Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546135
C I N E M A A U D I O S O C I E T Y. O R G 69 of FX. The FX budget was generous for reality, but the mix schedule wasn't; 12 hours. The work never stopped: explosions, crashes, rigging, skids, a car zig-zagging under a semi, two helis dangling a car between them, creaking rigging, rippling flags, hands, feet, breathing, a 22-minute demolition derby—no time to second-guess, a week for three acts, in and out. Matt Slivinski—my second through many of the early Survivors and Rogan—Fear Factors, and later a mixer in his own right (The Bachelor, Fear Factor/Ludacris)— captured the essence of those mixes: "These weren't ordinary [FX sequences]. Everything was cut to extreme perspective, often with sounds that didn't exist, at the pace and hyper-realism the show demanded. I learned to build that design on the fly— under the gun, in client review, as an assistant. That's where I learned what actually serves a show versus what just fills the tracks—and I've since applied it to elevate shows that might not have come out the same with other sound teams." And then there were the food stunts. Our Foley artist, Monique Raymond, must own a piece of TV history for her work on the food and creature scenes. The slither and crawl, the cockroaches and worms, a helmet full of tarantulas tapping softly at the glass, and of course a mouthful of squirming insects. Those were the sounds she created. Fear Factor ran seven seasons with us from 2001 to 2012, Monique Raymond's Foley elevated the sound of fear on Fear Factor. A 7-minute snapshot of FX groups minus Foley and BG's from a typical action-adventure "reality" show mix circa 2006.