Dialogue Editing

Premix Goals 313
the mixer into that extra mix pass rather than demand your rights as a
client. Get him on your side. Whatever you do, don’t “pull rank.” You
might win this battle, but with a disgruntled mixer you’ll most certainly
lose the war.
Getting the Most Out of the Mix and the Mixer
The rerecording mixer has the skill, experience, and (hopefully) taste that
your dialogue tracks need to make the fi lm work. He also runs a very complicated
room, without which you cannot fi nish your job. But mixers are
human like all of us and occasionally require a bit of maintenance.
Figure out right away how to get the most out of the mix and mixer. On one
hand, you represent the client, so you have power. On the other, the mixer
sits at the top of the audio postproduction food chain, far above the dialogue
editor, so you may experience some insecurity and intimidation. None of this
need be a problem if you keep two goals in mind: (1) fi nishing the dialogue
premix more or less on schedule and (2) getting what you want from it.
Don’t be too shy to say, “That was really great, but I know you have it in you
to do it better” or “It’s just not working. Let’s see what’s keeping this scene
from being what I thought it could be”—or words to that effect. You worked
hard on your dialogue and it’s your reputation that’s on the line. Push as hard
as you reasonably can and give in only when you’re convinced that the tracks
just don’t have it in them.
Still, there’ll be times when you feel the tracks aren’t getting the love and
attention they deserve, and that the mixer isn’t addressing all of the problems.
You have to deal with this, or you’ll never rest.
• Talk to the mixer. She’s probably more experienced than you, so her
opinion is valuable. Try to determine whether the problem is suffi ciently
solved for the premix stage. Find out whether the backgrounds,
effects, and therapeutic efforts of the fi nal mix can fi x the problem. If
not, go back and try again.
• Use charm to get the mixer to reexamine a troublesome section. If that
doesn’t work, come back to it later. A fresh view may be all it takes.
• Only under the most desperate of circumstances have your
supervising sound editor, or even the producer, talk to the mixer
or studio manager. Getting what you need from the tracks is
more important than being buddies with the mixer, but it can
take days to get the mix back on track once you’ve gone over
someone’s head.