Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524736
28 FA L L 2 0 2 4 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y JG: That's a tough one. I can understand the argument that the world can be a noisy place and we don't always hear everything, but it's a risky move to obscure dialogue that was not specifically intended to be obscured in the script. It may be frustrating to some of us, but it doesn't seem to derail the story in some of the cases of these high-profile films. Are there situations where a particular sound is commonly used, but in fact, its use is distracting from the story rather than helping it along? RT: Songbird vocals are often a problem in dialogue scenes. They grab the ear and can easily distract the audience from the story. Though if they are very carefully placed, they can be exactly what you need for a scene. JC: A common sound to establish an office scene would be an offstage phone. However, letting that phone ring throughout the entire scene can be distracting. So, we start the scene with the phone ringing and then gradually fade it out. The last thing we want is the audience wishing someone would just pick up the phone! While one might argue this topic is more relevant to the sound editorial department, how can mixers optimize their ability to contribute to the story? RT: Mixing is all about focus and minimizing or eliminating things that don't push the story forward. In order to do that well, the mixer needs to understand very clearly what the story is. As always, communicating with the director is crucial. That's the only way to understand what to prioritize. Every director is different and every story is different. Thinking you can do the next one just like you did the last one is always a mistake. JG: I do feel that we are primarily there to capture the performance. Specifically, the dialogue, but not exclusively. There are cases where we can capture more in the moment. In 2011, I mixed a film called Backwards. The vehicle for the story was about rowing. I doubted there would be a sufficient sound library with those sounds in the specific shells. So, in addition to capturing any boat dialogue, my boom op and I wired the heck out of those boats to get the unique sounds of rowing. As a rower and a sound mixer, I was happy with the sounds we captured. ST: From the perspective of a production mixer, we have the ability to color the sound by our microphone choices, technique, "Recording sounds in the field is always beneficial in several ways. You acquire fresh material, you get yourself out of the studio which helps you think, and you always discover sounds you don't anticipate. Often, those are the most useful sounds you collect." –Randy Thom CAS David Prowse as Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope