Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1491103
There's something about sitting in a movie theatre or watching a show on TV that you've mixed, that you've been a part of. Doing sound has allowed me to be a part of that theatre or of what gets people to sit down in front of the TV at night to get lost in the story, the characters, and the places. There are times I can't quite believe the career that I've had and the films that I've worked on. Let's shift gears a bit and touch on your process and the experience that you go through when you accept a project. Well, I'll talk about the most recent film being Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. When I got that script early on, you really look at all those clues that are going to impact the sound department. One of the early scenes takes place with divers in atmospheric diving suits on the sea floor. So immediately you think, "Is this going to be kind of a Poor Man's Process, are they actually going to be underwater? Is this going to be a splinter unit, second unit? Where are these diving suits being sourced from?" Also, there's an intricacy with the costume design in a film like that. We had early conversations with [costume designer] Ruth Carter. With Ruth, she went through all the different characters and all the different looks, probably a month ahead of time, to give me ideas about where we would be able to integrate our mics into those costumes. Every film has a different level of breakdown. Some can be quite straightforward, and others can be more complex. For a film like Poolman, which is Chris Pine's debut, it's a small-budget film, with practical locations, and no money for traffic control. So, then you're coming up with ideas for [noise] mitigation. What is something that less experienced mixers may overlook? Every sound department has to have good relationships with other departments. Whenever you're looking through the script, you're looking at all those relationships and all those people that you're going to have conversations with. Preparation is everything. I always love to visit locations well ahead of time, because there are times where there's a resistance to going out to do tech scouts, which I just don't understand. We lean so heavily on other departments, in particular costume. A costume change can impact what we do. A location impacts what we do. That third camera impacts what we do. And they're always thinking about speed efficiency and they're not always taking into consideration how that impacts us. To successfully accomplish everything, you have to have a good team. I've been very fortunate to have very talented people with me through the years. For example, on Thor, I had Kevin Hyde on boom, who was just a great boom operator on set and had a great relationship with [director] Kenneth Branagh. I know they talked about soccer, big soccer fans. It's all about putting the right people together with you on the team. There are just so many factors that go into that kind of preparation. Kevin Cerchiai, who was with me back on that TV series Key West, is so detail-oriented. That brings a greatness to the end product for what I do in terms of that preparation and focus. At Tyler Perry Studios with David Raymond and Jenny Elsinger on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever At 10 Downing Street with Kevin Cerchiai and Kevin Summers on Transformers: The Last Knight On Kong: Skull Island with Ben Greaves