MIXING IT at dB Post

On the 8th February 2001, dB Post re-recording mixers Dave Humphries and Alan Sallabank played host to an AMPS Technical Evening devoted to strengthening communication and understanding between production sound mixers, and the mysterious people in post production sound.

After refreshing themselves with the generous tasty food and drink provided, the attending members assembled in a packed Theatre 4, to be welcomed by Dave and an introduction to dB Post and it’s facilities. He said they had been in business for seven years and now had a staff of 18 employed in sound editing and and post production sound recording for cinema movies, TV drama and documentaries.

The demonstration started by showing what could be done with location sound, how it could be cleaned up, and how they could match Foley and replacement dialogue where needed. It was shown exactly how bad a cutting copy could sound, and they displayed their techniques for removing background noises. A willing (?) AMPS member put his acting skills to the test by revoicing a man being whipped in the drama ‘Longitude’, much to the amusement of everyone else. The disturbing thing was, he sounded a little too convincing....

There was a long discussion about the worrying regularity with which wildtracks and location atmos and FX failed to get to the cutting room, and therefore to the sound editors. Various ideas for a database of recording sheets and location reports were put forward, and some good ideas forged in order to prevent sound rushes being lost.

The audience then split into two parties, half moving with Alan to Theatre 5, dB’s fully digital theatre with the AMS Neve Digital Film Console, while Dave Humphries continued with demonstrations of 5.1 surround mixing in Theatre 4 working with the TV drama Lorna Doone.

Downstairs, Alan demonstrated the problems encountered with productions that were using digital picture acquisition, such as Digi Beta. During the mixing of the ‘Teachers’ series for Channel 4, he had come across problems with unblimped cameras and grade-one TV monitors on set, as opposed to the normal video assists. 

Having shown the problems, Alan then demonstrated how a very powerful digital console, like the DFC was able to effectively remove unwanted noises without altering the original dialogue, so avoiding the necessity for ADR. This seemed to please the Production Mixers present!

All in all, it was a great evening, with a lot of useful communication being reintroduced between the production sound and post production departments, the positive side of which is already being seen to be put into action on new productions. 

As a little aside, one of the productions used as a demonstration went on to be nominated for Best Fiction Sound at BAFTA.