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13 FEATURES 42nd C.A.S. Awards Banquet Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Biltmore Hotel hosted fun-filled evening
2005 C.A.S. Award Winners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Walk the Line, Lackawanna Blues, Deadwood, Bruce Springteen and the E Street Band: Hammersmith Odeon, London 1975 and Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin – The Untold Story
Oscar Kudos & Special Honors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 King Kong sound mixing team congratulated, Quentin Tarantino, C.A.S.’s Michael Minkler and Zaxcom also received awards
DEPARTMENTS From the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Letters to the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Technically Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 G. John Garrett, C.A.S. talks about pull-ups, pull-downs
Been There Done That . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 The members check in
The Lighter Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
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CINEMA AUDIO SOCIETY MISSION STATEMENT
Work Flow Seminar The Cinema Audio Society will host a Work Flow Seminar on Sunday, June 25, 2006, at 10 a.m. at Disney Studios, 500 S. Buena Vista Street in Burbank. Panelists include Avid, Pro Tools and various other representatives from the industry. Moderator John Coffey, C.A.S. said, “In this seminar, we will come up with a final work flow that everyone agrees to follow from production through post and on to final broadcast.� This is an open and free seminar where all are welcome to attend. For more information, check the website at CinemaAudioSociety.Org.
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C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
To educate and inform the general public and the motion picture and television industry that effective sound is achieved by a creative, artistic and technical blending of diverse sound elements. To provide the motion picture and television industry with a progressive society of master craftsmen specialized in the art of creative cinematic sound recording. To advance the specialized field of cinematic sound recording by exchange of ideas, methods, and information. To advance the art of auditory appreciation, and to philanthropically support those causes dedicated to the sense of hearing. To institute and maintain high standards of conduct and craftsmanship among our members. To aid the motion picture and television industry in the selection and training of qualified personnel in the unique field of cinematic sound recording. To achieve for our members deserved recognition as major contributors to the field of motion picture and television entertainment.
FROM THE EDITORS...
It’s springtime and the C.A.S. Quarterly journal is blooming with color and life and intriguing articles! Everyone had a great time at the C.A.S. Banquet where many wonderful mixers were honored for a job well done. In this issue we feature those winners as they talk to us about the challenges they had to confront while working on the shows. G. John Garrett, C.A.S. has an interesting Technically Speaking article on “pull-ups and pull-downs” where he outlines a few of the usual and some of the not so well known practices, and as he puts it, “cracks open a whole can of worms!” The Lighter Side continues to grow, providing us with the fun side of life. Interesting to read is the Been There Done That section where we see members and what they are doing. We welcome members to submit photos and articles on what they are doing. These as well as “Letters to the Editors” may be e-mailed to CASJournal@CinemaAudioSociety.Org.
OFFICERS
Richard Lightstone, President Melissa S. Hofmann, Vice President Marti D. Humphrey, Secretary Christopher Haire, Treasurer BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Richard Branca John Coffey Peter Damski Ed Greene Sherry Klein Michael Minkler
Ed Moskowitz Aletha Rodgers Fred Tator Jon Taylor Greg Watkins
ALTERNATES
David Bondelevitch Brydon Baker James Coburn IV R.D. Floyd OFFICE MANAGER
Robin Damski EDITORS:
Aletha Rodgers Peter Damski
Sincerely,
PUBLISHER:
The Ingle Group 11661 San Vicente Blvd., Ste. 709 Los Angeles, CA 90049
The Editors, Aletha Rodgers Peter Damski casjournal@cinemaaudiosociety.org
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS:
Active Gary Day Josh Talbot Louis Marion Jonathan Wales Shawn Holden Martin Talty Robert Carr
Associate Steve Schatz
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Cinema Audio Society 859 Hollywood Way #632 Burbank, CA 91505 Phone: 818.752.8624 Fax: 818.752.8624 Email casjournal@CinemaAudioSociety.org Website www.cinemaaudiosociety.org ADVERTISING:
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LETTERS TO THE EDITORS Thanks for all the great work you and Aletha are doing to make the C.A.S. Quarterly journal so vastly improved. It has not gone un-recognized. Steve Weiss, C.A.S. I wanted to say how really terrific the last issue of the Quarterly looked. What a difference glossy paper and good layout can make! Great job and I know it will get even better! Steve Nelson, C.A.S. Thanks, Pete and Aletha—the journal looks great! Glenn Berkovitz, C.A.S.
CORRECTIONS Updates to the 2005 C.A.S. Award nominations: Doug Rutherford did the original dialogue recording on Red Flag: Thunder at Nellis.
BUENA VISTA POST PRODUCTION SERVICES Announcing our new team on Stage A David Fluhr
Myron Nettinga
Cameron Davis should have been listed as the production mixer on Lilo and Stitch 2. Carlos Sontolongo was listed in error.
REMINDER Has your address changed? Do we have your current e-mail address? Please forward all contact updates to our office manager, Robin Damski, at casoffice@cinemaaudiosociety.org.
818-560-1576 • www.buenavistapost.com © Disney
C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
SPRING 2006
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Pull Up, Pull Down
Pull Your Hair Out by G. John Garrett, C.A.S.
T
here are few aspects of production sound more vexing than timecode and pull-up/pull-down issues, but understanding the seemingly endless permutations is crucial for maintaining sync from slate to finish. Most of us are probably familiar with one primary way of doing things that works day in and day out, and when we get a call for some out-of-the-ordinary workflow [setup] we go scrambling for some reference material. The fact that there’s more than one way to separate a feline from its viscera adds to the possibilities, and at times, the unwelcome excitement. In this essay I’m going to outline a few of the usual practices and a few of the lesser known aspects of what happens to the timecode and sample rate of your delivered tracks. Yes, this is a can of worms, but I’m just going to crack it open. There’s certainly not enough room here to dump out the whole can. First, pull-down. Pull-down is the process of slowing the speed of recorded audio to make it fit the time scale of film transferred to video in telecine. If the product is going to wind up on NTSC television, chances are your sound will undergo pull-down. This speed change amounts to 0.1% because of the way 24fps film is made to fit into the NTSC television rate of 29.97 frames per second. Each standard-definition video frame is made up of two interlaced fields, which results in the creation of 59.94 fields per second. The 24fps film is printed to video as follows: The first frame is transferred to three consecutive fields [a frame and a half] of video, the next frame is printed to two consecutive fields [the other half of frame 2 and the first half of frame 3], the next film frame to three consecutive fields, etc. which effectively makes the film’s 24 frames fit into 30 video frames. Now here’s the twist: in telecine the film is actually transferred at 23.976 [0.1% slow] to make the correct frame rate of 29.97 video fps. The story of what happened to the other 0.03 seconds is sort of a long one, but the short version is this: Blackand-white TVs all ran at 30fps, a handy submultiple of our AC power frequency. When color came along, the FCC mandated that the huge installed base of B&W
