Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521562
C I N E M A A U D I O S O C I E T Y. O R G 21 stay there and learn to film mix, so he did and learned from esteemed mixers David Parker, Lesile Shatz, and Mark Berger. Film mixing seemed to come naturally to Michael, but it was tough to get jobs because nobody wanted "a kid" with such little experience in film mixing. He remembers people like David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David Fincher taking a chance by using him as a young film mixer, which allowed him to build experience, putting himself in the right place at the right time. Juan Peralta studied at Full Sail in Florida and moved to L.A. after graduating from college to start working in the post- production world, where he spent a few years before getting a call from a friend who told him that Skywalker Sound was looking for someone; an opportunity he jumped at. He then moved to the Bay Area and has now been there for more than 25 years. Juan started out as a mix tech, working with established mixers, which allowed him to learn from them as much as possible. "They were all really great at nurturing my progress to become a mixer, and then after about eight years or so, I jumped into mixing and have been mixing ever since." Both Michael and Juan are very sensitive to the overall volume and don't [push levels] too loud with mixes like this. They went for a dynamic, but comfortable mix that didn't push people away from the film—even in big action scenes— making it exciting but not exhausting. They shared, "We want the audience to be surrounded, but not assaulted, so we took our time to mix each scene. We must earn the audience's respect sonically, as well as visually and in the narrative. We go on a fun ride with the audience by caring how the movie is heard. In a movie like this, there's so much going on visually L-R: Original dialogue mixers Aaron Hasson and Howard London CAS with re-recording mixers Michael Semanick CAS and Juan Peralta as well that you don't want to wear the audience out. You just do it enough to support the story and keep the audience energized and ready for the next one." The movie has a dialogue style that puts every character in its context. It places them inside a space within the Spider-Verse and establishes the environment where the action is happening by careful selection of reverb, or its absence, like in the scene when Spot is "nowhere," with the dialogue purposefully being dry. This was also achieved by using a less-upfront style of dialogue mixing which begins in the recording process. It's a pursuit of natural development of the voice in the story, adding some air and natural feel to it with perspective. If, for example, there is a close-up shot in a scene, the dialogue mixers might put the mic a little closer and, conversely, if it's a far away shot, they might back off the microphone a little bit. This is creative input that adds to the overall sound style and storytelling that is later fine-tuned during the final mix. "The movie was mixed with such nuance and a great sensibility for pacing and focus Re-recording mixer Juan Peralta