Mixing it up on the set of 'Copper'

CNET by Steve Guttenberg August 26, 2012 8:06 AM PD

The Audiophiliac talks with Frank Morrone about mixing sound for BBC America's new show "Copper."

"Copper," the new BBC America crime drama, is set in NYC in 1864, while the Civil War was still raging. I was intrigued because the 10-part series was created by Tom Fontana, who did "Homicide: Life on the Street" and "Oz," and on a more personal level, my old friend Frank Morrone is a sound mixer for the show. We met in 1999 when I was writing a feature story on mixing sound for Ron Howard's film "Edtv," and more recently, Morrone shared some of his experiences about mixing sound for the "Lost" TV series. You might be surprised to learn that only a small portion of the sound on movies and TV shows is actually recorded when the film or video is shot; most of the sound is added in later stages of production. It's the job of the sound designers and mixers to make it all sound completely natural, as if there were no mix at all.

The biggest difference between mixing sound for movies and TV is time. A major Hollywood film like "Public Enemies" can take many months to mix, mostly because of the number of ongoing changes and reshoots involved. The "Lost" sound crew wrapped up each episode in four days, and now with "Copper," just two days. Morrone loved working on "Lost," but I can still hear the fatigue in his voice when he says that no TV show will ever be harder to mix. For the finale, the crew was dealing with 450 tracks, so everything he's worked on after that was easy. Feature film mixes progress at a relative snail's pace, but each film has an original sound design, and the level of sonic detail in a big-budget film is much higher than on a TV show. So yes, the best-sounding movies sound better than the best TV series.

All of the "Copper" sound elements are recorded in 48kHz/24-bit uncompressed audio. The use of surround channels and LFE/subwoofer tracks are pretty subtle on "Copper."

The primary mix for "Copper" is the 5.1 channel version for the HD broadcast, Blu-ray, and DVD releases; there's a separate stereo mix for standard-definition TV broadcasts and streaming. That mix has reduced soft-to-loud dynamic range, compared with the 5.1 version. The engineers monitor the sound on a professional JBL multichannel speaker system, with JBL 18-inch subwoofers in a studio at Deluxe Laboratories in Toronto. Morrone continues to mix feature films and other TV shows, including the upcoming ABC series, "Last Resort."

With period shows like "Copper," the mixers are trying to make everything sound authentic and natural. Morrone has to devote a lot of time to eliminating 21st-century sounds -- like the buzz of lighting systems or trucks whizzing by on the highway near the set -- from making their way onto the soundtrack. For "Copper," the only sound that's recorded live on the set is the actors' dialogue; the street sounds, gunshots, horses, and background sounds are all created after the fact by a team of sound designers and mixers. Morrone and the crew work with up to 60 dialogue tracks, 48 music tracks, and 212 sound effects tracks.

When I asked Frank about why there are so many dialogue tracks, he explained that in outdoor scenes with crowds and street vendors, each voice may be on a separate track. When the original dialogue recordings have too much noise or quality issues, the engineers rerecord the actors in a quiet studio, and those replacement bits wind up on separate tracks. Morrone later adds ambiance and "room sound" to the original and replacement dialogue tracks to give the illusion that each actor is in the appropriate acoustic setting you see on screen.

Award-Winning Sound Mixer Frank Morrone Uses Bag End Single 18 Subwoofer

May. 29, 2012, by PSW Staff

Frank Morrone’s studio is the high-quality professional recording space you would expect to see used by an award-winning recording mixer for film, television or sound mixing.

Designed by Anthony Grimani and tuned by Dolby, the space is equipped with only superior mixing equipment, from a Euphonix control surface and Pro Tools 10 with two HDX cards to AVID I/O and Westlake BBSM6s for 5.1 Dolby mixing.

And carrying the low end that Morrone insists is essential to great mixing is the Bag End Single 18-inch subwoofer.

“It’s a compact space,” he points out, “only 12 by 15 feet. There were a few little nodes that the low end I heard from other subs couldn’t fill, and I need that low end to be especially complete and tight. Only the Bag End was able to give me that.”

In a long and distinguished career, Morrone says he had tried as many as 20 subs, and until he heard the Bag Ends he was not impressed. When he did, it was a “Wow” moment. Now, when the composers and producers he works with who hear their work in the studio after a mix, like composer Amin Bhatia, often comment on the low end first.

