Daniel Pellerin is the Genie and Gemini Award winning director of mixing services at Deluxe Post Production Sound in Toronto. In this article he discusses the merit of mixing in 5.1 surround.

What is essential is not visible to the eye

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Working with filmmakers who allow and encourage their audio post-production teams to take creative risks and push for excellence is exhilarating for those participating in the process. An audience can sense the difference when experiencing the resulting work in a proper screening environment. It engages an audience on a level invisible to the eye.

The sound helps immerse the audience in the characters and visuals, which create the framework of the story. Certain elements need to be present in the soundtrack to give the piece proper emotional weight and atmospheric context. When the soundtrack makes the world the characters inhabit sound ‘real’ and successfully helps convey the intended meaning of the story, it has fulfilled its minimum requirement.

But there is more to mixing than just blending tones, adjusting frequencies and balancing levels. If you dig deeper and stretch the medium of sound to its outer limits, mixing becomes far more than just a necessary technical function. When the soundtrack invests deeper layers of meaning to the narrative or conveys unseen or unforeseen emotional content without being overt or obvious, the film benefits greatly. And the wonderful part is that the audience is never conscious of how this is happening.

The 5.1 surround audio format is a new tool that allows the filmmaker to infiltrate viewers’ minds by adding subtle (and not so subtle) layers of sound. It requires a vast sound field, separating left from right via a fixed centre screen, as well as front from rear, with the addition of a separate sub-harmonic speaker at the front. This facilitates much subtler alteration of sound qualities, creating precise but ‘invisible’ transformations. Sounds or additional layers can be moved much more naturally within a three-dimensional soundstage, even as the picture remains two-dimensional.

This added dimension in sound, when well designed and mixed, engages the audience on a deeper level. Higher resolution audio sounds better by its very nature, and a more detailed, properly executed track is more compelling to the viewer.

Digital technology has allowed us to discover better, more streamlined and more dependable ways of processing audio for post. The most obvious difference between mixing with traditional consoles and the new digital ones is that, with ease of operation, you can execute complex mixing ideas. If you can think it, you can achieve it. That said, people changing their minds and exercising their options – i.e. picture changes, additional and uncharted visual effects, structural changes in previously mixed sections of the project, etc. – are still factors in adding additional time and cost to a project. Technology facilitates these changes and helps keep costs down.

Minimizing downtime and accelerating efficiency were key to Deluxe in acquiring and installing this new technology. The positive effects were immediate and deeply felt throughout our organization.

Creative freedom

The movies we prepared for the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival brought home the fact that current digital technology allows mixers a level of creative freedom only imagined several years ago.

I have just experienced an incredible journey mixing Picture Claire with director Bruce McDonald for Serendipity Point Films and Alliance Atlantis. With Steve Munro’s Trackworks sound design team, John Sievert’s intricate and highly detailed foley work recorded by Peter Persaud, and Peter Kelly and Andrew Tay sharing mixing duties, we explored the expansive possibilities of 5.1 mixing at its most creative.

As McDonald relates it: ‘The most obvious advantage to this approach is how immediate it is in presenting the soundtrack’s multiple layers of choices and options to the filmmaker. It feels more efficient, allowing me the opportunity to unify the ideas in sound at earlier stages of the process. In turn, it made me more daring in expressing my thoughts during the course of the mix. The new technology rendered the interaction between [the audio team and myself] comfortable, and the process seemed effortless. It made me realize just how much sound in its purest form can tell you amazing things. It affects you on a level that visuals alone or dialogue, when it ‘over-explains’ the story, cannot. The sound actually leads you, even seduces you, into telling the story in more interesting ways, creating exciting possibilities for stronger connections between picture and audio.’

Earlier this year, we had the fortunate opportunity to reconnect with documentarian Peter Lynch on his study of modern technology, as seen through the mind of University of Toronto professor Steve Mann. The CBC production Cyberman presented an incredible chance to express daring audio ideas in the 5.1 format, with Allison Clarke, Elma Bello and Jane Crawford of One Dark Knight Sound Design providing the audio ammunition. Along with Keith Elliott and Tay, we mixed up a storm.

Lynch explains: ‘With the new technology, it feels like you can literally move the sound around with your mind during the mix. You can create much more responsively, allowing new energies and ideas to permeate the mixing experience and fuse onto the screen with immediate results. Ideas flow unimpeded among everyone involved in the process. [5.1] has opened up a new palette that allows you to move between form and content in a fluid, responsive way. The process of mixing becomes transparent.’

We were later graced with actress Sarah Polley’s latest directorial effort, the short I Shout Love, a passionate, bittersweet exploration of a couple’s breakup. We opted for a 5.1 mix and benefited from a wonderful sound design courtesy of David Rose, David McCallum and Ronayne Higginson of Tattersall Casablanca and foley artist Virginia Story. Mark Zsifkovits shared mixing duties.

‘It was amazing for me not to feel tied down by decisions I was making during the course of the process,’ Polley says. ‘It makes you try more daring ideas, giving you the freedom to experiment while you are making choices. Now, when I’m writing a script, this informs me on a whole other language that I can refer to, that I was not aware of before this experience.’

The challenge in the current post environment is to consistently provide a high-quality product without compromise – at a lower cost and with shorter schedules and less resources at hand. Mixing in 5.1 and working with such a diverse and dedicated group of talented individuals within our post community, we at Deluxe have come to appreciate the creative edge this new technology allows. We understand that what is essential is invisible to the eye.

-www.bydeluxe.com