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 31 sound for 60 years. We just kept sort of talking during the pandemic, and the film came out of that. She inspired me a lot. She was a great muse. Were you speaking with any other sound professionals at this time? SG: Early on, I met Mark. I never would have made the film without Mark, who is a true collaborator. We met through a mutual friend who said, "You're making a movie about sound. I know this guy, Mark Mangini. You should talk to him." I knew who Mark was and was even a little starstruck. Annea and Mark were my two muses. Mark is so smart about sound and so articulate about sound. It's rare to find somebody who takes such deep pleasure from sound, is a real artist, and is so serious about their work. Mark, had you known of Sam before the project? MARK MANGINI MPSE: I was recommended to Sam through a mutual friend who had met him in the documentary film community. It was something as simple as that. Sam rang me about three years ago and said, "I'm making a movie about sound, not about sound effects. But would I be able to call you and ask you questions now and again?" He offered a modest fee, and that fee would cover his right to bring me at any time and say, "Hey, what do you know about this? And what do you know about that?" What was beautiful about that relationship was that Sam was not calling to ask technical questions, per se. I mean, we did have technical discussions, and I would encourage him to put out a binaural mic and put out an Ambisonic mic—"Let's capture the world the way we hear it." But his questions were more about the kind of questions the movie poses. How do I think about sound in my daily life? How do I react to sound? How does sound move me emotionally? And then, once we developed what became a real bond of trust, he started pitching me scenes that he wanted to shoot, along with questions. How can we get across this idea of listening to a deceased relative from the past? What does that evoke? How can sound inform that? And we would ultimately talk in great depth about scenes that would then get put in the movie. SG: I say this lovingly because I'm a documentary filmmaker, but documentary is very rudimentary in terms of sound. It's sort of embarrassing because, until making this film, I was at that level. "Oh, you want a stereo mic? But that's complicated." I never had any experience with binaural mics or Ambisonic mics. You can see in the film when we have the shot with the dummy head, there's often an Ambisonic mic on the stand as well. Those were Mark's suggestions, and that came in super handy when we made the 7.1 and 5.1 mixes because we had recorded things both ways, which was huge. I never would have known any of that without Mark. Mark, at what point did you become more than just the guy who answers the phone? MM: It's interesting that you ask because Sam never told me the date that it happened, but he said that his intention had always been to just abuse me as a consultant for nine months during the shoot! He never felt that he could afford me for the actual post-production work. I mean, he had anticipated using a go-to in New York, where he lives and works, having benefited from whatever wisdom I could impart. And it dawned on him that I was having such a material effect on the shoot and the feel of the film that I should be that person. He simply just called and said, "I hadn't planned on this, but is there any universe where you can be associated? Can you do the edit design and mix?" And by that time, Sam and I were good buds, and it was a project I had to see to completion, no matter what happened. So, I went to Formosa Group, where I'm employed, and they made an incredible deal for him in terms of my wages, my room, and the mix room, and I would end up mixing it in my sound design suite, which comes at a real cost savings versus a traditional feature film-based mixing studio. But I'm 7.1.2 in that environment. It's a Dolby-tuned room. It's a beautiful little one-mixer environment. And Sam was much more