Mixing the sound of the summer sequel
Author:
Colby RamseyPublish date:
Jul 19, 2018
Re-recording mixer Michael Minkler has been fortunate enough to mix some highly successful films over the years, from the musicality of Dreamgirls and Chicago to the grittiness of Black Hawk Down and Django Unchained.
Minkler was familiar with Mamma Mia! due to his work on the first film with the same production company. The main focus here was once again the music, which was recorded and produced by ABBA's Benny Andersson and his sound engineer Bernard L hr.
They worked for quite a long time in their own studio back in Stockholm and they both came out to LA for the mix, Minkler tells TVBEurope. Bernard was with us from day one and Benny came out on a couple of occasions for a week at a time. We worked out of Universal and the majority of it was mixed there, including the final mixes, but we also did some work up at Fortune Audio, because it was a favourite place of our producer Gary Goetzman.
Minkler says the main objective was to make sure they honoured the music really well. It was recorded in 5.1, and the film was mixed in 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby Atmos: With Benny's approval and Bernard's help we did the best we could with these phenomenal new recordings of these wonderful older songs, Minkler explains. We spent quite a long time on it but the studio gave us anything we wanted, and it took about 12 weeks before we reached the pre-mixing process and the final mix.
The dialogue work, which included a lot of ADR that was done for the sake of jokes, clarity, timing, accents etc, was very carefully done. Minkler and the sound team were granted an abundance of time and resources in order to improve the audio, so lots of attention to detail ended up going into the mix.
It was a process of doing minor tweaks along the way that resulted in a fantastic movie, says Minkler. They really nailed it.
Minkler's approach to sound design remains consistent: I will of course focus on one particular element depending on the movie, but my approach is always the same, he says. Having the time and freedom to do the job properly is important, and I appreciated that with this particular film.
It's full of comedy, romance, fun and a lot of heart. Benny allowed the entire team to build on that fun. It's not just one person singing a song; there's lots of people singing it and there's lots of funniness going on within the performances and the vocals. There's lots of ad-lib and you can just hear the fun in the singing which is very different from the original recordings.
Yet on a technical level, Minkler approaches every Dolby Atmos mix differently, because the software and tools are changing so rapidly.
There's always new ways of doing everything so it's always a new experience, he says. There's no real way to approach it up front so you just tackle it as you go along. The Dolby Atmos encoding has now become the standard for all immersive mixing so I think immersive sound is definitely here to stay. In Mamma Mia! it's relatively subtle; nothing is too overly dramatic with the music and sound effects in Atmos other than the storm sequence. It's all a matter of how you use it.
When you have multiple systems running in Pro Tools and all the other ancillary things that exist in the mixing stage, things can go haywire all day long, he adds. The more complex the mix, the more users, the more interfaces that are connected - the more dicey it gets. Technology is actually moving too fast to settle down and that's the challenge.
It's a thoroughly enjoyable film and is so much fun. I truly believe that the audience will have so much fun that they'll leave and feel depressed, Minkler laughs. They'll want to go back into the cinema and stay on this island, because the people there are just having such a wonderful time.
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
19/04/2024
Thank You for visiting us at NAB 2024!
Thank you for joining us at the ToolsOnAir booth during NAB Show 2024!
We were delighted to showcase our latest inno...
19/04/2024
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 18: (L-R) John Early and Theda Hammel attend the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Stress Positions premiere at Library Center Theatre on ...
19/04/2024
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
19/04/2024
Pictured: Midnight Family
By Stephanie Ornelas
A great way to get to know a city as culturally unique and rich as Mexico City is to listen to the stories tol...
19/04/2024
St. Louis, MO - April 18, 2024 - Studio Network Solutions (SNS) announced today that MOD won three prestigious industry awards at NAB Show 2024 held this week i...
19/04/2024
Spotify's mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the ...
19/04/2024
It's a beautiful day to be a Swiftie. Today, Taylor Swift dropped her 11th s...
19/04/2024
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 19, 2024 - The Board of Directors of L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.16 per common share, payab...
19/04/2024
PARIS Intel has announced that its plans for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 will include using artificial intelligence technology powered by Intel ...
19/04/2024
LAS VEGAS Technologists working on all aspects of the 8K media production chain offered an optimistic update at the 2024 NAB Show on the state of 8K in video pr...
19/04/2024
OpenDrives New Software-Defined Platform Atlas Wins 2024 NAB Show Product of the...
19/04/2024
Grass Valley Showcases Next-Generation T3 Series 4K/HD Digital Recording and Pla...
19/04/2024
NiTRo's M-CUBE Studio Levels Up Esports Productions with AJA Gear
Brie Clayton April 19, 2024
0 Comments
Esports' rapid rise to popularity can...
19/04/2024
Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve 19
Brie Clayton April 19, 2024
0 Comments
Major update adds new DaVinci Neural Engine AI tools, new color ...
