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ceiling. Steve was constantly recording the room. Jason told everyone, "Just act. Don't pantomime. Actually act; actually talk." That allowed us to make it really immersive where we're not focusing on just what's on-screen but we're also picking up other conversations happening off-screen. CineMontage: What was it like working with so many voices? Butler: There are sections where you see every single person, practically the entire cast — John, Chevy, Gilda, Dick, the Teamsters — and they're all mic'd, and we use everything. They're having conversa- tions. We didn't want this to go to waste. Ella Hunt as Gilda has a distinctive voice. So does Dylan O'Brien as Dan. Let's make sure we hear that once in a while. Maybe it's not registering that it's them, but we're having their voices constantly in the background. CineMontage: Emma, how was cutting dialogue on this movie different? Emma Present: Often my first approach to cutting a scene is to grab the boom and then include the lav for some support of the boom. In this case, it was the other way around. There were so many people every- where. I was impressed by what the boom op was able to capture, but in many circum- stances, the lav had to be the hero and the boom was capturing the ambience of the room and got us some incredible reverb. But we were able to pan and treat everyone indi- vidually because they were all lav'd so well. We might be hearing Lorne Michaels have a side conversation while we're focused on someone else center-view, but then we pan and hear that conversation continuing and it's now center-focus. It couldn't be loopers. These were the principal actors having all these side conversations. One of the main things Dave had me do was fill out those tracks with all of the side conversations so it felt like we were in it. CineMontage: What tools did you use to clean up those tracks? Present: If I needed to get someone else out of someone's lav, I took [iZotope] RX and was very surgical about it. I have all my preprogrammed shortcuts, so I'm just typing on my keyboard. I go in and highlight frequencies and say, "I know this other person's voice. I need to remove it." Occa- sionally, a lav drops out or someone flubs a line. We were able to find alts, but these were such unique takes that you didn't want to change out the way they were delivering the line. CineMontage: Lee, how did you fill out the sound world of Studio 8H? Gilmore: I combed through all these great 8H ambient recordings from Steve Morrow and found areas that had the most personality, whether it was a grip knocking something over or a rolling rack going by. Then it was about what spotted back- grounds, what flavors, felt right for when we're in 8H, in the hallways, the affiliates' room — that kind of thing. CineMontage: Chris, talk about your work with the music. Jon Batiste, who appears on-screen as Billy Preston, crafted a score in live sessions in New York and then in Atlanta, where the music was recorded on the actual Studio 8H set upon the completion of filming on certain days. Chris Newlin: After they wrapped, they gave Jon an hour or so to get out of his makeup into his street clothes. When the musicians returned, he had a few additional instruments: a couple of horn players and additional percussionists. They recorded in the space. They wanted it to feel live. The nature of what it was and how it was done gave it a different energy and feel. It ended up amounting to 40 to 50+ audio tracks. B u t l e r : W h a t J o n d i d w i t h t h e music — who would have thought this Brazilian and African percussion feel would work for a comedy movie set in New York City? And yet it completely works. It's the motor that drives that entire mix in the movie. Newlin: The New York sessions had Emma Present. Lee Gilmore. Will Files. 23 S P R I N G Q 1 I S S U E F E A T U R E SEE PAGE 52