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The main question is to determine what the first use for the material will be, how it’s going to be cut and record the appropriate sample rate and timecode for that use. sets be able to receive the color transmissions [albeit in glorious B&W]. This meant engineers had to shoehorn luminance and color information into basically the same timeframe, so the older sets would sync correctly. The color burst signal takes time to transmit, but not so much that the older sets would get lost trying to make sense of the incoming signal. And that’s why the picture rate for NTSC standard-definition video is 29.97fps. You’re beginning to see what a can of worms this is, aren’t you? Anyway, I’m going to try to stick to the simple parts and let the real mind-bending stuff go for now. Normal film production has always dictated 30fps NDF SMPTE timecode for telecine transfer with 24fps film. With analog machines, the speed is pulled down 0.1% and timecode off tape is locked to 29.97fps for the transfer. The Nagra was played back to a slower reference than the recorded pilotone or LTC to achieve the pull-down. That’s why we always did it like that. Now we introduce digital recorders. The SMPTE standard for digital audio is 48KHz. With DAT I always recorded 48KHz and 30fps NDF timecode. In telecine they actually pulled the sample rate down to 47.985 and locked the code to 29.97 by locking the word clock to video [59.97Hz]. Maybe since they were playing out the audio in real-time from the analog outputs, there was no big difference from Nagra audio. When D1, D2 and digibeta came along, the sound went through another A/D conversion before being printed to videotape at 48Khz. Now that file-based digital recorders are becoming popular, pull-down is getting a little more complex. For
30fps timecode and 48KHz sample rate, how do you wind up with slowed audio, 29.97fps timecode and 48KHz sampling frequency for, say, D1, D2 or digibeta output? The only way I’m aware of is to go through D/A and A/D conversions which, aside from possible quality degradation, is not a big problem since the telecine process is at the least real-time. I suppose you could lock the incoming audio to 47.985 to pull it down, then do sample-rate conversion to 48.000, but that just seems ugly to me. When sound is synced in a NLE like the Avid or ProTools, things get even more interesting. Pull-down is usually accomplished by applying a switch to the audio file and editing away. The mystery becomes finding out if your software does pull-down by default [or at all!] and whether it happens once, twice or never in the post chain! Keep in mind if the final product is film exhibition, no pull-down takes place. HD material typically does not get pulled down [ask your post supervisors...] either. Sometimes it makes sense to pull up the audio when recording, or in some cases when playing back, i.e. music for music videos shot on film released on video. All of the high-end filebased recorders will sample at 48.048KHz, and some existing DAT machines will too. Other file-based recorders that take a digital input will lock to incoming AES at any frequency, so if you have 48.048KHz available in an upstream A/D converter, you can do pull-up with any recorder that will lock to it. This makes telecine simple, as you just play the material back at 48.000KHz with the added benefit of keeping the material in the digital domain if printing to a digital medium. Many current machines will record pulled-up sample rates, and probably even more will pull down on playback if locked to the appropriate signal. For instance, my HHB PDR1000TC DAT recorder with master sync will record pulled-up, and connecting blackburst or another video signal to the word clock input makes it pull down. The main question is to determine what the first use for the material will be [projection, telecine, etc.], how it’s going to be cut [i.e. Final Cut Pro does not, to my knowledge, do pulldown!] and record the appropriate sample rate and timecode for that use. According to Tom Sprague at National Boston Video Center, while there are lots of ways to get it right, and lots of ways to get it wrong, it’s very much harder to fix sync problems with digital files than it was with longitudinal tape. So make sure sync becomes part of your pre-production talks if it isn’t already! • More reading: http://www.zerocut.com/tech/pulldown.html http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=965472& Main=963618 http://www.mackie.com/support/FAQ/pullups_pulldowns.html 24P for Sound Mixers and Video Assist and/or Sync Sound With the New Media, by Wolf Seeburg
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C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
SPRING 2006
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by Aletha Rodgers, C.A.S.
The C.A.S. Board of Directors: Front (L-R) Aletha Rodgers, Sherry Klein, Richard Lightstone, Melissa Hofmann, Christopher Haire, Edward Moskowitz, Marti Humphrey. Rear (L-R) Michael Olman, James Coburn IV, Fred Tator, Peter Damski, Tim Cooney, John Coffey, Michael Minkler, Greg Watkins. Background photo: The Crystal Ballroom all dressed for the 2005 C.A.S. Awards. Photos by WireImage 10
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embers of the Cinema Audio Society, friends and colleagues gathered for a glamorous, fun- and award-filled evening at the Biltmore Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom for the 42nd Annual Awards Banquet. Dining on a scrumptious cuisine, the audience looked on as Quentin Tarantino was honored with the first C.A.S. Filmmaker Award. Another highlight of the evening was the 2005 C.A.S. Career Achievement honor that went to Rerecording Mixer Michael Minkler, C.A.S. Two members of the Technical Achievement Committee, Aletha Rodgers, C.A.S. and James Corburn IV, C.A.S., presented Glenn Sanders with the 2005 C.A.S. Technical Achievement Award for Zaxcom, Inc.’s Deva V Hard Disk Audio Rusty Smith, C.A.S. and Bill Freesh enjoying their Recorder. prior to the Awards ceremony. Awards were presented for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for 2005 cocktails Photo: WireImage in the following categories: For Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures C.A.S. members voted for Walk the Line honoring Rerecording Mixers Paul Massey, C.A.S. and D.M. Hemphill, C.A.S. and Production Mixer Peter F. Kurland, C.A.S. For Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Movies or Mini-Series, Lackawanna Blues was selected with allocates going to Rerecording Mixers Rick Ash and Adam Jenkins, and Production Mixer Susumu Tokunow. For Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series, Deadwood – “A Lie Agreed Upon” – Part 1 was announced as the winner with awards going to Rerecording Mixers R. Russell Smith, C.A.S. and William Freesh, and Production Mixer Geoffrey Patterson, C.A.S. For Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Non-Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Hammersmith Odeon, London 1975 took the award with honors going to Mastering Engineer Bob Ludwig, Music Mixer Bob Clearmountain, and Rerecording Mixer Matt Foglia, C.A.S. For Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for DVD Original Programming, Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin – The Untold Story won with awards going to Rerecording Mixers Jim Fitzpatrick and Sam Black, C.A.S. and Original Dialogue Recording Dan Cubert.
Motion pictures
Walk the Line by Aletha Rodgers, C.A.S. For Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture the members of Cinema Audio Society voted in the work from Walk the Line. Bringing the country music legend Johnny Cash’s (Joaquin Phoenix) story alive were the talents of Post Production Sound Mixers Doug Hemphill and Paul Massey, and Production Mixer Peter Kurland. The beginning scene where Johnny Cash performs in concert at Folsom Prison builds with the underlying sense of danger. That feeling was achieved in many ways, as Hemphill explained. “The director, James Mangold, wanted Folsom Prison to feel like a dangerous place, so we tried to create that with the sound and crowd and music. In these types of films, crowds are very difficult and challenging to do. In the audience there will be a little hush out of respect for a particular passage in a song— and you really have to know when to spice it up with audience and know when to just let the music play.” Massey added, “What we ended up doing was actually mixing the concert at the end of the film before we even attempted to mix that first scene. I wanted to mix the rest of the film and get the feel of it, and then come back to the Folsom Prison concert. It took a long time trying to get the build.”