19/04/2024
Sony Pictures Entertainment is reportedly in talks with Apollo Global Management to make a bid to acquire Paramount which itself is currently discussing a merge...
19/04/2024
Simon Wilkinson, head of VFX at 1185 films, talks about the technology behind the newly-released horror
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 19, 2024
Simo...
19/04/2024
The global electronics company is said to be considering joining forces with investment firm Apollo Management to bid for Paramount Global
By Jenny Priestley
...
19/04/2024
The report broke the economic footprint of EBU member sports broadcasting into three main areas
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 19, 2024
The report b...
19/04/2024
CBS Stations has launched CBS News California Investigates , with Julie Watts named regional CBS California correspondent. She will uncover and raise awarenes...
19/04/2024
MediaCo Holding, which owns radio stations WQHT (Hot 97) and WBLS in New York, said it acquired Estrella Media's Spanish-language video, audio and digital c...
19/04/2024
Netflix has ordered season five of fantasy drama The Witcher, which will be the final season. Production has recently begun on season four, and the two remainin...
19/04/2024
DirecTV Stream said it added eight more The CW affiliates to its lineup on Thursday....
19/04/2024
CBS has renewed Elsbeth for the 2024-2025 season. The drama, with Carrie Preston in the lead role, debuted February 29....
19/04/2024
With the Bears picking first, NBCUniversal Local's properties in Chicago plan extensive coverage of the NFL draft next week....
19/04/2024
PHILADELPHIA As government subsidies for broadband services come to an end, Comcast has launched NOW, a new product portfolio of lower-cost Internet, mobile and...
19/04/2024
DirecTV Stream has added more local CW stations for its streaming customers in Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Hartford-New Haven Conn., Phoenix, San ...
19/04/2024
NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES MediaCo Holding Inc. has announced that it has acquired all of Estrella Media's network, content, digital, and commercial operations....
19/04/2024
SAN JOSE, Calif. Adobe has announced that the all-new Adobe Express mobile app is available to all users, bringing features powered by Adobe Firefly generative ...
19/04/2024
LOS GATOS, Calif. Netflix reported another blockbuster quarter by adding 9.33 million new subscribers in Q1, 2024 as global paid memberships hit 269.6 million, ...
19/04/2024
The Current State of the Industry and the Future Impact of AI
Hillary Lewis April 18, 2024
0 Comments
The Entertainment Industry: How did we get here ...
19/04/2024
After Effects Tutorial Text Blur Reveal
Andy Ford April 18, 2024
0 Comments
Here's a way to do a quick blur reveal for your text layer. Start by...
19/04/2024
Hollyland Mars M1 Enhanced Wireless Transmitter / Receiver
Colin Smith April 18, 2024
0 Comments
This tutorial shows the new wireless transmitter rece...
19/04/2024
Resolve Fusion: Writing Expressions with Lua
Simon Ubsdell April 18, 2024
0 Comments
The answer to the very frequently-asked question: what is the pro...
19/04/2024
B+C and Next TV have announced the winners of Best of Show Awards for the 2024 NAB Show. The awards were judged by a panel of industry experts at the convention...
19/04/2024
Cate Blanchett narrates the Netflix series Our Living World, which premieres April 17. The four-part series looks at the extraordinary creatures around the glob...
19/04/2024
Apple TV Plus has a spinoff of For All Mankind in the works. It is called Star City and details the cosmonauts, engineers and intelligence officers working behi...
19/04/2024
Jacquie Walker, longtime anchor at WIVB Buffalo, will step down from the anchor desk. She has spent over 40 years at WIVB and her last day as an anchor is May 2...
19/04/2024
Bob Hearts Abishola will premiere in broadcast syndication this fall on such station groups as Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair, Hearst Television, Tegna, E.W. Scr...
19/04/2024
Live With Kelly and Mark remains TV's top entertainment talk show as Kelly Ripa and her co-host and husband Mark Consuelo celebrate their one-year anniversa...
19/04/2024
Sean McLaughlin has been named VP of news for Graham Media Group. He had been senior VP of local news at E.W. Scripps. He will will be responsible for developi...
19/04/2024
Netflix has shared the first trailer from One Hundred Years of Solitude, a series based on the esteemed novel by Gabriel Garc a M rquez. The streamer is on boar...
19/04/2024
NAB 2024 in Review: West Hall - SportsTech Buzz From AWS, Appear, Ateme, The Swi...
19/04/2024
NAB 2024 Draws 61,000+ Attendees With More Than Half Attending the Show for the ...
19/04/2024
Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI support European OTIC in Berlin for O-RAN conformance ...
19/04/2024
Wuppertal April 19, 2024
Riedel launches Bolero Connect for seamless integration with PunQtum A pioneer in the field of digital intercom, Riedel has recently ...
Mixing the sound of the summer sequel
