Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/348146
www.postmagazine.com 44 POST JULY 2014 After it was delivered to Hulu, King sent the episode to the Foley team, and then did a final 5.1 mix for deliv- ery to Lionsgate. "So the episodes on Hulu lack Foley," admits King. King mixed the series in 5.1 on an ICON console with Pro Tools 10 in Audio 2 at Shapeshifter. He also did an Lt Rt. Since the delivery spec for Hulu and Lionsgate are similar to broadcast spec, King used the Dolby Media Meter to keep the mix CALM Act compliant. "The only difference was I paid extra close attention to how the mix was translating on small speak- ers because I knew that's how most people would be hearing it," says King. "Beyond that, it was exactly the same as how I would've mixed it for broadcast." DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION Howard Bowler, president of HOBO Audio (www.hoboaudio.com) in NYC, recently worked with Dcode Films as creative consultant on the Deus Ex: Human Revolution short film. Bowler's audio post team at HOBO Audio were sound designers Diego Jimenez and Stephen Da- vies, and VP Chris Stangroom, who helped Jimenez with the mix. HOBO offers surround mixing, voiceover recording, sound design and music composition for the film, TV and advertising industries. HOBO has three suites running Pro Tools 10. They've mixed films for the Tribeca Film Festival, and TV series such as The Dirt on Discov- ery Channel, and Breaking Ice on the Weather Channel. The Deus Ex: Human Revolution short film — available on Machinima Prime on YouTube — is based on the video game of the same name. The 13-minute futuristic action film explores main character Adam Jensen's rescue of scientist Megan Reed, his ex-girlfriend. Jensen was severely injured in a terrorist attack years before and has large areas of his body replaced with bio-technically-advanced prosthe- ses. Sound designer/re-recording mixer Jimenez recently won a Telly Award for "Sound/Sound Design" for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. According to Jimenez, this short was a sound designer's dream. It was shot in a warehouse, with minimal room tone and produc- tion effects. "We had to create this whole environment," says Jimenez. He likens the process to animation, where everything you hear was created from scratch. Though the short film is based on the video game, Jimenez only took sound design cues from the weapons used in game because the director wanted a more cin- ematic feel, particularly for the characters' movements, and the advanced prostheses and robotics sounds. "We created many sounds from field recordings captured with high sampling rates," says Jimenez. "Then we modulated and processed those until we got the sound we wanted." With so many layers of sound design, the biggest challenge for the mix was deciding what to take out, while keeping the essence of the sound intact. Jimenez sat down with Bowler and re-recording mixer Stangroom to decide what really worked and what they didn't need. "During the mix, you have to trust your ear to know what's crowding the mix, and what's unnecessary. By pulling out those effects, what remains is the sound experience and I think that's the challenge for any mixer," explains Bowler. Jimenez mixed the film in stereo for delivery to Machinima Prime on YouTube. He also created a 5.1 the- atrical mix for possible future re- leases beyond the Web. He mixed the short film on an Avid D-Control running Pro Tools 10 in Studio A at HOBO Audio. Since there was no set delivery spec, Jimenez used other projects on Machinima Prime as reference level for his mix on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, mak- ing sure the mix translated over multiple playback devices, from headphones to home theaters. "We try to understand what the listener's environment might be like and then dial the sound to match the experience," says Bowler. "We try to see what's out there and find some sort of consistency. We do want our mixes to pop but we don't want to blow speakers." CONTINUED FROM PG 37 AUDIO FOR WEB SERIES & SHORTS USING THE CLOUD CONTINUED FROM PG 27 (www.johnstanleyproductions.com) used Forbidden Technologies' cloud- based video post production platform, Forscene, to facilitate production of a package of television and Web spots for Boots No7 Protect and Perfect An- ti-Ageing Serums from agency Mother. John Stanley Productions (JSP) had three crews working simultaneously across the country shooting footage of eight women who were living without mirrors for a month while they tested the beauty product. Every other day JSP sent drives of footage to post house The Farm in London, which copied the material to media storage and automatically uploaded proxies to JSP's Forscene account making dailies immediately available for senior producer Rachel Viner to view. "The ratio of filming to finished product on this project was enor- mous," notes JSP executive producer Michelle Langer. "The challenge was how to tell the story in a minute when we had enough material for an hour. That meant culling a lot of material in a hurry. One of our producers had used Forscene before and was impressed with the ability to view and select clips independently of the editor. Forscene was an invaluable tool for enabling efficient communications between the crew on a shoot and the producer and editor in the edit suite at The Farm." Before the main edit, producers and editors had one day a week to cut weekly highlights. Having access to the media via Forscene enabled them to preselect clips before edit day so time in the edit suite was more productive. "The weekly edits would have been a much longer process if they had to wait until they were in the edit suite to review all the rushes from the three directors or if they had been work- ing from paper edits," says Langer. Forscene also boosted efficiency by allowing the producer to view and select alternative clips while the editor was working on the master cut. JSP found the cloud-based tool helpful for the fast turnaround project, and Langer wouldn't be surprised to see its use expanded to more produc- tion companies. POWSTER With its software as service model and suite of popular tools, Adobe Creative Cloud offers an introduction to cloud- based technologies for many compa- nies. Hosted by Amazon Web Services, Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) gives users access to Adobe's well-known tools for graphic design, editorial, Web develop- ment and photography. Long-time Adobe user Powster, a London- based interactive motion graphics company (www.powster.com), has moved from Adobe Creative Suite to CC offering subscriptions to individu- als or teams so it's easy to bring on new talent as projects demand. Carry Me, a new music video for Bombay Bicycle Club, tapped a num- ber of CC components. The Muy- bridge-inspired video gives a unique picture of the band with user-control- lable video feeds for the interactive online version and replicated user interactivity for the broadcast version. The video was shot with two Canon C300s and a 5DMKIII for behind the scenes and a 7D camera for animation reference stills. The video was color graded with Blackmagic Design's Da Vinci Resolve. Animation was checked on-set with Dragonframe. Premier Pro CC was used to edit nine different camera feeds at 1080p; Expressions in After Effects CC replicated user inter- action with the footage. "The whole idea," says Powster creative director Ste Thompson, "was to be the first to make a linear piece of video footage interactive by allowing the user to switch between feeds yet keep them in synch." The company's Orbital Video technique enables the band video to remain synchronized with the music as the user instantly switches between camera takes for a stop-motion look to the performance. Within Adobe CC, "Premiere allowed us to bring multiple feeds into one se- quence and not lose quality when we scaled up and down," says Thompson. "When we exported to After Effects we took a massive amount of footage and replicated the interactivity of the [online] user to make [the broadcast version] behave in the same way." Photoshop CC was also used to draw illustrations over frames of the video, enhancing the band's motion and music making. Thompson says, "We want to explore how the end user can use [Creative Cloud] creatively and collaboratively."