Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504940
30 FA L L 2 0 2 3 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y were in the middle of this giant thing. And now between the visual effects and the sound opening up on all of these channels, it really sounds like you're surrounded by V'Ger. Fein continues, "We had our premiere the day before it premiered on Paramount+. We had it at the Paramount Theater in LA. And I had to say a few words before it and I said it just hits me right now that, oh my God, we did this project and everybody came together and this is the first time I'm seeing everybody at our premiere. It was the perfect pandemic project to do. We spent a lot of time on the probe, on the bridge set noise, too." Michael Babcock CAS was the re-recording mixer for the new version. He explained, "I owe the late great Marty Cohen for hooking me up with David C. Fein and Michael Matessino. About a year before he passed away, Marty called me saying, 'Hey, this is really interesting, you should do this.' "I am a Star Trek fan, but on this particular project, I had to deal with people that are on a completely different level as far as things that they notice. I put something together—a plan of attack—because it was literally a complete remix from original elements, raw elements. They were remastering, finishing, and redoing visual effects. There are visual effects in it that people haven't seen before. "Bruce Babcock delivered 7.1 stems with a separation for the ceiling for the Blaster Beam. So those were four channels I got of the beam that I just put up there. I remember getting on the stage for the first time on the final mix part of it and you have the whole opening, the whole overture. The hairs on my arms stood up because, I mean, it sounded like it was recorded yesterday. "They went to original recordings they did on the ADR sessions. Mike and Paramount went all the way back to the original raw ADR recordings. A lot of this version has freshly mixed dialogue. There are places where I had to go back to the stem because of production or whatever reason, and that was a bit challenging. I was trying to find ways to take the original stem and make that sound more modern. And then ADR actually sounded like it was recorded yesterday. "For the scene on the bridge as they approach the Epsilon IX space station, I had separation for all those different voices, including intercom voices. They had the original group sessions all built out so I could separate them. That was one of those strange situations where I mixed it the way I would've mixed it without actually knowing the history of the movie. And then they came in and said, 'Here's where that was. Here's where that was. Here's where the balance was.' It's one of those things that the fans notice. "For the sound effects, I would say 90% were coming from raw elements. There were a couple places they had to go back to sub stems or even a couple places we had to go back to the 2000 mix. They did a 5.1 remaster [back] then and, for whatever reason, to get the balance right, we had to go back to those. But that was maybe 2% of the entire movie. The rest was all raw. And it was stuff that was built for the 2000 mix and for this mix. There were some new things for some of the new visuals, but all the backgrounds, all the spaceship stuff, it all had separation. "As for new material, I know at the very end when they walk over a bridge that forms between the Enterprise and where V'Ger is, that was definitely all new; both visual effects and sound. The rest were very small updates and a lot of it was using what had been done in the 2000 mix. "David and Mike pointed me to some of these message boards and it's kind of awesome insanity. They've been very complimentary of what they did in the movie. They've been very complimentary of the mix. I kind of feel like I'm an honorary Star Trek nerd." Film restoration is an art form; a chief struggle being loyal to the historical medium and filmmaker's vision and the ability to "improve" with newer technology and resources. For Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition, the restoration process allowed the film to finally reach the vision of the filmmaker through the use of today's tech and the talented commitment of artisans. Something, much like V'Ger, was created a time ago and was made larger and more impactful through the test of time and a good infusion of technology and humanity. Editor's note: Coverage of the "CAS Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) The Director's Edition Screening and Annual Membership Mixer" can be found under the Events section of our website at www.CinemaAudioSociety.org. The Cinema Audio Society was pleased to make the screening possible and to enjoy it with many CAS members, some of whom had worked on many of the iterations of this film through the years. Thank you to re-recording mixer Michael Babcock CAS, David C. Fein, and post-production supervisor/associate producer Mike Matessino for their hard work and contribution to the evening and this article.