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 51 would get access to the original sounds so audiences in the territories would have an even closer experience to the original language. For instance, robots and creatures were some of those specific elements that he benefited from when given the original session. Carlos was truly a master of dubbing content for other territories; his understanding of story and impact on perception was evident in his work. session. You have to determine which of the missing ones you absolutely need and be creative in getting them. I used some of my personal plugins for this project. In the end, you don't save time. I liked the reverbs, that's why I decided to do it—they had some crazy panning, which I duplicated, and I used some of the futzes. I checkerboarded all the reverb aux returns when assembling the long play: a set for the odd-numbered reels, another for the even- numbered ones, otherwise the automation got screwy at the beginning of a reel. And then I tweak it. It's never exact. I still have to use my ears." The final decisions are still human. The M&E—the mix of everything but the dialogue—is not to be touched, especially for animation. Everything should already be contained and ready to match all different languages. Some studios and projects are much stricter in terms of handling the M&E and stems. As David E. Fluhr CAS explains, in Disney Animation, for example, the M&E is not altered in any way for any of the languages. However, other projects from different studios and content coming from different regions without a standardized worldwide original mix and dubbing process—like anime mixed to different specs—might need adjustment. In my case, I try not to touch the M&E or stems, but sometimes a dB or two here and there helps enormously with rhythm, intelligibility, and dynamics, and does more good than harm. It's adapting not only the words and expressions, but also the rest of the sonic elements. Minor adjustments only. The consensus is not to touch it, but certain circumstances might call for it on certain projects. Communication is key, as it is respect for the original version. Oftentimes as Serge recalls, you only get a rendered M&E and the original dialogue: no session, no automation, no notes. So you have to play it by ear and mix by the seat of your pants. That's an open door to get more creative and bring all the arsenal of tools, knowledge, and creativity you have. He shares the experience for the last project he did. "l was informed how the original language mixers treated three of the characters, and I had to interpret those instructions. I never communicated with those mixers directly. Did I do it by ear? Yeah. For one of the characters, they said it was reversed dialogue combined with the original, but it Serge Perron CAS has mixed experiences on this topic. "I rarely receive the original PT mix session. When I do, it's a love-hate thing. It can take a long time to reverse- engineer the mixer's session because I do it so infrequently and I never get another project from the same mixer twice. There is rarely the opportunity to communicate with the original mixer for various reasons. "For the last animation I did, which was quite recently, I did get the original Pro Tools mix sessions, but in reels, without the media. So, I just got placeholder regions for where the dialogue, music, effects stems, and video were on the timeline. I was mixing to the long play, so I had to conform all the automation from the reels. Finding the sync for R1 was not trivial. Logos were added before hour one and there weren't any standard tail pops. I wasn't sure where the reel started or ended. I found sync by visually aligning the long play OVDX (original dialogue) stem waveforms to the blank placeholder regions in such that all dialogue waveforms in the stem were fully encompassed by their corresponding region boundaries. That and looking for abrupt automation moves which would suggest scene changes. I was sure I got the sync within a frame. Finding the FFOP for the other reels then became easy. I stripped out all the non-dialogue tracks, since I already had a long play M&E. And, of course, you never have all the plugins contained in the OV mix Serge Perron CAS