We recently sat down with three recording mixers / audio engineers from the popular and historic ADR recording studio LA Studios and asked them to help our visitors understand what the job of a recording mixer or re-recording mixer is, as well as what it’s like to work recording and post-production audio:
Chris Cirino (CAS) (whose credits include Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, Bob’s Burgers, and Star Trek: Lower Decks), Bobby Garza (CAS) (who has lent his audio talents to movies such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Tangle and shows such as Gravity Falls, Common Side Effects, What We Do In The Shadows, and Big Mouth), and Carlos Sotolongo (CAS) (who’s recorded for all four Shrek movies, all the Despicable Me/Minions films, How To Train Your Dragon, Futurama, and more).
Q: What exactly is a recording mixer or a re-recording mixer? And how do you explain re-recording / audio engineering to your friends and family who don’t work in the film industry?
CHRIS CIRINO: I usually tell people that I work in a recording studio, and that I record dialogue for animated movies and TV shows in addition to recording ADR for live action series and films. They usually respond with a quizzical look and ask if we record bands as well (not really, but sometimes vocals for songs in the context of the show we’re working on). I like to maintain an aura of mystery around the work.
BOBBY GARZA: I try to keep it simple and say, “I record people talking,” and then if they’re more interested than that, then I’ll tell them more. I tell them I record actors talking for movies, video games, animation, radio commercials, and all sorts of other media.
CARLOS SOTOLONGO: I get asked a lot by my friends and my family what I do for a living and the answer is something different every day. That (variety) is actually my favorite part of the job. But I’d say that for the most part, my number one job is to help filmmakers record what they hear in their head. I record voices for animators to animate to, or I’m doing ADR for a live action movie, where the picture has already been cut, and I’m adding or subtracting from something that was already created on the set. And I’m trying to match the sound and create something that the filmmaker wanted to add or change a line reading for a movie.
Q: How did you become a recording mixer, and/or get into ADR and sound recording for motion pictures and television?
CIRINO: Like many people in our field, it began with music – playing in bands during high school and college. My best friend was in a band in high school and I became their roadie/sound guy just because I showed up at every practice. The first sound gear I was exposed to was a Shure Vocal Master 6 channel PA system. When their bass player left the band, I filled in. My first studio experience was some guy’s home studio set up in his mother’s attic. Super glamorous.
GARZA: I got into sound because I was really into music. I was not a great musician, but I wanted to be in the industry somehow. So I thought maybe I’ll work for a record label or something like that. So I got into it. Me and a friend actually started promoting bands and we went in not knowing what we were doing but we built a stage and bought all this audio gear. And from there I just learned on all this live audio gear. And then I started looking for audio jobs, mostly music recording studios, and I fell into a post-production company and started doing radio commercials.
SOTOLONGO: Well, I when I was a child, I always liked electronic stuff, tape recorders, microphones, that kind of thing. They really were my best friends. And as I grew up, I started getting a little more sophisticated at home with studio stuff and studio microphones. And then I played guitar and played in rock bands and that led me to a studio, actual professional studio environment. And from that point on, I fell in love with movies and helping make movies in an ADR recording studio.
Q: As a recording mixer, when you think of extraordinary film sound or sound recording, what comes to mind first?
CIRINO: For me, it wasn’t as much about film as TV. MTV. Getting to see my favorite bands in videos blew my mind. I knew that I wanted to be part of that.
GARZA: Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan. There are just so many examples of good sound in movies.
SOTOLONGO: The movies that I gravitate to and I go back to and watch the most are the Star Wars movies. The soundscape that they created will live on forever. Watching Star Wars as a kid and as a teenager and then as an adult, I was just transported to all those different locations and all those different stories by the sound, whether it was the sound of the fights or the settings, it transfixed me.
Q: How do you see your relationship with the creatives that you record?