C.A.S. Award winners for Best Motion Picture, Walk the Line (L-R) D.M. Hemphill, C.A.S., Peter Kurland, C.A.S. and Paul Massey, C.A.S. Photo: WireImage
Throughout the film Hemphill said there were a lot of little things they did with the sound. “My philosophy is that I never want the sound to be too apparent. I want it to be integrated into the story. An example is when June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) walks into the rehearsal hall very angry and they are all drunk. At that point I sharpened her heel click as she walks. That is a small thing but it all adds up. Another is when C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
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Peter Kurland, C.A.S. at his cart on the set of Walk the Line. Reese Witherspoon in the doorway in the background. Photo: Marie Healy
Joaquin Phoenix tears apart the dressing room and rips that sink off—he actually did that! We went nuts with the sound in that scene in order to accentuate what he had done. “Also, there was a way Johnny Cash used to do a chick-achick-a with his guitar, and in the scene where Cash passes out on the stage, Paul Massey did some things with the vocals and we took footsteps of people coming toward Johnny on the stage and played those backward. Then the chick-a-chick-a of the guitar begins, and it all comes out as a feeling of what works in his head at that moment.” There were a couple of scenes that were particularly challenging during the production recording, Kurland said. “One of the most difficult, and one in which I am happiest, is the audition scene at Sun Records. Part of it was recorded totally live, just Joaquin and the band playing live; and part was to playback where we had to merge the live and playback portions of the performances of multiple songs. It was done as one continuous take with virtually no coverage, so we had to pull out all the stops and find a way to make all of the technical feeds invisible to picture, and we had to mic everything. We placed Sanken mics on all the instruments and used Schoeps on the interiors. I recorded with the Deva II. My crew was Mark Zimbicki out of Tennessee on boom, and my regular, Kelly Doran, on 2nd boom and utility. Matt Andrews did playback.” Massey said, “Regarding dialogue, Peter gave us some great sounding tracks and I was very fortunate to have very little ADR needed, as a lot of production sound was able to be used. Jim Mangold, as with most directors, prefers production sound over ADR in almost all cases.” Kurland said during production there was another demanding scene where Johnny Cash and June Carter were singing “Jackson.” “It was when he proposes to her. They are in the middle of a song, and we go into an instrumental vamp just when Johnny and June are having this huge emotional moment. It is the high point of the entire film and they have to do live singing before and after that moment all as part of one piece. That is the kind of thing that really requires a tremendous amount of talent. They were wearing earwigs during that time. Jim’s idea was to let the crowd have real reactions, so we had full volume playback for most of it, plus earwigs. When there 12
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was dialogue, we could duck the playback as low as possible to still get the dialogue clean. All those scenes were staged pretty close to the reality of the moment, and all of the concerts were recorded with the crowd wholly responding with hoots and hollers and the band really singing. I think that helped it sound more like a live piece. The Post Department went through afterward worldizing everything so that when they had to go from a radio mic, or an on stage vocal mic, or something left over from the studio pre-record, they could fill in the piece with ambience.” Massey explained, “We realized early on when we were doing a temp mix that it would be a great idea to take the tracks that were being provided by T-Bone Burnett and re-record them in the real world. Mark Jan Wlodarkiewicz, the head music editor, organized a crew and a small Pro Tools rig where he could play back the individual splits for guitars, drums, bass, vocals, etc., in various environments around the Fox lot. He played them on the scoring stage, through walls at the scoring stage, in alleys, bathrooms, mixing stages, and even in the parking lot on the weekend when there was no one there. He then re-recorded everything so I could use the re-recorded sound to create a more realistic environment rather than only relying on the normal tools such as reverb, compression, and eq. I used a lot of that in varying degrees on the music trying to match the environment that was shot by Jim.” Massey said they mixed in the Ford Theater at Fox on a Neve DFC console. “We’ve been there since 2000 and really like the room. It’s a great sounding stage with an excellent crew.” On production, Kurland said he used a portable ProTools rig. “I was fortunate to be on the location for pre-production to rehearse with the band. We were able to take all of the ProTools sessions right from the recording studio and use them for playback. We used the portable Digi002R. This allowed us to give people whatever monitor feed they needed. We could bring guide vocals in or out, and the thump track. Our playback operator, Matt Andrews, was very familiar with T-Bone and the session engineer. They would trade files back and forth right in Pro Tools. We used a whole range of playback technology from the Digi002R when we could. On other times we would play from iTunes, which it turns out does a pretty good job of sync. Jim, on the spur of the moment would say, ‘Hey this looks like a great place, let’s just do a little piece of the montage. Play back this song…’ We’d have the power book hooked up to a speaker and there it was. It was a timesaver and sometimes there Kelly Doran, utility; Mark Zimbicki, boom; and Peter Kurland, C.A.S. share a toast (of fruit juice) on one of the final days of production. Photo: Marie Heal
was no other way to do it as it gave us access to any of the tracks. “In pre-production, T-Bone had spent a lot of time with Jim where they worked out on each individual song whether it would be pre-recorded or live and how many people would be playing. Jim designed a lot of the scenes to have multiple songs, multiple starts and stops with dialogue in the middle, and all sorts of things that were very challenging for us, but worked great in the movie.” “The score and all of the playback tracks,” Massey said, “were supervised by T-Bone Burnett, which is great as he is very particular about using period mics and period sounds. Also, TBone’s engineering and editorial team did a fantastic job. There was a lot of original music in the score that T-Bone had prerecorded and presented to us. The score integrated very nicely into the Johnny Cash songs.” Hemphill added, “I have to say it is a real alchemy of mixing. Sometimes it is very hard and sometimes it is a labor of love, but on that film, and a lot had to do with Jim, there was such a love for the project that everybody wanted to do their very best on it; and it is from Jim’s leadership. He did such a good job with the performances, and the story, and the screenwriting, that it’s like, ‘OK, this is what Jim has done. Now, I’ve got to do my very best.’” Massey agreed, saying, “Jim is fabulous to work with. He gives clear direction and leaves you alone to do the work he has hired you to do. The supervising sound editor, Don Sylvester, and all of the crew did a wonderful job. There was a great team spirit on Walk the Line. It felt incredibly focused and was one of those films you didn’t want to end.”
Television movies and mini-series
Lackawanna Blues by Aletha Rodgers, C.A.S. Members of the Cinema Audio Society voted for Lackawanna Blues in the category for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Movies and Mini-Series and honored Rerecording Mixers Adam Jenkins and Rick Ash, and Production Mixer Susumu Tokunow. Lackawanna Blues was a stage play, directed by George Wolfe and written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and both Wolfe and Hudson were involved in the HBO film. Tokunow noted that, “The writer, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, was one of the actors, a war veteran. He wrote the play. It was his story, and he did a oneact performance of the whole thing. You could see in George and Rubin that this story was something very dear to them.” Coming from a theatrical background brought a different sensibility to the production. Jenkins said, “George shot Lackawanna Blues more as a reality-based piece, so when the musical numbers happened they happened around the action on screen—or were part of the action on screen—so the movie needed to keep happening under a lot of the musical events. There would be voice-over over some of the scenes, and some were just played as dance numbers because of the setting. There was also a very interesting long segment were a story is being told to a young boy—which you then hear in flashbacks while a
Special Honors Every year at the Cinema Audio Society Banquet members of the sound community are honored for the outstanding work they perform. This year the C.A.S. added a new category. It is the C.A.S. Filmmaker Award and was presented to Quentin Tarantino, director, writer and producer, who is the winner of numerous awards for his films, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Jackie Brown (1997), Pulp Fiction (1994).
