Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535806
C I N E M A A U D I O S O C I E T Y. O R G 53 It's not just one film. I feel like it's the little bits and pieces of advice or interactions with people in the room who have shaped the mixer that I am today. The job is equally technical as it is personable. A lot of times people are like, I want it to be dynamic or I want it to be whatever, you know? I wanted to feel this "X" thing. And you're like, "Well, actually, what you're saying isn't to make the dialogue louder, but it's to pull the sound effects down so that the dialogue could sit more." It's taking the experience of each job—being in the hot seat—and bringing that to the next one. The funny part of our job is that people think of us adding stuff, adding sound, adding level is the thing. But most of what we do is removing. Removing the bad stuff so that the good stuff can shine. I think that everything you're saying comes from years of being in the room. It's knowing that you're reacting to the film itself and doing the best for the film and the director. I think a lot of creative people are creative but not necessarily technical. Obviously, there's a lot of people who are both. Sometimes you have a director who is amazing, but that person doesn't know what plugins we are using, etc., they're just focused on orchestrating the best narrative. So, if you could talk to them from a creative perspective, and then just translate that through your experiences and a technical eye and to the screen, then you are helping develop the story through sound. Indeed! And Beatles '64 sounds absolutely amazing! Where did you mix the film and what is your typical setup? We mixed it out of Harbor NYC in Studio A. It's a great size room for New York. The previous film that I worked on with David Tedeschi was a Scorsese film called Personality Crisis: One Night Only. It was another music doc. That one was about David Johansen and the New York Dolls. The two of them were co-directors and [Tedeschi] felt comfortable in that room. It's a good size. We usually mix for theatrical, but I find that it translates to home theater really well. What format did you mix Beatles '64 in? We did a 5.1 mix. We collectively thought that because all the material was basically mono. To do an Atmos mix wouldn't be the right fit. We really tried to stay true to the original imaging as much as possible. Giles and the Park Road Post team de-mixed the original audio files—some came in mono and some stereo stuff. Giles delivered us stereo stems. So, adding height and objects felt like we were making it sound too modern. The Park Road Post team also de-mixed certain scenes. There were a handful of noisy or poorly recorded scenes where the team was able to separate each of the guys—John, Paul, George, Ringo—onto different tracks so we could then treat them accordingly. There was a lot of that kind of stuff. The original thought was that a lot more material was going to be separated, but it ended up being just the key scenes. All the songs, all of the live performances, and then one or two other scenes. For the album tracks that are used as "score" throughout the film, Giles provided us 5.1's that he created from his most recent Atmos mixes. We also used his stereo mixes—not the re-renders—for our nearfield mix. It was amazing to hear how he took these multitracks and created such an immersive soundscape. And that was all reviewed in person by David Tedeschi and yourself together in the room? Yes, David is a great filmmaker. His knowledge of sound is amazing. He's always trying to make it just a little bit better. We are always trying new things; he is eager to experiment. He hires people that he trusts, and he finds other people who work in similar ways. The supervising sound editor on all of David's stuff is Phil Stockton. The two of them have a really great rapport and have worked together for a while. It's fun for me to be the new guy in the room. This is our fourth project together, so it's starting to feel like we are a Josh Berger