CIRINO: I think of my job as a bridge between the creative and the technical, which means you have to be conversant in both. Trying to help the creatives get the performance they want from an artist, even if they can’t always articulate it, is probably one of my most important tasks. You want to make everyone comfortable in what they’re doing while still getting everything right technically. With some clients, when you work with them over many years and many projects, you develop a shorthand as far as communication, and you can anticipate what they will need, freeing them up to concentrate on their creative goal.
SOTOLONGO: My number-one job is to facilitate their vision sound-wise, whether it’s through technical things that I do or if it’s just a relationship with an actor or really any relationships with the director that I can sort of help guide.I have to have the room ready for anything that can occur. But just as important is the relationship with the directors, producers and the actors and I find my job is to try to not mitigate, but to help their situation that day in the room.
If there’s technically something they have a question with, I try to make it happen, whatever their idea is. Again, my job is to accommodate whatever the situation calls for. For example, if it’s something that the actor is not comfortable doing with, I have to make it comfortable. I’ve had actors in the past not wanting to stand in front of a microphone when they’re performing.They want to be able to move, to change, to look to the next person next to them. They want to look over to the side. They want to make it make a larger performance. So at that point, multiple, multiple microphones are needed and moving, positioning microphones are needed to capture whatever the actor wants to do.
GARZA: The clients often want to hear our thoughts, but we don’t ever jump in and say, “Oh, you should try this word or change the line like this.” But we tell them what sounds good and what doesn’t and make sure they get as close as possible to what they’re after.
Q: What about the recording mixer’s job and/or ADR in general do clients sometimes find difficult or surprising?
CIRINO: When you’re doing ADR, matching the tone of the scene is probably the most difficult thing to achieve, so you have to do what you can to make the actor forget that they’re inside a studio instead outside in the real world. Aside from that, I find that directing talent for live action is very different than directing for animation.
GARZA: Sometimes creatives are surprised at the amount of noise that gets boosted when talent whispers extremely quietly. They ask, “Why do I get all this noise when we boost it up?” And I have to tell them that if you’re if you’re whispering, that whisper has to be at a decent level, or else I have to bring it up, but in bringing it up, I’m also bringing up the noise floor as well.
SOTOLONGO: When we’re in a studio environment after the talent has been on location or on set, it can be a little challenging for them to get back into the mood of what they were shooting. And it’s my job to technically try to match an environment that was most of the time shot either inside and the other part of the world or outside.
Q: What is your favorite part about being a recording mixer?
CIRINO: This job is really fun – everyone asks “what’s it like to work with so and so celebrity?” and I have to tell them that almost all of them are great. It can be challenging, technical, creative and sometimes stressful, but there is nothing I’d rather do.
SOTOLONGO: My favorite part of my job is that it’s different. Every day I get to work with some of the best directors in the business, some of the best actors in the business, and we just have fun making movies.
GARZA: I like to create. So it can be creative sometimes but it can be just very technical, but I like that aspect too. I like thinking about how to make something work. And I like the diversity of projects we get to work on. Every day can be a little different.
Q: If you could impart just one thing to aspiring recording mixers, what would it be?
CIRINO: I would say you should learn how to read people and be able to get along with all types of people. A lot of students focus on what they need to know technically, which is important, but dealing with people is the top skill. You can always learn a new type of gear, but people skills are paramount.
GARZA: I would say that if you’re just starting out in audio and you want to get into recording, don’t come in as a know-it-all. You’ve got to learn how the facility runs, how we like to do things. You have to learn how other people like to work and be humble. You have to be someone that people are going to want to work with, and that’s more important than skills you have. But just getting along with people and being a good hang at the studio is I think probably more important.
SOTOLONGO: My number-one response when people ask me, how do I get in the business or how do I get into the business is, “Study film.” Listen. Listen to everything you can in a movie theater and then have the goal of helping filmmakers accomplish what they want.Sound is a big part of filmmaking, and whether it’s created on the set or whether it’s created in a studio or whether it’s in post-production, there’s a lot of room for your creativity, and sometimes I get to help with that stuff, and sometimes I don’t.