Academy Award winners for Best Sound, King Kong: (L-R) Hammond Peek, C.A.S., Michael Hedges, C.A.S., Michael Semanick, C.A.S. and Christopher Boyes. Photo: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Quentin Tarantino with the 2005 Filmmaker Award and Michael Minkler, C.A.S. with the 2005 Career Achievement Award. Photos by WireImage
Oscar Kudos
Glenn Sanders of Zaxcom with the 2005 Technical Acheivement Award
The Cinema Audio Society would like to congratulate the sound mixing team from the feature film King Kong for their Academy Award for Best Sound. The team includes Rerecording Mixers Michael Hedges, C.A.S., Michael Semanick, C.A.S. and Christopher Boyes and Production Mixer Hammond Peek, C.A.S. The King Kong team was also nominated for a CAS Award. C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
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guy is playing a number on a guitar—and he is telling a story also, and the two stories kind of interweave with each other. Having one come and the other go we now focus on what the offstage music is saying rather than the onstage story. It was a lot of fun.” Tokunow said during production it was different working with Wolfe. “He is a very experienced stage director with the kind of mind and mental- Rick Ash with his award for Best ity in terms of scenes and Television Movie, Lackawanna Blues. the way scenes are set up, Photo: WireImage so he wasn’t familiar with all the different kinds of things you have to do to get a clean track. That was challenging, working with someone who is very talented, but unfamiliar with some of the film process on how to record sound. It was a difficulty and a joy working with Wolfe because he has that raw enthusiasm of somebody who wants to do it and wants to try different things as opposed to someone who has done a lot of television and has a set formula.” Jenkins said the fish fry at the beginning is the typical real one where we are going to meet everybody and go to all the different locations and explain where we’re going for the next hour and a half. “It took place in Buffalo, N.Y., back when things were quite good because the work was all manufacturing industry and there was a strong black community. It is all a true story about this young guy Ruben Santiago, Jr. (as Marcus Franklin) is telling his story of growing up in this boarding house with Nanny and all of the people she would take in while he was living there. Her fish fry was her way of bringing the community together every week and that is where you start the story. It is voice-over on top of racus music, getting a sense of the community and how friendly and outgoing everybody is and meeting all the different people as you go through the rooms. People come and go, and during the course of that you see the birth of Rubin which takes place where his mother lives right down the street. They wanted the whole thing to build to a climax at the same time somebody gets stabbed and at the same time the child is born, which is right when the party is peaking. It was a fun and busy scene to do. A couple of locations and you also have to get a lot of story in at the same time. The beginning first couple of opening scenes were quite important and we spent quite a bit of time on them. It is probably not more than three or four minutes on screen, but it is getting everything to whip up into a frenzy right as a person is stabbed, a child is born and other people are making love in a car.” During production, Tokunow said, “Wolfe had it set up where there were some live records, especially the guitar player on the front porch. He loved the location of the old Victorian era, the Lackawanna, N.Y. look, but it was right near USC 14
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(University of Southern California) and a major street with bus and automobile traffic and he’d want to have things like the guy sitting on the front porch in rural Lackawanna playing guitar, recorded live. So, one of my biggest challenges was to make it a sound-friendly arena in a very unfriendly area. I was able to scout that location and the art department and sets were very cooperative as we had Plexiglas fitted into the window frames so that it was an additional barrier to all the street traffic whenever we were shooting inside. “Making that location of the Victorian house, which George was absolutely sold on, was one of the most difficult parts of recording the sound. We had to cut a lot and it drove George crazy because he is not used to that because getting into the performance and mood was frustrating when we had to cut for an airplane or loud bus. We had to explain to him we needed to give him options and a clean track, so we did have to cut a lot and that was some source of tension, but at the end, he was very appreciative of those cuts. “Traffic control was only limited during certain hours, so that was a major concern. The other was, as Wolfe thought in terms of theater. He would have Nanny (S. Epatha Merkerson) walk through crowds and talk and ad-lib. The fish fry and scenes like that had unscripted dialogue, and it was encouraged in a scene, so she’d be constantly commenting, but Wolfe would want music at the same time in the BG from the jute box so people could dance, and didn’t understand the thump track and so forth. We would never know when to turn the thump track on because we didn’t know when she was going to talk, so we had to be very flexible. “Whenever there is a situation like that where there is ad-libbing or unscripted or off-camera dialogue, we like to have a double boom where we can catch it and if they overlap, it can still be used. For the sake of the actors, I like to minimize the use of wireless mics to when they are really necessary. I used plant mics and double boomed for most of the show. All the actors were appreciative, and always cooperative. “My crew was Doug Shamburger, boom, who is currently working on a Spike Lee movie and then will go back to working on Desperate Housewives, and my 3rd, utility and cable and 2nd boom was Tony McCovey. My crew fit in wonderfully and we all enjoyed the high of working on this film. We had a good time and were very pleased with how it came out. I recorded on a DAT with a DAT backup, 4-channel and split tracks on a lot of the music. We did a lot of combination wireless/boom mixed onto separate tracks. Schoeps mics and Sanken wireless, Lectrosonics 210, 211 wireless receivers. “The shoot was about a two-month shoot. A lot was filmed downtown LA, which is tough because of the neighborhood, but security downtown was from The Brothers of Islam. They were suit-wearing bothers from the Islam Church and their presence kept the street people away. Their presence was helpful.” Jenkins said, “I’m very happy with how it came out. We have done a number of HBO products, so we knew how to do the theatrical mix and how to do the broadcast mixes, and it held up very well. “We mixed it on Stage 2 at Todd AO on Seward Street in Hollywood on the Neve DFC console. I don’t believe we predubbed any of the elements. We were on a slightly tighter time
on a HBO feature, so we dove right in and mixed everything. It was basically a final mix right from the get go. It made it very busy, but when they are spending a lot of time on musical numbers, that gives you a chance to work all the backgrounds, crowds, atmospheres and the Foley and everything, which was done quite well by our sound supervisor Jon Mete and his crew. “What we do on the dub stage will be a theatrical mix, then we’ll take a little more time and a separate 6-track and 2-track mix and HBO gave us an extra day to go in and tweak for the broadcast masters as most people will see the film on a stereo
television, not a 5.1.” Jenkins said, and Tokunow agreed that the most enjoyable aspect of the project was working with Wolfe and the people from Broadway. Jenkins continued, “We can teach them some things and they can teach us some things. George was there for everything and was very hands on. Nothing went through without everyone turning around and looking at George. He had very strong opinions saying, ‘No, we are focusing on the wrong thing there, or no, I need to hear this or that.’ He was a joy to work with and a great guy.”
