NEWS

41st Annual Cinema Audio Society Awards
by Kevin Lewis photos by John Sciulli/WireImage.com


Adam Jenkins.

All of the Cinema Audio Society Awards (CAS) prize-winning fictional films for 2004 are period films, two of which are biographies of Hollywood legends. The fourth was a concert film about an iconic legend, Carnegie Hall. The honored re-recording mixers were Tom Fleischman, CAS, for The Aviator, based on the life of Howard Hughes; Adams Jenkins and Rick Ash for the original cable movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers; William Freesh and Rusty Smith, CAS, for the cable series Deadwood, set in the Old West; and Ken Hahn, CAS, for Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2004.

Fleischman won his award in conjunction with Petur Hliddal, production sound editor. Because Fleischman is a licensed private pilot, and an aviation maven, The Aviator holds a special place in his credits. “One of the special things about this project was that I was able to participate in the recording of many of the airplane sounds that were used in the film,” Fleischman remarks. “I flew with Eugene Gearty, the sound effects supervisor, and a crew of sound recordists to the high desert north of Los Angeles to record sounds from a number of vintage aircraft for the film, including a B-25, a Beech-18, and two single-engine WWII fighter trainers. These sounds were later used in the final mix in all of the flying sequences in the film, including the flight of the Hercules.”

For Peter Sellers, Jenkins does the sound effects, foley and background, while Ash re-record mixes the dialogue and music. “It was a great film for us to work on because the director, Stephen Hopkins, is extremely conscious of sound,” Jenkins says. “We were working with an English crew [which was not an outsourced one but MPEG-driven]. It was nice to get a different perspective, and I think they learned a few things also.” Though post-production was originally scheduled to be done in London, it was done in the United States with Brits Tim Hands, supervising sound editor and Victoria Brashers, the dialogue and ADR supervisor imported to America.

Because HBO gave them a leisurely schedule, “We got to mix just about every scene every way possible, so we really got to discover the film,” Jenkins adds, meaning that they tried scenes with and without background noises, wiped cuts or startling noises. Because of this, “We had a confident mix because Stephen wanted to hear everything–all the time–and we weren’t scared to come up with new concepts,” he continues. “It was a collaborative effort between the picture and sound editors.


William Freesh, left, and Rusty Smith.

The sound of wagon wheels in dirt concerned the winners for the Western series Deadwood, another HBO show. Smith mixes the dialogue and the music. “There is not that much music in the show–a little bit of source music such as rinky-dink piano and occasional underscore–unlike a lot of shows that are very music intensive,” says Smith. The music is used as texture to underscore tension, according to the mixer. “During the first pass of the music, I never seem to grasp what the concept is,” he says, but on the second run, the strategy emerges for an organic whole. The composer gives Smith from four to seven stereo pairs on each underscore, and then Smith brings it to the 5.1 environment.

Freesh does the backgrounds and foley. “The music in the show doesn’t really dictate the emotion,” Freesh explains. “So consequentially, it’s all dialogue and atmosphere for the most part.” Capturing what he calls the “funky and muddy” aspects of the town, with large groups of people, chickens and horses in the shot, is his challenge. Freesh credits the foley crew, which create the sounds of wood floors, chair creaking and people slopping around in mud. He also singles out Ben Cook, supervising sound editor, Carmine Rubino, foley mixer, and his assistants, Amy Kane and Anita Cannella as worthy of recognition.

The other winner, Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2004, is not historical, but it will be in succeeding years, as a touchstone of the music world. Hahn admits that part of his job as re-recording mixer is to capture the excitement of a “live” musical event. To accomplish this goal, a certain amount of enhancement of the ambience and audience responses are necessary, but it can never take away from the the sound of the performer and orchestra. His sound artistry consists of balancing the two.

The significance of the CAS Award evoked different but similar reactions from the winners. The awards are given by working sound professionals in the film world. That the award is given by his peers means the most to Jenkins. “Having been nominated a number of times and not having won, I can see that it truly goes to things that are very well done. The people who are judging it, the people who nominate it, the people who are sitting around you when you win it are the people who are the most interested in what we do.”

This echoes Fleischman’s comments about non-partisanship. He cherishes the award as “one of the highest awards that I can possibly receive in my profession; and since I live and work in New York for the most part, it means even more coming from the sound community in Hollywood, because I have not worked closely with many of the CAS members over the years.” To Freesh, “All the mixers in town kind of giving you a nod is a nice feeling.” Hahn likes the fact that the CAS is comprised of not only professional in the field of sound, but active members who keep abreast of the changing technology.

Kevin Lewis is a contributing editor of International Documentary and has written for DGA Magazine and Film History.

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