Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/941133
original recordings that we did with loop group. We brought in native speakers to re-create the outside crowd scenes, to try to keep the detail as accurate as possible," says Garcia. Bender adds, "I contacted a fellow in Beirut who recorded some Lebanese for us, so we had Lebanese walla. We were looking for realism but also looking for the story of the characters in this chaotic environment. That was an important component of it, that this place was so chaotic. When Mason [Jon Hamm] returns to Beirut and he leaves the airport, on the street he encounters a cacophony of animals and people and tanks driving around. It's a big contrast to the tranquil, beautiful city of Beirut he left 10 years before." Getting the location to sound like Beirut (and not Morocco) required dialogue editing and cleaning to remove extraneous sounds, like calls to prayer that could be heard on the exterior location production recordings. Re-recording mixer Martin Czembor, who handled the dialogue and music, worked with dialogue editor Marlena Grzaslewicz to get the actors' best performances (in terms of emotion) to work on a technical level. That meant pulling a syllable or word from the ADR takes (which were recorded in different studios around the world due to time and budget constraints) and editing those into the production takes. Czembor then used a combination of EQ and dynamics processing via the Avid/Euphonix S6 console's channel strip and the Waves Renaissance De-Esser plug-in to nestle each ADR syllable into the pro- duction tracks. Garcia says, "Martin [Czembor] did an amazing job in matching them so that you can't tell what is ADR and what is production dialogue. That's a big part of mixing that maybe isn't glam- orous — it's not a big explosion but it keeps your brain glued to the character and what's happening on-screen. That was a big part of this job." In terms of effects, Bender notes the film's juxtaposition of humanity and harsh war-time realities. For example, there's a scene with people hanging out on a beach as tanks are driving by. In another scene, Mason sees a couple getting mar- ried amongst the rubble of bombed out buildings. "Mason is coming out of a drunken stupor and so his headspace is already played subjectively. It was a subtle scene and the subtleties took a lot of work, like the wind and the footsteps — putting him in a world that is disturbing by not so obvi- ously terrifying," says Bender. Another interesting scene for sound was when Mason meets with the kidnappers at a hideout deep in the countryside. An American airstrike pushes ever nearer to their location. "The way Brad [Anderson] shot it you see sand coming down from the ceiling as the airstrike slowly hits closer and closer. There's the sound of the planes coming closer and there's bombing and the beams are creaking. This plays in concert with the intensity of the conflict between Mason and the kidnapper. It's a really great interplay of their two stories happening together. That scene took several passes to get it right," says Bender. "Brad is such a sound guy. In all the movies that I've worked on with him, he's really engaged in the sound and it's a big part of the story." EHERO In his debut feature-length film titled eHero, director Joseph Procopio tells the story of two eSports teams that battle it out, both in-game and in the real world. They compete at different tournaments across the country, trying to make it to the finals in Las Vegas. According to the post sound team — re-record- Getting the location to sound like Beirut and not Morocco required dialogue editing and cleaning to remove extraneous sounds. The audio team pushed background sounds in clubhouse scenes to help build excitement.