Television series
and mix an episode, a fourth day to do playback and fixes for final delivery. The show is mixed on a Harrison MPC analog console with 180 channels. The console is interfaced to two Pro Tools setups, 96 channels for Freesh who is mixing effects and foley and 88 channels for Smith who is mixing dialogue and music. They both share the workload during the pre-dub process. The stage is equipped with Sony DADRs (Digital Audio Disk Recorder), which is a recording system that is used extensively at Sony Studios. The DADRs have a Pro Tools write mode that interfaces the sessions. Some of the 5.1 horse and wagon effects are pre-built by sound effects designer Benjamin Cook and are sent to Freesh as an automated Pro Tools session. Freesh has 32 mono effects channels, which he routes to various places in the mix as well as several 5.1 pre-dub sessions to work with. The biggest change from last year is the amount of movement that they can get in the mix with the increased Pro
Deadwood Sounds Good by Peter Damski, C.A.S. For the second year in a row, the members of the Cinema Audio Society have selected Deadwood’s sound team for the Outstanding Achievement in Mixing for a Television Series. The team consists of Rerecording Mixers Rusty Smith, C.A.S. and Bill Freesh and Production Mixer Geoff Patterson, C.A.S. Smith and Freesh continue to work together on Stage 6 at Sony Studios. HBO gives the post team three days to pre-dub
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C.A.S. Award winners for Best Television Series, Deadwood (L-R) Rusty Smith, C.A.S., Bill Freesh, Geoff Patterson, C.A.S. Photo: WireImage
Tools capabilities that are now on stage. Smith states, “The thing that hasn’t changed is that the producers want a lot of movement in the mix. The interesting thing here is that
Television non-fiction, variety or music – series or specials
Making “The Boss” Proud by Peter Damski, C.A.S. The Cinema Audio Society congratulates the winners of the 2005 C.A.S. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Non-Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials. This year the award went to Bob Ludwig (mastering), Bob Clearmountain (music mixing), and Matt Foglia, C.A.S. (rerecording mixer) for their work on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Hammersmith Odeon, London 1975. Ludwig has been known as the one of the best mastering engineer’s for many years. His credit list is too large to include in this article but suffice it to say that he has mastered albums and now DVDs for the “Who’s Who” of the music business for more than 30 years. He operates out of his studio, Gateway Mastering, in Portland, Maine. Clearmountain is also a veteran of mixing and producing in the recording industry for well over 30 years and has credits that would fill at least two issues of the C.A.S. Quarterly. He has been mixing at his facility, Mix This!, in Malibu, Calif., for many years and has done many of Bruce Springsteen’s projects. Unfortunately, neither Ludwig nor Clearmountain were available for interviews. This is the second C.A.S.–nominated Bruce Springsteen project that Matt Foglia, C.A.S. has participated in. Foglia is 32 years old and has been in post-production since 1995. He worked at Sony Music Studios in New York from 1995 until 2001, when he moved to PostWorks in New York City to become their chief audio engineer. “MTV and VH1 are probably my biggest clients but I truly love doing music specials.” 16
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Deadwood is a period piece and the things that are ‘in shot’ are interesting things that put out a lot of weird noises.” Smith raves about his foley team and the foley tends to get mixed hotter on Deadwood than on most other shows. Smith says that he is lucky to have such a good production mixer in Patterson. Patterson has a good handle on the set out at the ranch in Valencia, Calif. Patterson’s sound package includes a Deva 5 recorder, Lectrosonic’s 400 series wireless and a PSC M8 Mixer. Smith is able to easily and minimally process Patterson’s dialogue tracks in a pre-dub session and not have to deal with them much afterward. This allows him more time to work on other aspects of the final mix. I asked Smith what made this episode so special. “This was the premiere episode of season two, and we had the premiere party at Mann’s Chinese Theater. We did a separate print master using the same stems as we use for television but gave the mix a little more dynamic range for that venue. It really sounded good in that environment and since it held its own weight there, we felt that we had to submit that show.” Smith adds, “I didn’t expect to win because two years in a row is a long shot.” I believe this welldeserved award is an affirmation of a job well done.
His first C.A.S. nomination three years ago was for another Springsteen concert from Barcelona, Spain. Foglia’s mixing duties included creating the surround mixes and audience sweetening. He was brought on this project by Emmy-winning picture editor, Thom Zimny, with whom he had done the earlier Springsteen project and by Toby Scott, Springsteen’s longMatt Foglia, C.A.S. proudly time recording engineer. Both displays his award. valued Foglia’s track record and Photo: Courtesy of Matt Foglia familiarity with the high-definition format. This project was going to put all of Foglia’s talents to the test. As the title suggests, this concert was originally shot in 1975. It was shot on film by the BBC with five cameras and the audio portion was recorded on a 24-track machine with pilot tone. “They found 16 or 17 film reels and a two-inch 24-track in storage in 2004 and Bruce was curious to see what was intact as this was his first concert in Europe.” Scott transferred the two-inch tapes to Pro Tools and delivered the session to Foglia while Zimny transferred one of the film reels to HD at PostWorks. Foglia and Zimny took a stab at syncing the reel. “We had the set list, because it had been well documented by the fans, and we knew the film was shot in a linear fashion and that was about all we had to work with.” There was no sync pop or slate used during the filming of the concert, technical documentation was very limited, so the challenge was trying to figure out what songs were being played on the picture and then syncing the audio to it. Foglia’s background as a guitar player and Zimny’s familiarity with Springsteen’s music helped them to identify the songs. Foglia could observe the chord progressions being played and duplicate them on his guitar in the stu-
dio. “That first reel baffled Thom and I because we couldn’t get the audio to sync. The songs were ending before the picture was” recalls Foglia. He continues, “I came in the next morning, opened up all the tracks and heard the pilot tone. And it didn’t sound like 60Hz. Then it hit me that the crew was from the BBC, so they were shooting and recording in PAL, not at 24. We had that first reel retransferred and did the rest at 1080P 25fps.” Scott had the two-inch tapes resolved to the 50Hz pilot tone, did temp mixes and sent them back to Foglia. It took a couple of months of on and off sessions to get all of the picture and audio locked up correctly and relayed to the
new HD reel masters. After viewing Zimny’s cut, Springsteen gave the project the go ahead for DVD release. Audio was sent to Bob Clearmountain who returned the mixed music tracks in stereo and 5.1 to Foglia for assembly. Once Springsteen approved the mixes, the show was sent off to Ludwig for final mastering. Foglia concludes, “The biggest perk of this job is having the privilege to work on projects that have such a special meaning to an artist and their fans.” PBS aired a cut-down version and the complete concert is included in the Born to Run: 30th Anniversary DVD box set. Congratulations again for a job well done.