“At first, I thought Bag End was doing something with the harmonics in the processor to get that sound quality,” he says, “but they told me, ‘No, you’re just hearing what’s there.’ “

The first project Morrone mixed using the new Bag End subwoofer was a 5.1 re-mix of Bhatia’s famous “Interstellar Suite,” originally created using only analog synthesizers, for its 25th anniversary release.

Emmy Winner Frank Morrone: "Pro Tools is the lifeblood of our industry."

AVID Buzz - Sep 23 2011, 07:05 AM by Mark Williams

Frank Morrone is a Los Angeles based dialog and music re-recording mixer who who has mixed high profile television and movies including LOST, Boss, Sleepy Hollow, Ransom and the Oscar winning When We Were Kings. Frank has been nominated for six Emmy awards and recently brought home his second, for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or Movie for his work on The Kennedys.


We had the opportunity to catch up with Frank and talk about his work on the project, and about how important Pro Tools has been to his workflow and to his professional development.


Congratulations on the recent Emmy! Can you share a few thoughts on what it feels like to be recognized at such a level for your work on The Kennedys?


It is very exciting to win for The Kennedys.  The competition was very strong, so you are on the edge of your seat waiting for the winner to be read.  I was thrilled when our names were called.  It was a project that I was very passionate about so it is very rewarding to be recognized with such a talented team.

You’ve witnessed a revolution in audio mixing during your career. How do you feel the technological developments have impacted your creativity?


I started editing music and dialog on 1/4" tape and never take for granted the advances in technology.  It has allowed me and my teams to meet tighter scheduling requirements while dealing with larger track counts than we would ever have imagined possible before.  Pro Tools is a huge part of our process.  It has allowed us to work faster and more efficiently while delivering quality 5.1 mixes in a fraction of the time that it would have taken before.   Pro Tools lets us keep the creative momentum going and is the lifeblood of our industry.  
 
Can you describe the workflow you used while working on The Kennedys?


I mixed The Kennedys on a Control 24. Dialog and Music were on one Pro Tools system while backgrounds, effects and foley were on a second system. I did the premixes within Pro Tools and printed stems and print mastered to a third system. I used several plug-ins during my mixing process.  I used the Massenburg EQ on all my dialog and music elements.  The narrative on the archival footage was all redone except for Walter Cronkite so I used McDSP Futzbox to simulate that very distinct sound of the Movietone news reels. I also used the McDSP ML4000 multi band compressor limiter on my dial chain and the Izotope RX Advanced to clean the dial. Revibe and Altiverb were also used for the music and dialogue.

Can you talk about how cloud-based solutions made their way into your day-to-day workflow?

I've been using cloud based systems to get my elements and updates since mixing LOST.  On that project, all our source material and updates were coming from editors off the Disney lot.  On the project I'm working on currently,  we use a cloud to get locked picture for review before sessions.  I am also currently using it on a feature film I'm mixing to stream all picture updates as they are available and give feedback to the editors.

What project are you currently working on?

Currently working on a new drama series called BOSS with Kelsey Grammer.  Kelsey is the lead and executive producer on the show. Gus Van Sant directed the pilot and is overseeing the mixes.  I really like the show and the cast and scripts are excellent.

Many thanks to Frank for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk with us. Check out www.frankmorrrone.com to learn more about him and his incredible career. We wish him continued success!

We'd always end up back on the MK's!

http://mkloudspeakers.com - 25/11/2011

In detailing the accomplishments of independent re-recording mixer Frank Morrone, we could probably fill this article with just a list of his major film, television and music credits and awards, including his 2011 Emmy for Outstanding Sound Mixing on the popular and controversial mini-series, The Kennedys.

Other television projects include Lost, Boss, The L Word and Sex and the City. He has worked with directors Sydney Lumet, Gus Van Sant, J.J. Abrams, Jim Henson, Ron Howard, Tim Burton, Taylor Hackford, John Singleton, Janusz Kaminski and Lasse Hallstrom on projects including Ransom, Shaft, Lost Souls, Cider House Rules and the Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings. He also mixed the Jonas Brothers’ Camp Rock, earning a platinum album for the soundtrack.

Frank’s award-winning body of work also includes an Emmy for the worldwide cult hit series Lost and a Best Sound Satellite Award for Tim Burton’s film Sleepy Hollow, as well as four additional Emmy nominations and multiple CAS, Golden Reel and Gemini nominations.

