Unsung Oscar Winners, "What The Hell Do Sound Mixers Do?"
Found this interesting article over at Digg (
http://digg.com/2015/what-is-sound-mixing). They are looking at the teams that record and mix the sound for the movies, the challenges they face, and how they are so often overlooked (which actually means they did a really good job).
I notice that there are lots of discussion here and elsewhere on mixing forums that when recording music there has been a trend to keep using more and more compression until the dynamics are completely gone. Yet in the movie business, dynamics are apparently everything:
"Semanick aims to produce sound mixes that are dynamic and "symphonic," featuring lulls and crescendos that play off one another, driving the story forward. For "movies that are roller-coaster rides," the sound mix should reflect that, using quiet stretches to emphasize the loud scenes — that is, dynamics — so that the scenes that are supposed to be noisy and exciting don’t have to injure anyone’s eardrums to make their point."
It use to be that music, especially folk music, was for story telling. Maybe that is one of the things that is lacking in today's music. No story, no need for dynamics, and stuff begins to sound the same. Tell a story and suddenly you have a need for dynamics, and now stuff doesn't sound the same anymore.
Anyway, interesting view of another form of sound mixing we tend not to have around here. Worth the time to read.