Film-Style Mixing Workflow

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Film-style mixing is such a complex and involved subject it deserves an entire book unto itself. With track counts as high as 450 channels at mixdown , understanding the workflow of a project of this magnitude can help you plan and execute smaller projects and even integrate your work into larger projects.

NOTE

HOW MANY TRACKS?

The film Black Hawk Down was reported to have used 450 tracks during the final dub, maxing out the Euphonix System 5 console on which it was being mixed. Now that's a big mix!

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring used 13 effects pre-mixes, three ambience pre-mixes, three foley pre-mixes, plus dialog pre-mixes. This does not include all the individual channels. Pre-mixes could be in LCR stereo up to 5.1 Surround. That's easily over 100 channels of pre- mixes alone!

Swordfish effects editor Joe Milner explains, "For example, as an editor, my 90 or so gun tracks on Swordfish were condensed into Travolta's gunshots, bad guys' gunshots, gun mechanisms, bullet metal hits, glass hits, and bullet-bys."

From Edit to Print Master

In a large, feature-film production, the original recordings go through the editorial process, where they are sliced and diced and placed in their proper positions in sync with picture. Each element in the soundtrackdialog, foley, ambiance, effects, and musicis considered a sound "unit." These units are brought to the dub stage in the form of Pro Tools sessions, Tascam DA-88s or MMR-8 multi-track recorders , or other forms of multi-track audio. More and more, Pro Tools is becoming the choice for source material on the dub stage, as it allows immediate editorial changes to take place at the discretion of the director or producer.

The re-recording mixers audition this material and determine if any pre-mixes are necessary to correct any problems in the recordings. Pre-mixes might also be necessary to consolidate tracks due to limitations of the film mixing console. With over a hundred available inputs on a film mixing console, the task of figuring out what tracks to combine and what tracks to leave separate in a pre-mix can take some time.

Once any pre-mixing has been completed, it is time for them the final dub. This is the stage where all creative mixing decisions occur. Any type of processingwhether EQ, dynamics, reverb, or other effectswill be applied at this time. Sounds will be panned in accordance with the picture. The routing of different sounds to different speaker channels takes place as well. For instance, dialog, 99 percent of the time, is routed solely to the center channel. Reverb and other effects applied to the dialog might find their way into the left and right or even surround speakers . Matching every subtle element to the screen takes an experienced and artistic ear.

Once the mixing process is completed, all the individual tracks and pre-dubs are routed to individual multi-track machines that will record mix stems . The term "stem" is a shortened slang for STE reo M aster. A stem is created for each facet of the sound track: dialog, foley, ambience, effects, and music. With the advent of surround sound, the stems are no longer just stereo but 5.1 Surround.

Typically, four 8-track recorders are used to capture the stems. Each stem can have a combination of the surround channels, individual channels for principle character dialog, and three-track stereo (LCR) for source music and foley. Figure 8.24 shows the process in a graphic manner. It can be likened to a funneling down of many tracks into more and more subgroups until final print masters are made.

Figure 8.24. A workflow diagram of the film mixing process as it is done today. It can start with hundreds of tracks that are condensed and funneled down to 32 tracks of stems and finally to print masters for each release format. The stem process facilitates alterations such as foreign language versions with little difficulty.

NOTE

FILM STYLE MIXING ISN'T JUST FOR FILMS ANYMORE: THE TV SERIES "24"

This type of mixing is not exclusively for film productions . The TV series 24 uses a film-style mix setup when dubbing the show at Enterprise Post in Burbank, California. The dub takes a day and half to complete. Emmy-nominated re-recording engineers Mike Olman and Ken Cobett handle the duties on a Neve Capricorn digital mixer with 202 channels. The sources are primarily from Pro Tools systems. With 111 source channels at final mix, they have their hands full. With Mike handling dialog and music, and Ken handling the effects mix, they print stems to four Tascam MMR-8 digital hard disk recorders. On Day 2, the producers come in and make notes for changes. The changes are made to the different stems and then the Neve is reconfigured for compositing stems to the final print masters.

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