Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/756468
40 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2016 Whiplash (2014) — La La Land chronicles the myriad decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of the couple's love affair, causing their dreams to stumble and fall. Ruder, based at 2Pop Music on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, recalls early meetings with the film's executive music producer Marius De Vries and the composer when he served as music editor on the film from the start of post-production through the end of the final mix. "It was a complex project, with a combination of orchestral music by the composer together with several original songs featuring Justin Hurwitz's music, with lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul," Ruder says. "Because I came on during post, Nick Baxter served as recording engineer for the song pre-records, and also recorded Justin's dazzling score." Baxter also coordinated playback on set and oversaw live vocal and music recording with production sound mixer Steven Morrow, CAS. "Justin Hurwitz was an intricate part of the process from start to finish," Ruder stresses. "He and Damien had such amazing history from Whiplash, and knew each other's sensibilities so well; Justin was always on set with a keyboard. "La La Land was unique in the sense that the music comprised a few large numbers and many intimate duets between Emma and Ryan," the music editor continues. "For the smaller scenes with just the two of them, we had pre-records. But because Damien was after an 'organic' sound — not unlike Les Misérables — oftentimes these [elements] were not even used, and we opted instead for live takes." To capture that elusive "musical magic," several live vocal elements were captured on the set. "Actors wore earwigs [to hear Hurwitz playing piano on the set] and there were multiple mics, both lavaliers and booms," Ruder recalls. "But mostly, the booms were used. For post, I was constantly trying to patch the pre-recorded material for elements that needed to be replaced. In comparison to the raw and 'human' sound that Damien loved in the on-set vocals, the pre-recorded music soundtrack was slightly over-produced. For a better match, many of our vocal replacements ultimately were picked up on an ADR stage." Ruder also handled pre-records on several previous movies, including Dreamgirls (2006) and Straight Outta Compton (2015). "The movie was so beautifully filmed, but there were many long shots that were single takes with little intercutting," he explains. "The result is simply gorgeous and unique these days, but it did make sync a challenge. I did not have the luxury of rolling many shots, or looking for alternative takes with the picture department. We had to make sync work with the vocals — and especially the piano that was prominent in the audio tracks. Ryan and Emma were very well-rehearsed, which helped a lot, but there is always sync work needed during music post-production." Given that the movie is such a fantasy, Ruder acknowledges, "We did quite a bit of exploration regarding how the vocals could be treated going in and out of musical numbers. We would always examine when fantasy kicked in while transitioning from a scene with production dialogue into a musical number. Thankfully, we had re-recording mixer Andy Nelson in the dub [handling dialogue and music]; he's great at achieving that type of seamless blending." According to Baxter, the vocals and guide music tracks were pre-recorded at Conway Recording, Igloo Studios in Burbank, and at producer De Vries' project facility, with subsequent orchestral recordings following at Sony Pictures Studios' Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage in Culver City. "We also tracked Ryan and Emma's vocals live on-set for the songs 'City of Stars' and 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream),'" he says. "To help any blending that would be necessary between the pre-records and these live tracks, we had the same boom mic for all vocal recording and ADR: a Sennheiser MKH-50." Baxter also served as scoring mixer and recordist on the film. For music editorial, Ruder received a number of 24-bit/48 kHz stems as Avid Pro Tools sessions from Jason Ruder. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 38 CONTINUED ON PAGE 42