Frank Morrone is pleased to note a growing appreciation of sound among film makers, “For directors like Ron Howard and Tim Burton, sound is 50% of the entire film. I’ve been very lucky that way. Budgets may be getting tighter, but there is still awareness of the importance of sound.”

Frank’s own personal journey in audio began as a musician.“I’ve been a drummer for so long, I don’t even remember when I started playing as a kid. I was in a lot of bands. I got into sound when I was working in a music store and one day the owner couldn’t pay me. Instead, he gave me a Teac four-track recorder and that’s what started me off in my career.”

“I absolutely loved it and couldn’t stop. I still have that recorder because of its sentimental value and I still keep it in my studio beside me. It was the first piece of equipment I ever owned.”

After earning a degree in electronic engineering, Frank honed his craft under the mentorship and tutelage of experienced recording professionals.

“Back then, we really didn’t have the academic training available that they do now. There are so many good schools now. I do lectures for AVID and I get to see what some of the courses are all about and what they encompass.”

“When I got into it, the only way you could get in was through apprenticing and mentorship.”

Frank began his career mixing music for film scores as well as jazz, rock and country albums. From there, he moved to film and television post production. In 1995, he joined Todd AO in New York. While in New York, he also did some lecturing for New York University Film School. He moved to Los Angeles in 2004 to work on Lost, and has since mixed several projects for Disney as well as freelance projects for other studios.

Looking back on his time in the industry, Frank sees one major game-changer: “Digital has made a huge difference. Without it, we couldn’t do the work we do today with the schedules and the budgets that are dictated. Our track counts keep getting bigger all the time. And in television now, we’re expected to deliver a 5.1 mix that is just as good as any feature film in a fraction of the time, usually three days. We just couldn’t do that without digital.”

Frank Morrone’s most widely known work was an innovative six-year run on the television series, Lost, a unique J.J. Abrams concept that combined edgy human drama with off-the-wall science fiction.

Unlike most conventional TV fare where background music consists of the same recycled cues week after week, an original score was composed by Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Mission Impossible) for every episode of Lost and recorded with a 40 piece orchestra. For a typical episode, there could be 60 dialogue tracks; 12 music tracks and 140 or more effects tracks.

Frank explains enthusiastically, “I’ve been very fortunate in that almost everybody that I have worked with professionally, most notably the people behind Lost, executive producer Bryan Burk and J.J. Abrams, are so into sound that they would participate tremendously in getting the final sound of the show. We also had a very talented team of editors that provided us with great material to mix. They delivered exceptional tracks every show.”

Lost was shot on location in Hawaii, but editing and mixing took place at Disney’s Buena Vista Sound in Burbank, California.

“I first encountered MK Sound at Disney. All of their DVD authoring rooms and all of their near-field set-ups are MK S150’s. So my first exposure to them was more than six years ago when we started on Lost. We had a free hand in choosing our monitors. Disney was willing to let us use anything that we felt comfortable with, so we did a lot of testing with a lot of reference material that I knew very well.”

“With the MK’s, it doesn’t matter what you put through them, whether it’s classical music, a big score, dialogue or sound effects. Listeners are blown away. They just can’t believe what we’re putting these speakers through and they handle it beautifully.”

“And the subwoofers - Before discovering MK, I had a subwoofer that really did seem to work, except when you got into higher SPL levels. It couldn’t handle the really low bottom end, so I started looking at various other options. Working at Disney, I heard the MK’s and it was a no-brainer. I was really, really impressed. The subs are just fantastic.”

“Once the popularity of Lost was apparent, we had a lot of manufacturers approaching us and dropping speakers off for us to audition. We’d listen to a lot of other speakers, but we’d always end up back on the MK’s. They translate very well to the broadcast side of things and to the DVD side as well. They can handle an incredible amount of level and have a wide dynamic range.”

“A lot of it has to do with what you’re hearing in the midrange. In film and television, you really want a high level of accuracy especially there, because you’re dealing with dialogue and ADR.”

“When you’re working in television, your work gets broadcast just days after you’vedone it. It’s vital to have accurate reference monitors for both on-air broadcasts and DVDs. The MK’s always delivered the most reliable reference for us.”

