Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504875
'We're at the mercy of exhibitors.' a mix that will provide all the important details even if you turn it down, to make sure the audience is getting the entire story," he said. Lamberti will sometimes test a mix at a lower monitoring level to make sure it still sounds impactful. So does Kiser, who mixes indie films such as last year's hit "Everything Everywhere All At Once." Kiser said, "I'll pull the room down to 82dB so we can feel the ratio of the dynamics at a lower volume. With my theatrical mixes, I have to make sure they translate to small screens because on indie films we rarely get the budget for a nearfield pass. So we always try to shoot the center, with -27dB on the dialogue." Making hotter mixes to combat lower levels in theaters is a slippery slope, warned Lamberti. "You can't do that with the super loud elements because if they do play it at level, then it's going to hurt." Mangini agreed. "A mixer's reflex re- sponse might be to just mix the film louder. down the volume to be more pleasurable, but when you're in a theater with a hundred people, you have to average out the taste level of the viewers. If the viewers keep ask- ing to turn it down and there is no option for that, then there will be even fewer people going to the theater. That is something I would hate to see," he said. Should mixes be made with the audience in mind? Or should they be what the direc- tor wants the audience to experience? As Kiser explained, it's a question of art versus profit. If the movie industry is a business, should the audiences' tastes trump the filmmakers'? Lamberti answered, "Most directors I've worked with are very cogni- zant of the audience and want the audience to enjoy the movie because if the director wants to keep making movies, they have to have successful movies. If a lot of people go see their movies, then they get to make more movies. Plus, there's nothing more gratifying than having something you've worked on go out into the world and be su- per successful, knowing that a lot of people saw your work and enjoyed it." 'WHAT DID THEY SAY?' Part of making a film enjoyable is having a mix that will appeal to theatergoers, but in the case of the aforementioned animated superhero film, some audiences weren't hearing the mix as the filmmakers intended. So is there anything a mixer can do to make sure their mix will translate to different the- aters, even if it's played at a lower volume? Lamberti answered: "There is a school of thought that says to mix a little bit hotter because you know it's going to get turned down. So, if it was a dialogue-driven movie, you would maybe play the dialogue just a little bit hotter than you normally would because you don't want the audience to say, 'What did they say?'" Babcock admitted that hotter mixes happen. "Sometimes we may oversell a sound story point — like a jump scare or a piece of dialogue or a weird sound that hints to where the plot goes next — just to make sure we hammer a point home. I admit I'm sometimes guilty of creating hotter mixes, but try not to overdo it. My hope is to create But what happens when that film plays at a proper theater that will play the movie correctly? The audience will be bombarded with a film that is 6dB too loud. You'd be em- barrassed (and likely scorned) for mixing a movie that loud. It's a conundrum. You're damned if you do (mix the movie too loud), and you're damned if you don't (and the audience doesn't hear the film as intended). The solution, for me, is simply to mix a film correctly and never second guess your audience or the conditions under which it would be played." Babcock said, "I wish we weren't mixing hotter because some of the complaints about dialogue intelligibility would likely go away if films were played at reference; some of the complaints about films being too loud might go away if filmmakers knew they would be played at reference." So what is a mixer to do? Lamberti advised, "The only thing we can do is stick to our tried and true reference level that has been established for decades with the hopes that it will go out into the field and be okay. We just have to lean on our experience of mixing films that have nuance, with ebbs and flows. We can make the big moments big without hurting people and have softer moments that can still be heard. Then, we send that out into the world and hope for the best. It's up to the exhibitors to show that in the best way possible. We're just at the mercy of the exhibitors." 'EVERYTHING OUT OF WHACK' Think of the standard reference level as the central point of a spinning plate. If one side of the plate shifts away from that central point, the plate wobbles. Every- thing becomes out of whack. Adhering to a standard reference level should take the guesswork out of where to set the playback volume for both mixers and exhibitors, but with exhibitors lowering the volume and mixers compensating by making hotter mixes, the system has become unbalanced. Do the two sides no longer agree on what the reference level should be? The current reference level is 85dB SPL. OSHA's permissible exposure limit (PEL) for noise is 90dBA for an eight-hour Michael Babcock. 40 C I N E M O N T A G E T E C H