Luke Batiot
Chief Audio Engineer
Village Sound, Halifax
Steve Foster
Senior Re-Recording Mixer
Deluxe Toronto Ltd.
Eric Leclerc
Audio
Connections Productions, Halifax
Foster: As a platform, Dolby Atmos is being requested more often
as immersive soundtracks are making their mark in film and televi-
sion. I’ve just installed a 7.1.4 channel system in my home theatre
and find upmixing 5.1 programs to Atmos quite good.
Another platform we are using more frequently is the remote
mix playback. We’re able to stream high-quality picture and sound
– Atmos included – to locations around the world such as our De-
luxe Hollywood facility. We can make adjustments to the soundtrack
here in Toronto that the remote clients hear in real time.
As a product, iZotope RX has had a broad effect on what we
do, specifically for production dialogue noise reduction. It’s essen-
tially Photoshop for audio, displaying sound as a spectrogram and
allowing the user to reduce, replace, or remove frequencies. There
are also intelligent algorithms to deal with issues such as unwant-
ed background ambience, clothing rustle, and mic thumps.
Leclerc: Netflix. Everyone has access to killer content at a fraction
of the price [of cable] – $10-20 a month rather than $100 and no
ads. As audio people, whether it be mixers, sound designers, etc.,
we all have to come to terms with the fact that we are now dealing
with our peers and neighbours as consumers of our own product.
We’re in our neighbours’ living rooms, we’re in all of our neighbours’
bedrooms, and we’re coming off your laptops and smartphones. We
need to make sure our mixes sound good in all of those environ-
ments.
A lot more people are producing content because it’s easier to
produce and there are countless venues to make your ideas happen.
It’s a game with a wider audience and a wider critical base, and you
have to do much more just to stand out, so standing out becomes a
bit more of a challenge.
I welcome that challenge, and at the same time, I hope that
broadcasters and content producers continue to encourage that
challenge. I think Netflix and Crave and Amazon Prime have already
pushed the boundaries of what we call T V, and I think national
broadcasters are owning up to that decree and making choices to
match up nicely. I hope the rivalry continues and sparks more great
content.
Little: I think AAF integration with Pro Tools and the move to carry
as much metadata as possible out of Media Composer to Pro Tools is
the thing that has helped me the most. Exporting an AAF from Me-
dia Composer to Pro Tools and then using the field recorder work-
flow is really awesome. Then, being able to easily swap out any of
the other audio channels from the original recording is such a time
saver. I also love the updated Workspace and the tagging feature to
manage my sound effects library. Then, having enough power in a
single Mac Pro to mix a full feature is so cool. I am still doing all my
work on a Mac Pro 5,1 from 2010, although I am looking forward to
the new Mac Pro coming out later this year.
Morin: It’s not there yet but my guess is that 5G technology is go-
ing to be big in the recording business. Being able to drop down la-
tency to almost 0 ms will probably make collaborative work around
the world more common and hassle-free.
Sproule: This one’s a bit of a toss-up for me. There’s a lot of software
– plug-ins included – that deserves some recognition, but I’d have
to mention a couple of things that have been game-changers for us
in the last few years: iZotope RX7 is one, and it keeps getting better.
And for multi-track location recording, with the Sound Devices 970
offering up to 64-channel recording, you can iso-mic large casts and
really have creative mic placement in scenes.
PS: The trend of continually shrinking timelines for projects
has been ongoing for years. From your perspective, to what
degree is that still continuing, and how are you and your col-
leagues managing to adapt?
Batiot: Ah yes, the ever-shrinking timeline. That is something we’re
definitely seeing, and something that seems to be pretty wide-
spread across the multiple industries we work in. I think the best
way to handle the tight timeline is to be well-organized, from file
structure to task management, and to effectively manage your time
across multiple tasks. I’m always looking for ways to make each part
of my job as efficient as possible for such occasions.
Foster: Most producers respect the fact that it takes time to
get quality work. Communication with the client is key to help
them realize the full potential for their project and maintain their
post-production budget. Challenges in timelines still occur with
visual effects-heavy projects that require quite a bit of work before
the sound mix can be completed. Projects for streaming services
(OTT) where a season is released all at once feel a bit more relaxed
as we’re not chasing weekly air dates; often, a release date is still to
be announced while we’re working.
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