new animated series Duck & Goose premiered on July 8th as part of the streaming platform's kids' series lineup. Inspired by the bestselling books by Tad Hills, the preschool series celebrates the unique friendship of Duck and Goose, two feathered friends that don't always see beak to beak. Supervising sound editor Justin Kaupp, along with audio post producer Bob Pomann of the Emmy-winning audio post house Pomann Sound (https:// pomannsound.com), completed the sound design and mix for all 20-plus episodes of Season 1. Eliott Taylor at PostWorks handled the Dolby Atmos mix, while Titmouse served as the series' animation production company. Taking into consideration that the target audience — pre-K/kindergarten — can easily become distracted, the Pomann team's approach to the sound was both streamlined and purposeful. The show takes place outdoors, in a meadow by a stream. The creative intention was to keep the environment peaceful and serene. Rising to the challenge, Kaupp created a lush ambience with character, designing a palette of all-natural sounds that he could draw from. "For example, the animals are always interacting with their surroundings, and finding branches and sticks," he explains. "So, we spent a lot of time record- ing all sorts of textures that we could use. Does anyone know what a very soft flower petal sounds like? Have you ever heard fluffy pollen? We [created sound for] objects that have no sound. This adds weight and dimension to the picture." Reformer Pro from Krotos (www.krotosaudio.com) became the go-to plug-in for the design process. The fun and intuitive program allowed Kaupp to cut in sounds very quickly, without a lot of manual editing. "You can load in a long file of grass rustling and leaf crunching, and then perform the actions with your voice using a microphone," he explains. "Instead of manual- ly editing in long passages of grass impacts, I would watch a scene and record gibberish that followed the action on-screen. Reformer Pro would then use my voice as a guide to trigger the grass-rustling file." Pomann Sound is known for their origi- nal sound design for Nickelodeon/Disney's Emmy-award winning animated series Doug. The studio's credits also include Little Einsteins, Stanley and Jo-Jo's Circus. Justin Kaupp