DVD original programming
Outrageous and Uncensored! by Aletha Rodgers, C.A.S. DVD Original Programming is a new category, and members of the Cinema Audio Society chose as the groundbreaker, Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin—The Untold Story with Rerecording Mixers Jim Fitzpatrick and Sam Black, C.A.S. and Original Dialogue Recording Dan Cubert. Laughter, outrageous and uncensored, this animated comedy seemed to affect everyone who saw it, and Black, the sound effects mixer, said sometimes during the mix they’d be laughing so hard they didn’t do what they were suppose to do. “I have to say, during the mix sometimes we had to stop and back up because we were laughing so hard that we could not perform our duties! It is like you are laughing so hard and so long, you back up and you forget what the heck you needed to back up for, you are so distracted by the comedy!” The way sound is approached in an animation film is a whole different mind-set, Fitzpatrick said. “With live action you try to place things very literally with perspective. If someone is far away, you play them like they sound far away, but with animation that is usually not what they want, because it is all about the joke. Someone may be moving away from you but they want you to keep it right up there in your face to make sure nobody misses that joke. That’s really the key thing with this.” Black said Family Guy was very much a writer’s type show. “The creator, Seth MacFarlane, takes that concept to the hilt. If there is someone talking, you don’t put anything else in there. That concept makes the show very stark and very different and is a writer’s dream. Basically for sound effects the rule is to play it big, play it loud, and then get out of the way because now we’re going to talk. In features or television you are always playing outside ambience. Not in Family Guy. If it does nothing for the story, we don’t want it. You don’t play everything you see.” Fitzpatrick added, “Generally the shows are busy and a little bit bombastic. It’s hit them over the head mixing. If there is some kind of action that requires a loud sound, the sounds are usually layered and very dense, and they want that stuff really punctuated, which is kind of typical of animation. When you see
Sam Black, C.A.S. and Jim Fitzpatrick display their awards for DVD Programming. Photo: WireImage
an establishing shot of the house or the outdoor scene in the park, there will only be backgrounds when there is no music. We’ll lightly play some birds in an outdoor scene, but on the interiors there is no background at all. The shows are all about the punctuation. Accenting the jokes, hearing the dialogue, making sure people get the jokes, then punctuating with the effects.” Black said, “A big challenge, for me, was to stay out of the way and to play it as big as they would like to hear it. Like punches and big sound effects; they want them bigger than we can play them. The editor, just for a simple punch, will deliver four or five different sound elements to me for that one punch. It is pretty much layered in and that way if they want it more beefy, we have an element to beef it up; if they want it more slappy, we have an element to slap it up.” Fitzpatrick said for him it was the scene right at the beginning. “The scene when they were all getting out of the limo for the premiere of the movie. There was a lot of music and voices and crowds and it was deceivingly intricate.” Seth MacFarlane is the executive producer and creator of the show. He is so tuned in to everything that is going on all at once. He is so aware of every little sound and so aware of lip sync. You wouldn’t think with animation that lip sync is a big deal, but it is. We go through a lot of pains to get mouth movements and lip movements and what is going on with the tongue inside the mouth to look like it is suppose to look. It does not look like a foreign movie that somebody has just dubbed English into. He has an eye for it, and we are always massaging the dialogue sync. Seth C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
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is the guy who is running the show and knows what he wants and is really good at communicating it to you. All the musical numbers you see in the show, he’s singing in all these character’s voices. He is a real rare genius type of guy and multifaceted. He is the voice of Stewie Griffin/Peter Griffin/Brian Griffin/Glen Quagmire/Tom Tucker, and additional voices. He has all these different voices and personalities, and most of the time you cannot tell it is the same person. One thing that is a little different with this show as compared to other animation, Fitzpatrick said, is that the music is a real live orchestra. “It’s between 45 and 55 pieces and it is recorded most of the time at the scoring stage at Fox. Armin Steiner, the scoring mixer, is one of the best and most experienced around. That is really a treat because it is something as a television mixer you don’t see very often. Most of the scores today are synthesized, but to have those real instruments for each and every show it is quite a treat.” Ron Jones and Walter Murphy are the composers. They generally alternate between episodes. Ron scored this DVD movie.” During the mix, Fitzpatrick said, “The movie was split up into three segments as ultimately it will become three separate segments on television. But when we dubbed it, we dubbed it in segments of approximately 25 minutes apiece. We would spend the first day just to get the mix down from beginning to end, and then we would make DVDs. The DVDs would go to Seth, he would preview them and give us handwritten notes on a script with arrows pointing to the lines he is commenting on. The effects and the music would also be noted on the same script. The next day we’d come in and apply those notes. Then
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Seth would come in for a playback and anything he’d want changed, we’d take care of it. That was our routine on the TV show and it was the same on the movie except once we had all three parts, formatted to the film we’d do another round of notes and playback, and notes again.” All of the processing to dialogue Fitzpatrick said he did in the Pro Tools. “I did that before it even hits the console, because the control I have with automation in Pro Tools is pretty much unsurpassed. Once I’ve automated every little thing going on in that dialogue when the client comes in, and I have to get back in and change it, it is easy for me because it’s right there. I do my reverbs inside the Pro Tools. It gives me a lot more time to do the fixes than trying to match into a sound, and because of the degree of automation, everything always matches.” Black said they mixed the show at Wilshire Stages in Studio C on the Harrison Series 12 Counsel with all of the source material playing off pro-tools. Fitzpatrick added, “One other thing we did differently was on the TV show we optimized it for the Dolby stereo lt/rt 2-track that will be played over broadcast. For the movie we optimized it for the 5.1 Dolby digital.” Fitzpatrick said, “Sitting with Sam and I on the mix, from beginning to end is the associate producer, Kim Fertman. She basically handles all the post-production aspects of the show. Bob Newland, the supervising sound editor from Technicolor, is there the whole time, as well as the music editor, Stan Jones. Bob and Stan have worked on Family Guy since the first season. Seth MacFarlane comes in on that second day after he’s given us the notes. I couldn’t do what I do without those people around me. We work together as a unit and it has become like a well-oiled machine.” •
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Richard Branca C.A.S. from Sony Pictures Studios reports… Kevin O’Connell and Greg Russell C.A.S. have just completed The Da Vinci Code in the Cary Grant Theatre for director Ron Howard. Jeff Haboush C.A.S. and Bill Benton C.A.S. are pre-dubbing Happy Madison’s Click in the Kim Novak Theatre. Gary Bourgeois C.A.S. and Greg Orloff C.A.S. are predubbing Fast Food Nation for director Richard Linklater in the Anthony Quinn Theatre. Rusty Smith C.A.S. and Bill Freesh are currently mixing HBO’s Deadwood as well as The Simpsons on Dub Stage 6. Deb Adair C.A.S. and Carlos DeLarios C.A.S. just finished mixing The Book of Daniel. Carlos is now working on the movie of the week Night Passage with Rusty Smith C.A.S. and Wayne Heitman C.A.S. On Dub Stage 11, Alan Decker C.A.S. and Larry Benjamin C.A.S. recently mixed Just Legal and are now working on Jerry Bruckheimer’s E-Ring and Close to Home. Wayne Heitman, Carlos DeLarios and John Boyd C.A.S. are mixing the movie of the week Death in Paradise. Wayne also joined John Boyd on Dub Stage 17 where they are mixing Medium. On Dub Stage 12, Nello Torri C.A.S. and Gary Alexander C.A.S. have completed their work on Arrested Development and are presently mixing Pepper Dennis and Las Vegas.
Steven Grothe C.A.S. is currently working on the Fox television show Bones with boom operator Eddie Casares and utility Greg Gardener. Darren Brisker C.A.S. recently completed 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino and is currently working on White Noise 2. Aloha from Susan MooreChong C.A.S. Back to work on Season 2 of The Closer with boom operators Steve Payne and Ken Beauchene.
Robert Anderson C.A.S. and boom man-person extraordinary Tom Caton have just finished 10 20
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Items or Less for director Brad Silberling and starring the delightful Morgan Freeman and the easy to look at Paz Vega. We will begin the fifth season of Monk on March 20 which will take us to the end of June. Life is good.
Philip Perkins C.A.S. has had a busy winter mixing Maquilopolis and Smitten for PBS, Beyond Conception for Discovery as well as serving as rerecording mixer and sound supervisor for the Discovery Channel series Art of the Athlete.
orchestra feed to air. Christmas season saw Remote Recording’s new White Truck, an all-digital facility, provide band mixes for the Live Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. That show is carried live every year on NBC. Thanks for including us in your journal, I always look forward to reading about everyone’s adventures.
Weber are mixing Lost at Buena Vista’s Room 6. David Yaffe C.A.S. is the production mixer on the show. At the end of this season a new ICON will be installed in Room 6. Frank and Scott are looking forward to this change in consoles.
2006 has seen Steve Weiss C.A.S. sitting in the mixer chair on Invasion at Warner Bros. (first and mostly second unit), several commercials and currently mixing the race car feature Redline with Mike Schmidt booming and Dean Thomas utility. The recent purchase of the yellow ’Vette with the vanity license plate “SOUNDSP” is the obvious manifestation of the on-going mid-life crises.
