In the Trenches of TV Sound An Interview with Larson Sound's Tom Huth by Linda Dove Dialogue re-recording mixer Tom J. Huth, C.A.S. of Larson Sound Center in Burbank has worked on many of the most popular television programs of recent years, including well over 100 made-for-TV movies. Among his 11 Emmy Awards are the series "Frasier" and "Cheers," the TV movies One Against the Wind (Hallmark Hall of Fame) and Son of Morning Star (Part 2), and the Bette Midler special "Ol' Red Hair Is Back." Tom Huth at the mixing console. Linda Dove recently spoke with the industry veteran about the challenges of working on projects targeted for the small screen. When you get a new TV show, how do you ascertain who's in charge, who's the boss, who to listen to? Sometimes there might be a pretty strong director who calls the shots, but often it's the picture editor on a series. They're the most familiar with the product and often, in television, the director is busy on other projects so the picture editor takes on that responsibility. But that does change from show to show. Sometimes you might have a director who really is a hands-on type, and he'll take full control of the dub. On a TV movie, what we normally do is mix the first hour, and that usually takes about a day and a half, because movies are budgeted for 27 hours, or three days, to mix. So you figure by noontime on the second day we're pretty much through the first hour and then we'll play it back. We'll screen time-coded picture and all the producers will be here taking notes. We'll prioritize their notes and then go through the show and make changes for them. So everyone kind of has their say at that point. On a feature it often takes weeks to do that. It's amazing that you're supposed to mix the same amount of material in so much less time for TV. It's pretty much the same quality of work too. The networks screen a lot of these shows at a movie theater before they air on TV, and there's no hiding [the sound] at the nicer theaters. So you and the music and effects mixers have to really be in tune with each other? All three guys have to work as one because of the time constraints. And your sound editors have to be prepared as well. Even our recordists. We all need to be in tune with one another. We're often mixing the movie the way we kind of feel the producers would like it, and certainly the way we would like it, doing the little nuances and the treatments. Because everything requires treatments, you can't just bring the faders up and mix it. Just to be able to hear the dialogue properly you've got take noise out of it, you've got to put perspective on it, you've got to put in delays, you've got to put different room reverbs on it. The same thing goes for music. Foley requires different rooms and textures too. We're not only focused on the particular items that we're dealing with, but I'm also thinking about the total feeling of the music and effects, the Foley and all the elements. You also can kind of sense when a comment is coming from the backfield. You're paying attention to that too, trying to pick up on the wishes of the producer and the director. And when I say the recordist is involved, the producers may be asking for some specific new effect or another element to be rolled in and, if our recordist is on top of things, he's already got it up and ready to go. So that's the kind of unity that I think is required to get a sometimes very complex job done in 27 hours. With the use of digital technology, your whole pace of work is different. You don't hang reels any more so you don't even get those breaks. You have to say occasionally, during an act break or something, let's take five, 10 minutes here and just unwind a little bit. You kind of have to force yourself to do that. Most movies, because they're shot on location and not on soundstages, require a lot of fixing. There are a lot of replaced lines that weren't captured in production because of the ambient sound. But occasionally you do get those elements where everything seems to be perfect, and those are the wonderful times where you can really just mix, create those nuances and textures that you're hearing in features. Do you do the playback on smaller, television-type speakers? Yes, and some of the other stages here are also fitted so they can play a sitcom through the TV monitor. It's quite a challenge, isn't it, when you think about your audience, which consists of people with old TVs and others who are audiophiles? That's right. We used to playback on the smalls in mono. Mix in stereo and playback in mono, even mix surround and playback on mono. That's not going to give you great sound. When you only use one speaker you lose the nice stereo quality and, of course, when you're not playing it in surround you lose that nice room feeling. So now we're doing our playbacks on the smalls in stereo, because it does sound better. And we've got our scope up there to make sure that the stereo elements are in phase and that they're not going to cancel, which they would if you were listening to it in mono. So we're constantly checking. That sounds very different from what you have to be concerned with in features. In features you're mixing in a large theater and the ambient noise level is down - it's a lot lower than in most homes, where phones are ringing and there are fans and air conditioners and children and dogs. In the theater environment you can work more with the dynamics and hear them a lot better. But with the stereo and surround sound systems available in some of the home systems today, and with many people setting up theaters in their homes, the sound that you can get is incredible. It's really wonderful. With a ProLogic digital surround system and a nice sub woofer and center speaker, it's possible to have a better sounding theater at home than you'll find in some local theaters. Are producers expecting better sound these days? They want really good quality, and with the technologies available today there are a lot more possible tracks to work with. Mixing consoles are getting bigger and bigger and automation is required to handle the complexity, but we're constantly fighting the dollars, as well as the time element. But there's no less demand for a quality product. That's certainly there more than ever. Do you find sound editors over-building soundtracks? Because of the time restraints and the dollars today, I don't think you really can over-build. If anything, soundtracks might be under-built because of the time and the dollars involved. Occasionally, in very busy, active scenes, you might have some additional elements that may not have been required, but that's not normally the case. What do you feel about being part of the Editors Guild now? Combining all of the post-production groups was very beneficial. It brings more members together for one thing. From the newsletter and the professional atmosphere ... and meetings and seminars ... it seems to me to be focused on its membership and its direction.   Larson Sound Center has a limited supply of large 1999 scheduling Calendars available free to Guild members. Stop by or phone Vince Gutierrez or Burt Weinstein while supplies last: 4109 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505. (818) 845-4100   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 19, No. 6 - Nov/Dec 1998   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700