Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546135
54 FA L L 2 0 2 6 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y and they're all in objects. I do all this planning in advance so that the templates have dialogue, group, lead vocal, background vocals." He adds, "I plan everything in advance in terms of what's going into each stem, so that we have separation and control—what goes into the M&E and what doesn't. Sometimes we have neutral voices, so all the loop group goes in its own bed stem and never gets used in a foreign, because it's human voice generated. So, we will create a neutral group. Additionally, all the territories will do group walla based on our cue sheets. We send them the cue sheets, and they record loop group for the language, so that the show has the flavor of each language. For Disney Animation, there is nothing that is generated by a human voice that can be in an M&E, including efforts, even non-English. For us, it's a matter of taking the dialogue out, and there's your M&E," says David. David emphasizes proper planning. "Zootopia 2 had 85 speaking characters. I work hard on getting very solid track layouts on my end. I send those along to DCVI, they send that to the territories, and the territories work on a tracksheet that matches mine. We give them my session with the media taken out, but the clips are all in there, so they know who's on what track — visually, you can see if something's missing or if there's an effort missing. There's a lot of QC that goes on before it even hits the stage. My template is the foundation for the foreign-language dubbing. "There are many markers on my template sessions, which give comprehensive information to dubbing mixers for creative insight so that if something seems like it should be played very forward but it shouldn't be for creative reasons, that's in a marker. And they're surrounded by people who understand the concept of A/B-ing, comparing back-and- forth with the domestic. It's all just a button push to A/B between the domestic and where you're at to ensure accuracy with the domestic or original dialogue version." What Is Negotiable and What Isn't? "There are certain things that are not flexible, and other things that are. I'm very flexible when it comes to them needing to change lines that may not look in sync but must be done to ensure the proper cultural context for each language. For example, if you look at German, there can be many syllables for every one of ours. They do a brilliant job of making it fit, but they also must make it work for their language. But there are certain things that we have to be really careful of—like avoiding changing the story. That has to be vetted very carefully. Our goal and everyone's goal is to make the film as close to the domestic as possible, to the filmmaker's vision. Our mixers really understand that we're not doing our own mix, we're emulating. That's really hard to do. It's a very different mindset from regular mixing because you really have to pay attention to what the intent was, the amount of reverb, and each detail," adds David. Big Scale vs. Independent Facilities Discussing bigger projects with Serge, he shares a similar concept when dealing with multiple languages at once. "I personally like the approach of track assignments designated before they start recording. When you're dealing with centralized mixing of a whole bunch of languages, they all share the same mix template derived from the original language mix. That's how it should be done." Such a carefully supervised and prepared process contrasts with independent post houses and other workflows. Like myself, Serge tends to mix localizations alone on the mix stage, and feedback is usually given only upon delivery of the mix. This contrasts with the constant supervision of the process described by David, in which each step is carefully monitored, as there is little room for deviations, and to detect and fix possible inconsistencies. What Is Different Between Animation and Live Action? Sometimes live-action productions have less than ideal production sound and having clean recordings for the dubbed languages can become a challenge because they are different from their core. The dubbed dialogue still needs to have, somehow, the same sonic color and tone as the original. A very reverberant and filtered production dialogue needs to be matched by a dynamic and clean sound recorded in studio. A lot of EQ and some reverb is crucial—even adding distortion to the dubbed dialogue. Mic technique is also important. For example, recording with perspective and selecting the right type of microphone. Good lip sync—both for animation and live action— greatly contributes to a better experience, helping the audience believe what they're hearing and creating a more cohesive mix. Bad lip sync is distracting and takes the viewer out of the story.