Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535806
20 S U M M E R 2 0 2 5 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y if you weren't singing into them, other sounds were largely off-mic. We also had monitor speakers for the performers on stage, which were cleverly hidden in period boxes made by the art department. That presented a constant balancing act to keep those speakers from being too loud while still providing some bleed. A challenging aspect of shooting the film live was ensuring that the dialogue remained audible over the music and crowds. We attempted to drop the music to get clean dialogue, but the scenes fell flat, so we kept everything going and used every trick in the book to capture the lines as clearly as possible, usually with wires placed as close as possible." David Giammarco, with Jon Title and Eric Norris, created the sound design and cut sound effects on the film. Supervising music editor Ted Caplan worked closely with picture editors to ensure seamless integration of live performances into sections of in-scene dialogue. Supervising sound editor Donald Sylvester gathered and created extensive material to mirror the historical accounts. Giammarco recounts his use of these elements for this Newport Folk Festival scene specifically: "The audience had to be anxiously awaiting Bob Dylan's set. We started to build this as Bob and company left the motel onto arriving at the festival with the concert crowd calling out for him. Bob took the stage, the crowd erupted. The interaction that followed was purposefully planned with Jim [Mangold]. The crowd went from adoring and thrilled to confused and upset, yet some of the audience had to be enjoying what Dylan and his band were giving their audience, so a balance had to be found. We worked through the whole performance with specific group ADR callouts, sync production crowd recordings, and sound effect crowd reactions. This built intensity throughout the concert as the crowd tried to figure out what they were beholding. We couldn't just get louder, so this had to be built from within the crowd reactions. The attempt to achieve this was done by layering crowds for depth, creating pockets of supportive fans in one area, and disapproving fans in another location. This was continually changing, moving, and varying in intensity throughout the concert to build the crowd to its peak by the end of the electric set." Music supervisor and scoring mixer Nick Baxter reveals how the growing crowd sing-along material was created. "The group singing beds were blends of original recordings from pre-production where the whole music team, our producers/ director, and anyone else that was around would come and sing. These were really fun early sessions. Those beds were combined with on-set singing and loop groups from post whenever possible. Combining the three makes for some really rich, vibrant, and dynamic singing beds." ADR mixer David Betancourt used a couple of Neumann KMR 81's to record the loop group. "I knew we needed something that would cut through all the music and give me more dynamic range," explains Betancourt. Baxter then delivered 5.1 theatrical mixes/stems for all the music in the film to the dub stage. "Depending on what the scene and story required, each music performance is a blend of live, pre-record, and post-recordings. For all of them, we aimed to use as much on-set material as possible, with a focus on realism, grit, and raw energy. For scenes that ended up going off-click, there were times when it was quite a puzzle to cut together a fluid and musical performance. However, the [picture] editorial team was very collaborative and talented. Sometimes there was a back-and-forth required when cutting, [with scenes] recut several times over to find a balance between visuals, musicality, and maximizing the impact of the performances. It was worth the extra work in post to allow for maximum flexibility and improvisation on set," summarizes Baxter. Dialogue and music re-recording mixer Paul Massey often had to replace the ambient sound captured in the production recordings with a version from post-production, especially in the smaller club environments. "I had to emphasize the slaps and delays to provide a contrast to the later scenes. This was particularly evident in Joan's 'House of the Rising Sun' and