Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/711111
33 Q3 2016 / CINEMONTAGE Holbrook and Pedro Pascal as DEA agents Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, respectively, and Maurice Compte as police chief Horacio Carrillo. In addition to Akerson, the Narcos sound crew comprised ADR supervisor Thomas Whiting, dialogue editor David Padilla, sound effects editor Dino DiMuro, MPSE, dialogue/music re-recording mixer Pete Elia, CAS, sound effects re-recording mixer Kevin Roache, CAS, and recordist/mix technician Jared Orlando. The primary sound editors were based at Technicolor Burbank in the former Miles of Fun/Weddington Productions facility, with Elia and Roache manning the re- recording console at Technicolor at Paramount's Stage 7 in Hollywood. Foley mixer Eric Culp and Foley artist Steve Hammond plied their craft at Technicolor's Toronto facility. ADR supervisor Gaston Biraben also worked on the last two episodes of Season 2. "My first substantive discussions of sound for the show came during the first spotting session with producer Tim King, lead picture editor Matt Colonna and Tim's son Tanner King, our post-production coordinator," says Akerson. "Because the show is a real- life action drama, and is intermingled with real news footage from the time, it was important to capture a realistic 1992 Colombia. The producers wanted busy, chaotic, gritty atmospheres for the Medellín barrios; Dino had done a great job putting that together. But as the episodes progressed, they were also asking us to create weird and sometimes even dreamlike atmospheres for the rural fincas [Spanish for large farms or plantations] and rain forests, giving us some opportunities for nice contrasts. And of course, they also wanted awesome — but realistic — action scenes with guns, bombs, trucks and the whole works. Dino has done a great job with all of that." REALISTIC COLOMBIAN DIALECTS AND PERIOD SOUND EFFECTS As with Season 1 (which recently received three Emmy nominations, including one for picture editor Leo Trombetta, ACE), the showrunners stressed that the dialogue and group ADR should be as realistic as possible, while maintaining authentic Colombian Spanish dialects for some of the non-Colombian actors. "There was a lot of discussion about the correct colloquialisms in the ADR," Akerson emphasizes, "even in the production dialogue, where sometimes the picture editors cheated words with better pronunciations." "When Randy first contacted me about Narcos, I could tell he was really excited about the challenge of working on a series set in Colombia," recalls Whiting. "He explained that I would be transcribing and translating dialogue, as well as directing actors in Spanish. This really attracted me to the project because I've had a passion for languages — especially Spanish and French — since I was 14 years old. Also, my wife is Cuban, so Spanish is a constant part of my life. During the course of the season, Randy and I attended all spotting sessions; we got a sense of what our focus should be on each episode, as well as any particular effects and added lines that were required. A lot of thought went into group ADR. "Every episode of Narcos contains many Colombian idioms and accents used in different regions of the country," the ADR supervisor continues. "Narcotraficantes and police also have their own particular lexicon. For example, when we were unsure of what a police officer would say in a particular scene, I asked the ADR mixer Manuel J. Gordillo, who works at La Tina Sonido in Bogotá, about the scene minutes before the session started, he actually ran down the street to the police station and asked the officers what they would say!" "Randy was really specific," Padilla confirms. "First and foremost, quality and precision in the work we were doing was very important; dialogue needed to be able to be understood and clear, which was a challenge in itself given the intense level of background noise happening at each location in Colombia. It was also important to Randy that we learned the characters and followed his notes, which were very much our guiding roadmap in terms of what to do and how best to Narcos. ©2016 Narcos 2 Productions LLC. All Rights Reserved