The Hurt Locker, MIB wins Oscars!!!

[cjguitar]

The Hurt Locker was mixed completely in the box (Pro Tools) with no large format consoles and big name mixers involved. In fact, it was all mixed in the smaller mix/sound design stages at Sony, none of the big rooms involved, except for maybe a playback.

I may be wrong, but I believe that this is the first film MIB that has won the Academy Award!!! That's an amazing accomplishment, and really says something about how far Pro Tools has really come up to this point.

There's still a lot of resistance in the industry against mixing in Pro Tools, but hopefully this will make it less of an issue for producers/directors considering doing a mix at dub stages that don't use million dollar consoles, and have a huge staff just to keep things running. What do you all think about this?

[infiniteloop]

I think it's a really, really good thing. But then, I don't make my living being one of the 20 people on a "big" film mix, i'm one of the little guys who do big sounding stuff on, shall we say, more "modest" budgets. In my thread "where's the oscar love?" I noted the lack of fuss about these oscars here - and it did emerge in that that a few people are a bit worried about future budgets, with a "tiny" mix like this having won the oscar. For sure, some producers are going to be asking Paul Ottosson if he can work that magic again for their picture, but only spend $300k. (I guess - I don't know!).

I might be wrong, but there's been some "stealth" big movies ITB winning - wasn't The Matrix essentially mixed in a very small room and then sent up a load of 6-wide paths in a DFC for the printmaster? I may be wrong! I know that a *lot* of Slumdog Millionaire was delivered from the edit in a "faders up" state too.

But you're right, this is the first ITB mix to be publicly acknowledged as such. Digi *ought* to be making a big fuss!

[Craig F]

the last episode of Star Wars was ITB
made a big point of it being done on an D-Con
sounded terrible

[dr sound]

Since I know all the guys who worked on it (including Chris Jacobson)
and since we did the Dolby PrintMaster of reels 1-5 at "The Dub Stage" I can tell you first hand it was a very nice mix.
Congratulations to Paul Ottosson and the whole Sound Team.
Also Congratulations to Bob Murawski and Chris Innis who were the Picture Editors on "The Hurt locker" who both won Oscars for their work.
They both work at "The Dub Stage " on their movies.

[dr sound]

Originally Posted by Craig F

the last episode of Star Wars was ITB
made a big point of it being done on an D-Con
sounded terrible

That had nothing to do with the console.
Let's leave it at that!

[Craig F]

Originally Posted by dr sound

That had nothing to do with the console.
Let's leave it at that!

Agreed on both points

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by dr sound

That had nothing to do with the console.
Let's leave it at that!

Exactly. I would say if a film sounds great it has very little to do with the fact on what gear it was mixed on.
It´s the skills of the people that make it sound great. If it had been mixed on a Mackie 1202 would everyone run to the stores and buy 1202 consoles? Heck, I´ve mixed a film on an analogue 16-channel Hughes&Kettner "console" with no automation at all. Was a pain but of course no one said after that "hey the end of harrisson has come, lets all buy that console, that guy mixed his last film on it" ;-)

[Kuba Pietrzak]

When I saw "Exorcism on Emily Rose" for the 1st time, I realized, that it is possible to do a great sounding mix inside the ProTools. And it is only about talent, skills and experience.

And as this was several years ago, I used this example as the strong point during discussion with my friends about the mix-in-the-box sound quality. This was not obvious for everybody at that time, that it is possible without DFC or other similar board.

The revolution in the mixing environment has begun, when PT|HD came out. I mixed for Tv using old PT III 16-voices hardware, d24 hardware and PT|Mix with many cards in chassis. The more tracks and plug-ins was used, the worse sound had become. Not to mention the 64-voices mixer, which was actually 32+32 with truncation.

So, comparing those Mix hardware with DFC for example was something really different, than comparing well configured HD7 with board like DFC or Euphonix.


regards,
Kuba

PS. When "The Hurt Locker" came out, there was no distributor, who was interested in bringing this movie into theaters here in Poland. So, as I know they sell rights for broadcast as well as the released DVD. Now, there are several copies to be done, and the movie is going to be shown in a few smaller theaters... Really sad, don't you think?

[Henchman]

One can get as good a mix ITB as you can on the million dollar large format consoles.
The stuff I do ITB sounds as good as the stuff I did on a Euphonix System 5.
In fact, I have done my best sounding stuff lately.

And personally, I prefer mixing ITB.
I can get more done in the same amount of time mixing ITB. Which basically means, a better mix for the same amount of money.
And when there are picture changes, they're much easier to deal with.

[1m1]

Originally Posted by infiniteloop

I might be wrong, but there's been some "stealth" big movies ITB winning - wasn't The Matrix essentially mixed in a very small room and then sent up a load of 6-wide paths in a DFC for the printmaster? I may be wrong!

The Matrix was mixed on a big stage at Warner Brothers, I think it was stage 5. One of the best sounding movies ever!