Frank Morrone just finished the pilot for yet another J.J. Abrams project, the new TV drama Alcatraz, shot on location at the shuttered penitentiary. The sound team spent nights there capturing the haunting atmosphere of the historic prison in the San Francisco Bay to be put to dramatic use as the series unfolds. He is currently working with Gus Van Sant on Boss.

Despite his increasingly busy schedule, Frank Morrone takes the time to stay active in industry organizations, as well as contributing to the education of future generations.

“I am very fortunate to be in an industry that I love and enjoy and I feel that giving back to the community is very important. I always give as much of my time as I can.” Frank currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Cinema Audio Society and is also vice-president of the Motion Picture Sound Editors and a sound governor for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Every year, I do a lecture tour for AVID, talking about workflow at film and technical schools all over the country, mainly because I wish I had had those avenues open to me when I was learning. It gives you valuable insight into how professionals work.”

“This is the least that I can do for an industry that has given me so much.”

Stories From A Pro:  Frank Morrone on RX 2

Vikki Kane, iZotope Artist Relations

When I made plans for a lunch with Emmy Award-winning sound mixer Frank Morrone, I was in for quite a surprise with where the afternoon would take us. Our lunch in Hollywood quickly led to a tour of his sound stage in Burbank and a private sneak peek into the place of TV commercial legend: The Disney Vault.

Talking about audio over lunch, I asked Frank to give me a background on his musical tastes, specifically what sparked his love interest with sound. He explained that audio wasn't what drew him into his line of work, but rather his love for recording, with a TEAC 3340 four track serving as his first object of infatuation.

"I was working at a music store and one week the owner couldn't pay me—I took the 4-track and we called things even. I still have it to this day."

Frank has come a long way from that four track recorder, having worked with directors the likes of Ron Howard, Tim Burton, John Singleton, Janusz Kaminski, and Lasse Hallstrom on projects like Ransom, Sleepy Hollow, Shaft, Lost Souls, Cider House Rules, and When We Were Kings. Frank also recently signed on as re-recording mixer for yet another project with J.J. Abrams, the new FOX TV drama Alcatraz. In typical JJ Abrams fashion, the first season was shot on location at the actual jail, with special attention to detail in capturing the eeriness of the space. Frank wanted to make sure the sound team did exactly the same: "We went there at night and recorded everything: the jail doors, the ambiance of the space, the reverb of the solitary cell, the exterior of the jail on the water... We got it all."

Translating those recordings into goose bumps for the viewers is definitely not an easy task, especially when JJ Abrams only gives you three days to do it. Once the material is delivered, Frank and his mixing partner are expected to churn out a movie-quality mix for printing within 72 hours. There's dialogue to clean up, reverb to add, fan noise to remove and that's just the beginning. Frank's go-to tool to get the job done: iZotope RX. Frank has been using RX for years on many successful projects like LOST to make sure the soundscape is just right.

"RX is an invaluable tool that I use on every single session I do. If a studio doesn't have it, I make sure it gets installed before the session starts. It is one of those plug-ins that has become a standard in post-production."

Whether he's working on the mini-series The Kennedys, or Kelsey Grammer's new TV show Boss, Frank has favorite modules in RX that he works with most often. When cleaning up audio, his go-to module is the Denoiser, followed by Spectral Repair, Declipper and Declicker. For example, Frank has found that he can actually eliminate ADR and save the production sound on scenes because of Spectral Repair. On Boss, the lav mics picked up a lot of static, but the De-clicker and De-crackle worked really well to clean them up.

As we made the short trip to his soundstage in Burbank, we were soon surrounded by some impressive sound toys. With the number of tracks that each episode requires, Frank keeps each element of the soundtrack separate. Of the seven Pro Tools systems he uses, six are for playback of Dialogue, ADR (automated dialogue replacement), Music, Hard Effects, Backgrounds and Foley, respectively. The seventh system is used as a stem recorder. The two main Pro Tools playback systems are HD5's, while the other five are HD3's . He uses a Soundmaster ION for PEC/Direct monitoring and to sync all seven systems, as well as a two position ICON with 36 faders on one side and 16 on the other. Finally, for screening the video, he uses Virtual VTR for HD picture.

As we were walking through the entryway to get to the studio, a vintage photo of a sound effects artist climbing a ladder happened to catch my eye. He was perched upside a wall with tons of tiny boxes, each labeled with different objects: a saw, metal sticks, marbles, etc. Mentioning the changes in sound editing technologies since that photo to Frank, he remarked:

"Nowadays, we have better tools, but the better the tools get, the shorter the schedules get and the smaller the budgets get. Workflow is everything."