Scott Harber C.A.S. is finishing
Gavin Fernandes C.A.S. has just
the film Borat for 20th Century Fox starring Sacha Baron Cohen with Larry Charles directing. Pure craziness. Also doing various second unit work. Also a couple of docs, Walt & El Grupo about Disney’s venture into South American propaganda during WWII, another unnamed on Jim Morrison and the Doors from Dick Wolf.
finished the romantic comedy Duo at Technicolor before embarking on the action comedy Bon Cop, Bad Cop. After that he will begin a long-term arrangement with Modulations Productions.
Frank Morrone C.A.S. and Scott
Tim Cooney C.A.S. writes: After finishing Glass House 2 (the good mother) my boom man George Scott and cable man David Bernard and I went on to do Ascension Day.
David Hewitt C.A.S. and Remote Recording’s Silver Truck provided the audio recording for Jonathan Demme’s film of Neil Young performing Prairie Wind at the Ryman Theater (the original Grand ole Opry) in Nashville. Hewitt has also traveled to Australia again with producer Elliot Scheiner to record a DVD for Olivia Newton-John. Elliot and David recorded last year’s Eagles concert for DVD in Melbourne, Australia. The Silver Truck and crew have also worked on the Country Music Awards, held in NY this year. And of course our annual pilgrimage to the Academy Awards to provide the audio for the
Danny Michael C.A.S. adds: I finished Super Ex-Girlfriend at the end of January and started Music & Lyrics By on March 27. This is my second project with director Marc Lawrence. This show stars Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore who, as the title implies, will be singing in this Castle Rock movie. Take care to all. Paul Vik Marshall C.A.S. worked on the last segment of the feature The Music Within shot in the Philippines. His in-country boom operators were Ralf Subebe and Roher Cenisiro. Happy to be back in L.A., Paul continues to work commercials and 2nd unit episodics.
Richard Lightstone C.A.S with boom operator Pierre Tucat from Paris and Moroccan utility Nourdine Zaoui began shooting Home of the Brave. After three weeks in Ouarzazate, Morocco, re-creating the war in Iraq, the cast of Samuel L. Jackson, 50 Cent and Jessica Biel have returned stateside to complete
the Irwin Winkler-directed feature in Spokane, Wash. In Spokane my boom operator is Tom Taylor and utility is Chris Clifford.
M. Scott Blynder C.A.S. (Feb. & Mar. 2006), Reno 911!: Miami, video assist for HD in Miami, Los Angeles and Long Beach. Georgia Hilton C.A.S. writes: I just finished my third feature film picture edit, The Child Within. My team and I have also completed the sound design and 5.1 mix for the feature film as well. So now I’m a film editor and sound designer! Go figure. We also finished the new 5.1 DVD for Crash Test Dummies. Additionally, we’re just completing the 5.1 sound design and mix for the feature film Final Engagement. We’ve also composed and performed the score for the film Distressed, on top of re-mixing the feature. It’s been a busy winter. If you’re in town for the Tribeca Film Festival, drop by for a coffee.
Kenn Fuller C.A.S. and crew Tom Payne and Jaya Jayaraja on booms have finished Season 5 of Crossing Jordan, the
NBC pilot Heroes and are now hammering away on the ABC family cop drama Lincoln Heights. Thanks to everybody out there for a great ’05 and a greater ’06. Peace.
Gary D. Rogers C.A.S. and Dan Hiland C.A.S. are finishing up their seventh and final season of The West Wing, Season 5 of Smallville, and the first season of Supernatural. On May 15 they will start pre-dubs and finals on the feature film Strange Wilderness.
Ron Bochar C.A.S started off the year mixing along with Reilly Steele at Sound One in New York, Allen Coulter’s feature film debut Hollywoodland, a detective piece about the career and death of George Reeves, TV’s Superman in the late ’50s.
Steve Nelson C.A.S. accompanied by the stalwart Roger Stevenson and the proud papa-to-be (x2!) Frank Bradley have finished the first successful season of Ghost Whisperer (Touchstone/CBS). While we wait for Season 2, we’ll head over to DreamWorks’ Norbit.
Craig Woods C.A.S. adds: Well, it’s been pretty busy with the fifth season of Bernie Mac as well as my 10th year with Mark Jennings and Laura Rush. Many thanks. We’ve just finished the Danny Comden pilot for Warner Bros. and we are prepping another called Community Service. Hopefully, we’ll all be busy for the summer months.
Mark Ulano C.A.S. here. My team includes Tom Hartig, boom operator and Adam Blantz, utility sound technician. We just finished Rocky Balboa for Sony/Revolution filmed in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. We just began Disturbia for DreamWorks/Paramount, filming entirely here in Los Angeles. I recently taught a DGA seminar on sound with Chris Welch and Andy Koyama.
Michael Jordan C.A.S. will be finishing the mix for wildlife show Elk in America in 5.1 for Discovery Channel and Griffen Productions. This has been about two years in the making. I also finished up a West Coast production of a film called Iowa and made the SRD opticals here at Magno as well as prints at Lablink which is a division of Magno.
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Steve Morantz C.A.S. here. I’m working on Entourage (third season) for HBO. Booming for me are Aaron Wallace and Mitch Cohn. We also did a pilot for Comedy Central entitled Special Unit, as well as numerous commercials.
Lori Dovi C.A.S. just returned from two months of working and living in a Cistercian Monastery in Iowa, in the dead of winter. She was mixing sound for Tiger Aspect/UK on a five-part documentary series called The Monastery airing this fall. Anyone want to know about the Marantz PDM660 flash card recorder in -20 degrees?!
John Pritchett C.A.S. and boom operator David Roberts just finished World Trade Center for Oliver Stone and The Break-Up in Chicago last summer. They are now in Austin, Tex., working on Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grind House. They leave this summer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oil set in west Texas and California. Having finished The Da Vinci Code last November, in January Ivan Sharrock C.A.S. started work on Ed Zwick’s The Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly. After seven weeks on South Africa’s east coast, he is currently in Mozambique until the middle of May when the crew moves back to South Africa (Cape Town) for two weeks before finishing in London around June 10. Lon Bender is set to join as supervising sound editor.
7-Series.
Simply the best audio out there.
On his way back from a trade show in Las Vegas, associate member Dan Dugan made a quick visit to Joshua Tree National Park to do some natural soundscape recordings. He recorded water, frogs, rain, and high-altitude jets at dusk at the 49 Palms Oasis, and some very quiet sunrise ambiences at the Indian Cove Campground. Dan used the opportunity to try out his new Telinga EM23 mics in homemade shoulder-mounted domes. He was very pleased with how quiet they were. Joshua Tree National Park is interested in having recordists volunteer to document the park’s soundscapes.
Bruno Strapko C.A.S. spent last fall
[t hinking inside t he box]
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traveling around the world for a corporate image film, with stops in Sao Paolo, Beijing, Bangalore, Johannesburg, and Madrid. Recent spot work includes a Chicago radio outlet rock girl search and TV work includes a lengthy interview with
Harold Ramis for British television. Lots of industrials fill out the schedule. The Warner Bros. feature The Lake House (Il Mare), starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves is slated to be released in June, and the hit 20th Century Fox TV show Prison Break just wrapped 13 episodes, with another 13 scheduled for production beginning in June. Production sound mixer Scott D. Smith C.A.S., assisted by boom operator Jason Johnston and utility/boom Jim Gaudio, handled the sound chores for both productions. The second unit work was handled by production mixer Curt Frisk. All recording was done on Deva digital systems.
