Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1532010
24 S P R I N G 2 0 2 5 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y were all definitely in over our heads, really, not having done anything like this before. It was a real eye-opener. From that movie onward, whenever we were addressing "problems," we would, as a group, just huddle up, get out the pen and paper, and break it all down until there are no longer "problems." That's an amazing wake-up call! Funny thing, I had never met or spoken to Oliver until Day One of the shoot. A lot of this "information" was coming from his circle. In hindsight, I really should have made an effort to get in front of Oliver and develop a relationship, communicate earlier on. I'm reminded of another thing my father used to say, "Some mixers can talk to diodes and some mixers can talk to people." And he was a thousand percent right because, in my career, I was very fortunate to be surrounded by the most proficient crew which then allowed me to focus more on the mixes. I was able to work out the problems, develop relationships, acquire information, and communicate on behalf of our sound work. That's why I like to get on board early whenever we start a film. A really important component for our work is representing ourselves as a part of the process and not as a cog in the wheel. So many productions try to put sound as this secondary thing because you can't see it. Only the people who listen can hear it, but they are not listening for what we are listening for. They're just trying to match the lines in a script. But we are keying into voice tones, ambiences, editing concerns, you know, respecting the workflow all the way to the end product. So, this sound mixing thing was working out for you! I was taking all the things I learned as a boom operator and reshaping them to being behind the sound cart. All the frenetic energy of being on set as a boom operator, which I still miss, was now in the moments between hitting record and stop. The roles are very relatable in how you look for the best solutions to reach a desired outcome. Similar to choosing the right microphone for a scene, I was always looking for the best equipment or technology available to make the recordings that I felt were rich and vibrant. I was lucky to meet Wylie Stateman on Talk Radio and we both shared a love of sound and sound recording technology. He was very influential to me, and we created an on-location Dolby SR recording process which I took with me to the jungles in the Philippines on the next Oliver Stone movie, Born on the Fourth of July [1989]. I think we had built it on a hand truck and that it required two very large car batteries. It might have weighed just shy of 200 pounds. Coincidentally, on that movie I started recording sound effects in MS stereo because we were filming in such unique environments and that's when Wylie and I, along with Lon Bender, decided to come up with the Hollywood Edge sound effects library. So, I also spent a great deal of time going all around NYC and whatever location I was working in at the time, recording sound effects in a way that was usable for post-production. So, to answer your question, I think that the scripts that came my way would occasionally put me out of my comfort level and the complexity of the problem solving started to become part of my process. I enjoyed solving the puzzle. I was open to exploring new ways of doing things. For instance, on The Doors, we were recording everything on two-inch 24-track analog. I also had 16 tracks of playback because I needed to have different feeds for the actors. This Recording the "Hey Jude" group vocals in Liverpool.