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53 F A L L Q 3 I S S U E T E C H membership should be learning now. As far as technologies to be looking out for, I would say it's sound effect recommendation based on machine vision, and automated mixing," said Pink. DOWN FOR THE MIX Downmixing is a time-intensive process that happens after the director approves a final mix. So, for example, a film is mixed natively in Dolby Atmos for theatrical release, and that director-approved mix is then downmixed to 7.1, 5.1, and stereo for delivery to different streaming platforms (which all have different loudness specs) and for localization in different languages. The creative intent of the director must be preserved in the downmixes, which can get quite complicated when taking a wide Atmos mix (that can contain up to 128 channels) and making that translate in a two-track mix. Scott Levine at Skywalker Sound over- saw the development of a software platform called "Coda," an automated media pro- cessing platform that adapts and versions media to fit pipeline and distribution needs, shortening the deliverable process from weeks to faster than real-time. During a presentation at the Audio Developers Conference in August 2023, Ryan Frias (software engineer from Skywalker Sound) said that Coda was successfully used on over 170 titles, including Disney+ releases like "The Mandalorian," WandaVision," "Andor," and "Moon Knight." I n L ev i n e's v i r t u a l p re s e n ta t i o n to SMP TE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) members in March 2023, he explained that Coda was developed in conjunction with input from Skywalker Sound creatives. As the software was being developed, it was being tested and evaluat- ed by the sound talent at Skywalker. Coda is an artist-driven tool (not a replacement for artists in any way), so their high standards for excellence in terms of sound quality and preserving the filmmakers' creative intent required the software development team to design all new signal processing that exceeded the capabilities of current indus- try tools for downmixing. Instead of taking a static, coefficient-based approach that doesn't consider content (it's solely a math- ematical calculation), Coda developers wanted to design software that mirrors how an actual re-recording mixer handles down- mixes. Their approach is content-aware. Some of the algorithm training sets for Coda came from Skywalker Sound talent with many years of experience in downmixing. The datasets were based on how they've been mixing on the consoles, how they mix different genres, what delivery specs they need to hit, etc. Coda's automation engine was designed to be flexible, to handle a huge variety of soundtrack version deliverables for over- seas localization. It analyzes the contents of the approved final mix as input, evaluates the specs of the target mix as output, and then dynamically figures out how to stack the processing and manage the generated assets to produce the necessary delivera- bles. Coda is not a tool for mixing films, but a tool for creating downmixes. Automating t h e d ow n m i x i n g p ro ce ss fo r o ve rs e a s localization is a massive time-saver for re-recording mixers. Certainly, someone will need to oversee the creation of down- mixes made using this tool, making sure the correct deliverables are generated and sent to distributors, but it doesn't have to be the project's re-recording mixers necessarily. This could free up time for the re-recording mixers so they can spend more time pre-dubbing or final mixing the next project. Pink said, "There are going to be chang- es and there will be a learning curve for almost all of us — for some professions to a greater degree than others. For the people willing to take up the challenge of learning new tasks and skills, they will be fine. That is my prediction. If we step up and learn these tools and combine them with our own creative skills and efforts, we will continue to be valuable assets to any production. We'll keep creating good motion pictures and television content as a result." LEARN TO ADAPT As co-chairs of the Emerging Tech- nology Committee, Pink and Miller make suggestions to the Editors Guild's training committee for building a curriculum to address some of the new skills that will need to be learned. However, the rate of change is turbulent and many similar tech- nologies are competing for market share, so it's challenging to put together a specific list of software applications or tools. Pink said, "Right now, the most future-proof thing anyone can do to stay up to date with emerging technology is learn a pro- gramming language. Learn how a program works. You can learn to write formulas in Excel! Just learn how to do some sort of au- tomation so that when you see these types of software enter your workflow, you'll be able to manipulate them with greater ease. I got started by learning Python; I build my programs in Python. By knowing a programming language, I'm able to adapt that to other programming languages as I need them." Miller's first programming language was dBase, which he learned as a sound editor and used to create a computer-based catalog of the entire sound effects library in the company where he worked. "At that time, everything was on 35mm rolls and the sound effects were listed in printed cata- logs. I learned how to program a computer with a database program so any editor or supervisor could go on that computer and do a sound effects search. It helped me to expand my knowledge and expand my em- ployability," he said. Miller concludes, "The history of the motion picture industry has been a his- tory of change. Every year there are new technologies, like adding computers to our workflow or new NLE software. There's always been disruption and the industry has continued. You have to be willing to adapt and learn to keep ahead of it. No, a computer can't tell what a showrunner or director wants. It is the human editor who does that. What we need as editors is sup- port from directors, producers, and writers to ensure that they get creatively what they are looking for." ■ Jennifer Walden is a freelance writer who specializes in post-production technology.