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Audio for Indies ‘Margin Call’ N EW YORK — Re-recording mixer Robert Fernandez of Sound One (www.soundone.com) has mixed more than 100 films, both studio releases and independents, over the course of his 20-year career. His latest project, Margin Call, is an indie from writer/director J.C. Chandor, and stars Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto,Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci in a tightly-wound drama based loosely on the 2008 financial crisis on Wall Street. Fernandez worked side by side with Chandor and supervising sound editor Damian Volpe on the film and says the mix needed to be clean and precise to help the audience keep pace with a plot that deals with arcane financial instruments. “There are some design moments, but it’s dialogue driven,” he notes.“We spent a lot of time getting a really good dialogue pre-mix, because you have to be able to hear the story — you number of independent films that were re- leased recently. Barney’s Version will have a limited release in the US this month.The Canadian produc- tion is being distributed by Sony Classics and stars Paul Giamatti as the politically-incor- rect, impulsive and fearlessly-blunt Barney Panofsky. Small Town Murder Songs is a modern have to hear every line of dialogue.That’s the soul of the film.” Chandor, who is making his debut as a feature director, says he found it very satisfying to participate in the mixing process. “It’s the final piece of the puzzle,” he states.“It is so exciting to finally see all the pieces come together.” Independent films often have time and budget constraints that impact the mix, and Fernandez says short production schedules can leave less time to prepare for location recording, leading to more problems with production sound.“It can be a challenge to dig the dialogue out of those tracks, and you also have a limited time to mix.” Additionally, with a studio film,one or more temp mixes may be prepared.That is typically not the case with an independent. “A temp mix is a huge advantage,” notes Fernandez.“Questions about design and the direction of the mix get worked out ahead of time, and, when you get to the final mix, you have a template to follow. Most of the time, you don’t have that luxury with in- dependents.You are making the decisions as you go.” Still, Fernandez likes the adrenaline rush that comes from working under pressure.“You’re working fast and making quick decisions —it’s like you’re giving a performance.You get into a rhythm with the director and in the end, you feel like you’ve worked really hard.” The mix schedule for Margin Call was compressed to two weeks, but Fernandez is pleased with the results.“It’s all coming together and sounding really good.” 40 Post • January 2011 crime drama about an aging police officer from a small Ontario town.The film stars Peter Stormare, Jill Hennessy, Aaron Poole and Martha Plimpton, and is generating a buzz for director Ed Gass-Donnelly. According to Nick Iannelli,VP, operations & customer service for Deluxe Postproduction Toronto, the studio provided both picture services and audio post for the two films. “In a lot of cases, our relationship with these independent filmmakers — who might be a little budget challenged — we are look- ing for that long-term relationship,” explains Iannelli.“We want to extend to them as many services as we can provide, and give them an over all post production experience.” The challenge of a project such as Bar- ney’s Version, says Iannelli, is that the picture edit is constantly changing.“[Filmmakers] will show their films to colleagues and people in the industry that will voice some opinion, so nothing ever gets locked,” he notes.“Noth- ing is committed to. It’s continually a work in progress, up until it’s print mastered and going out the door!” The picture changes for Barney’s Version warranted more time being added to the mix. “That’s always a challenge,” adds Russ Robertson, senior VP, sales for Deluxe Canada & New York,“to come back, maybe two weeks later and reassemble the team and reestablish all of your technical set-ups, www.postmagazine.com and jump back in and make some changes.” Small Town Murder Songs presented a dif- ferent challenge stemming more so from its limited budget. “They only had so much budget, and therefore, only so much time in the theater,” notes Iannelli.“But at the end of the day we had to get the film done and done right. There are a lot of times where the indepen- dent community will come to us and say, ‘I only have X amount of dollars, that affords me X amount of time.’And our mixers [will] say, ‘That’s really not enough time to get it done right.’ So, a lot of times we’ll come to the table and help out, and try to work out a solution that can buy some extra time, and trade off with the filmmaker to make sure it’s done right.” Iannelli has base figures that he uses for breaking down the audio post for a film. Bar- ney and Small Town were both in for four or five weeks, but the audio post process can vary depending on budgets. “We’d like to have — at minimum — the dialogue editor spend a day in pre-dub for each reel of film. If it’s an effects-driven movie, maybe we can cut that back a bit.We want the mixers to go through it and if there is a piece of dialogue that is giving them a little bit of trouble,we want them to have the time to do it right, as opposed to compromising on it.” A six-reel picture might involve six days for the dialogue pre-mix and four days for the effects pre-mix. The studio then likes to spend two weeks perform- ing the final mix, and an additional day for print mastering. Theater 1 and Theater 2 at Deluxe are continued on page 45 NYC’s Dig It Audio provided the final mix for Satan Hates You.