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Glenn Berkovitz C.A.S. and boom
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partner Mark Grech have been busy this spring, recording production for two TV pilots, and planning to return to their second season of Showtime’s Weeds. They dream of someday tending their own small farming plots in suburbia…
David Barr-Yaffe C.A.S. is still in Hawaii, this season mixing the second year of ABC’s hit show Lost with Dennis Fuller on the stix and John Mumper, their local hero, playing the part of the utility tech. Sean Rush C.A.S. is now over mixing the double up episodes with Kevin Compayre on boom. Aloha.
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Eric J. Batut C.A.S. will be mixing Are We Done Yet? for Revolution Pictures, directed by Steve Carr. The boom operator will be Kelly Zombor. Shooting June 5 till August. He is presently mixing Butterfly on a Wheel for Infinity Films, directed by Mike Barker. The boom operator is Kelly Zombor and sound assistant is Candice Tadesco. Ish Garcia C.A.S. adds: Let’s see ... there was a Michael Buble Caught in the Act DVD ... then the Las Vegas Comedy Festival ... then an Andrea Bocelli Under the Desert Stars in Lake Las Vegas DVD ... I worked the last two months of Mad TV ... plus I just got in from Boston where I worked on an HBO Dane Cook comedy special. Carl Rudisill C.A.S., Dan Giannattasio (Boom), and Mason Donnahoe (Second Boom/Sound Utility) just wrapped on the ABC Touchstone pilot Hollis and Rae, in Savannah, Ga. Carl will be mixing a feature called The Beautiful Ordinary during the next couple of months with Marshall McGee (Boom) and Jenny Elsinger (Second Boom/Sound Utility). C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
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Matt Foglia C.A.S. here. I would like ADR Foley Re-Recording Sound Supervision Sound Design and Editorial Scoring DVD Audio Mastering Archive
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to thank all of the Society’s members for my recent C.A.S. Award win for the Bruce Springsteen project. It is a true honor to be among such an astute group of artists. To have a project that I participated on be awarded with such prestigious recognition is one of the highlights of my career. I wish I had been dining on salmon and steak in California with you all instead of a slice of Famous Ben’s pizza with myself.
Roger Guerin C.A.S./M.P.S.E. worked mostly on french productions, La peau et les os II, a personal documentary on anorexia by Helene Bélanger-Martin, one of the original participants turned director. He simultaneously mixed the 5.1 music by Frederic Weber for the upcoming overwhelming insect documentary Termites, la tour infernal. Everyone seems to agree that it should be a great loudspeaker tester. After taking nearly two years hiatus from the sound biz to develop CrewMarket.com, the popular resume hosting website, Bob Wald C.A.S. is back in action, having sold the site to Below the Line. They plan to further develop the site, continuing to cater to the immediate needs of all crew personnel. Bob just completed mixing the tenth and final season of 7th Heaven thanks to Forrest Williams, who had to leave the show early for a pilot.
Paul J. Zahnley C.A.S. just wrapped the fourth episode of a new HD series for PBS. Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures is being mixed in 5.1 by rerecording mixer Paul J. Zahnley at Disher Music & Sound, San Francisco. The sixpart series is co-produced by KQED and Ocean Futures Society and is narrated by actor Pierce Brosnan. Paul recently mixed “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” for the PBS American Experience series.
Lee Orloff C.A.S. adds: We’re finally back from our drama, and more than a few yuks, on the high seas. Just over a year from the start of principal photography, Pirates of the Caribbean 2/3 have wrapped (for now). The second movie’s in the can, and it’s off to post and release it while the crew waits until August to return to finish what’s left of the third installment in town, more or less. In the meanwhile, I’ll 24
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be working locally with my crew, Blair Scheller (boom) and Mike Anderson (utility) on King of California for Michael London Productions and taking some serious family time before and after.
Edward L. Moskowitz C.A.S. has successfully completed Season 1 of CBS’s Criminal Minds with Todd Bassman and Pat Clark completing my season of Pinch Mixing. The Universal Studios Sound Department was out in full force during March and April to accommodate its clients. Chris Jenkins and Frank Montano were mixing Lucky You in the Alfred Hitchcock Theater, a Curtis Hanson film about an exceptional card player’s journey to the “World Series of Poker” in Las Vegas. In Studio Three, mixers Andy Koyama and Chris Carpenter were working on John Moore’s remake of the 1976 horror classic, The Omen and the new team of Gregg Landaker and Peter Reale has started You, Me and Dupree, a Universal Pictures release in Studio Six. Recordists for those dub stages are Tim Webb, Bill Meadows and Brion Paccassi, respectively. The award-winning team of Michael Olman C.A.S. and Kenneth Kobett C.A.S. continued with its 1-2 punch of 24 and Desperate Housewives in Studio B at Universal Sound’s BluWave, backed up by recordist Robert Carr C.A.S. BluWave’s team of John Cook, Peter Nusbaum and Whitney Purple kept America laughing with its mixes of a dozen different sitcoms and pilots in Studio A. In Universal Sound’s Studio Five, mixers Gerry Lentz C.A.S. and Richard Weingart, along with recordist Frank Fleming, lend their talents to the multiple-award-winning series House, M.D. and Crossing Jordan plus a two-hour pilot for NBC called Heroes from Tailwind Productions and Eureka for the SciFi Channel. Meanwhile, Studios One and Two maintain the Law & Order series. Staffed by mixers Roberta Doheny, Robert Edmondson C.A.S., Bill Nicholson, and Tom Meloeny C.A.S. and recordists Rico Coleman and Danny Mitchell, Universal’s Studios One and Two are responsible for Wolf Films Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Conviction, plus a wide variety of other projects ranging from Ghost Whisperer and Teachers to American Pie: Band Camp. The team of David Brolin and Todd Morrissey make those fabulous-sounding Universal trailers in Theatre One, while Michael Colomby C.A.S. creates a soundscape for Aurora Borealis in Studio Ten. • C.A.S. Q U A R T E R L Y
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THE LIGHTER SIDE
Gavin Fernandes, C.A.S. (lead mixer) flanked by Pierre Laroche (recordist) and Pierre Paquet (SFX mixer).
Richard Lightstone, C.A.S. in Ouarzazate, Morocco, on the set of Home of the Brave with (left) Moroccan utility Nourdine Zaoui, and (right) boom operator Pierre Tucat from Paris.
on On Locati
Bruno Strapko, C.A.S. with current Chicago radio outlet rock girl!
New Baby
From left to e Music Within. all, Th r fo , es in pp In Bataan, Phili (boom), Paul Vik Marsh be right: Ralf Sube (boom). Roher Cenisiro ), er ix (m S. A. C.
Congratulations to Steve Hawk, C.A.S. and his wife Sherri Gal on the arrival of Alexandra Rozalia Hawk on February 1, 2006.
C.A.S.’s Paul Marshall’s boom operator, Paul Morris, on Day 73 With Sarah was busted by Judge Gwen McGee for dipping into frame.
Glenn Berkovitz gives the traditional “tequila christening” to his newly built Production Recording.com sound cart. Shown with Glenn and his tequila are (L-R) David Waelder (designer) and Chinhda Khommarath (designer/fabricator/artist).
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