Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/855478
31 Q3 2017 / CINEMONTAGE the parking lot, and John put Rich and me in this high-performance Mercedes and blasted down Olive Avenue in Burbank," Alexander remembers. "It scared the bejesus out of me. I said, 'John, aren't you afraid you're going to get a ticket?' And he whipped out a get-out-of-jail-free card." That ride may have been wild, but no less eventful was Alexander's journey to the mixing stage. The grandson of a special effects camera operator (on his father's side) and a projectionist at Warner Bros. (on his mother's), Alexander was born into the business. His father, Richard Alexander, was an accomplished re-recording mixer who began in episodic television before moving onto feature films. His credits include numerous films directed by Clint Eastwood, as well as Taxi Driver and All the President's Men (both 1976), the last of which garnered him an Academy Award. Yet, following graduation from North Hollywood High School in 1970, Rick did not immediately follow in his family's footsteps. Instead, at the height of the Vietnam War, he enlisted in the Air Force. "My draft lottery number was 6, and I was 18 years old when I graduated," he explains, "so I was getting drafted regardless." After leaving the military in 1976, Alexander toiled as a truck driver before finally embarking in a career in post- production. He started at CBS Studio Center as a machine operator before moving onto Glen Glenn Sound, where he became a recordist and then a re- recording mixer. "I'm a techie, mechanical- type person, and you have to have that kind of mind," he reflects. "I was always trying to push myself to stay in the loop of the new things." Television and feature film credits followed, but Alexander received his biggest break when he was asked by supervising sound editors Robert R. Rutledge and Charles L. Campbell to fill in on Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future (1985) at Universal Studios as a mixer. Impressed with his talent and hustle, re-recording mixer Bill Varney suggested that Alexander leave Glen Glenn for Universal. "He said, 'I want you to be a dialogue mixer, and we'll transition you into taking over the Hitchcock Theatre,'" Alexander recalls. The following year, he received his biggest feature assignment to date: Frankenheimer's 52 Pick-Up (1986), an Elmore Leonard adaptation starring Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret. Alexander remembers the project primarily as an example of the challenges of early digital mixing. "Edgy, ugly dialogue tracks" were the norm, he says. "You would do a boost and then adjust the frequency to find what was causing the edginess, and then either use a filter or equalization to notch it down a bit," he continues. "You had to be careful with the low frequency because a lot of the room tones, air conditioning and ambient sounds were enhanced by boosting the low frequency." As an introduction to Frankenheimer, however, the film proved memorable. "John was a big man — just in his personality alone, he was somewhat overwhelming," Alexander says. "On the other hand, he was a very nice man. He could be tough and get pushy but, overall, he was very fair and very appreciative of what we did." Following 52 Pick-Up, Alexander continued his career with a series of major films for important directors, including Martin Brest's Midnight Run (1988), Peter Bogdanovich's Noises Ronin. United Artists/ Photofest