Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521562
24 S U M M E R 2 0 2 4 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y measurably better sounding recording that has life. It's more than just recording. It has a sense of life to it, there's nuance. And that, too, is what makes Miles, Gwen, and all the characters in this movie sound the way they do. All the nuance of the voice is there without coloration." For Brian, Howard, and Aaron, one of the great things about Phil and Chris as producers is that they're incredibly smart with everything they do, and they let the directors and the sound team do their job and contribute to the process. They have been experimenting for quite some time with this frenetic interpretation of actual comic books through their own lifetime experiences and their creative energy. This leads to tons of overlapping in the Spider-Verse movies with lots of sounds happening at the same time, while every sound still has its place—making it very exciting. "The producers and directors want everything organic for the Spider-Verse. They want it free range and fast and loose," reveals Aaron, who adds that it wasn't uncommon to bring in multiple actors on the stage at once to feed off each other. Even in the previous Spider-Verse movie, they had a session with a boom operator following the talent in the ADR stage to capture that organic moment and get a performance that is much more real. In the end, that's what the actual recording of voices is all about— getting the best performances. The room and the team must be prepared for success and every aspect of the session must be covered while being as invisible as possible to avoid interfering with the creative aspect and mood of the session. Aaron recalls having the directors wear lav mics as they like to walk and move around the room to interact with the talent. So, when they talk, they also might give notes on the fly or cues to the editors to be played, along with the actor's lines, allowing them to know which take was preferred and why. The lavaliere was also recorded as an extra track, along with the talent's signal. "It's about making sure the environment is ideal for the show, for the people involved, for the directors, and the talent." As for the music, Michael approached it by first identifying what the composer had done and how each cue fits emotionally into each scene. For dialogue, he identifies which lines must be heard. "Then it's filling in around that and capturing the emotion. Sometimes it's pushing more music and sound effects take a back seat. Sometimes the sound effects come up and the music goes down. Because it's such a music-driven story, it's more about finding the right beats. Even the effects must be kind of musical as well, just to complement the actual music itself. Maybe there's a pause where SFX can go through and then we go back to music. Also, it's the way the producers and directors have built this movie; they've been living with it for years." Scoring mixer Sam Okell did a lot of pre-dubbing and split everything out into many stems in order to have the flexibility to tweak small details later during the mix. It was challenging for Michael to handle so many stems. However, having many tracks or separate elements for the music allowed them to "spread some elements around the room and also keep stuff centered and grounded," creating an immersive experience without distracting from the storyline. Michael shares, "The songs were really fun to mix. I loved mixing them all, especially the song 'Hummingbird.' It's a scene when Miles is laying in his bed with his headphones on. He is lost in the music. I took this opportunity to spin certain elements of the music track around the room and mix other elements of the song to fill the entire cinema. Miles is pulled back into reality with Gwen's voice and her arrival in his room. The backgrounds come up and things go back to normal. We worked on getting those blends to feel emotional and powerful, to put the audience in the scene and to feel what the characters are going through or experiencing. Fingers crossed, we achieved that!" When asked about how Juan approached the Foley that Randy mixed, he replied, "The pre-mix process for Foley, for me, is more about making sure I have everything and making sure I take away what I don't need and have it as clean and as neat as possible so that in the final if anybody asks for it, it's there, it's ready to go. The Foley team did a Scoring mixer Sam Okell Foley mixer Randy K. Singer CAS