It was clear that everything in Frank's studio has a purpose, and a good one at that, for being there. If something isn't up to snuff, it gets replaced quickly with a better alternative. Having RX be such an integral part of Frank's workflow is a proud milestone for us. Having RX stay in Frank's workflow makes us even prouder.

As we finished up at the studio, Frank mentioned that the "Disney Archives" were right around the corner, but my ears immediately heard the "Disney Vault." A vault it was: rows upon stacks of film canisters and the faint smell of acetate rushed out as the door opened. Everything from Steamboat Willie to Snow White to Dumbo... it was all there and in its original form. As we walked out of the vault and back to my car, Frank pointed out another vintage photo picturing a two sound guys in front of a "board" during a movie screening. He noted:

"This one is my favorite. These guys are working sound at a screening and each of them only has one knob. Those were the days."

HT Talks To . . . Lost's Sound Crew

By Steve Guttenberg • Posted: Mar 9, 2007

Scott Weber, Tom de Gorter, and Frank Morrone talk with HT about mixing ABC TV's Hit series, Lost.

ABC TV's Lost is a phenomenon recalling the best of The X-Files or Twin Peaks' mind-warping weirdness as it slips between edgy drama and scintillating sci-fi. The show's creators, J.J. Abrams (Alias) and Damon Lindelof (Crossing Jordan), set Lost on a mysterious tropical island in the Pacific Ocean, populated it with an ever-expanding cast of survivors, and pepper the episodes with flashback scenes that add depth and complexity to the show's epic story arc. The episodes are shot on location in Hawaii, but they're edited and mixed at Buena Vista Sound at Disney Studios in Burbank, California. To learn more about how Lost's incredible soundtrack shapes up every week, I spoke with the show's supervising sound editor Tom de Gorter and rerecording mixers Frank Morrone and Scott Weber. Lost is currently in its third season; seasons one and two are available on DVD from Buena Vista.

I'm a bit of a movie snob and rarely watch network TV, but Lost hooked me from the first episode.

TdG: The producers want this show to be different from everything else on the air. They want people to argue about the show around the water cooler the next day and wonder about what's going on.

SW: The writers play off of some of the things people are talking about on the message boards and put them in their story lines.


A feedback loop between the show and its fans—that's so cool. Your sound mix is the very last stage of production; how long after you're finished does the show air?

TdG: On this last show, we were mixing 16-hour days for four days, and the episode we finish on Monday airs on Wednesday. Our challenge on a week-to-week basis is to mix the show in a fraction of the time we would get to do a feature film and still achieve the same detail in sound.

Lost is also unusual in that it's not shot within the controlled environment of a soundstage. How much of the dialogue recorded on location is usable?

FM: We try to use as much as possible to maintain the feel of the original performance. But there are all sorts of on-location problems—they might be running a noisy rain machine on the set, and the mikes are cutting out. In those instances, we'll have the actors replace their original dialogue, rerecording it in a studio.

So, when Sawyer and Kate do, say, a beach scene, and the pounding surf obscures their lines...

FM: They have to go into a studio, look at a monitor, and re-create the same performance they did on the set. Then I have to match the studio sound to the location recording's sound.

How do you do that?

FM: I just keep going back and forth, comparing one to the other, matching the original's sound, getting closer and closer to a seamless match. The editors also provide me with a sample of the original background sound—the surf, in this example—which I mix in with the new dialogue to match it with the original.

You make the quiet studio dialogue sound exactly like the dialogue recorded on the beach or wherever. that's amazing. What about the original sound of the surf and jungle scenes?

TdG: It depends. We might get lucky and use the location recording, but it's usually a combination of that and sound that we design and create.

That reminds me—what's up with the Smoke Monster? That thing looks like an angry black tornado and sounds, well, Weird.

SW: Since there's nothing in our sound-effects library called "Smoke Monster," we had to create it from scratch. The producers weren't looking for a Jurassic dinosaur effect—they wanted some type of mechanical element with an organic quality. The challenge for the sound designers was to make it neither or both. It's also a work in progress. Each time we use the sound, we add something to it, so the monster's sound continues to evolve. There are hidden messages in its sound.

Wow, I'll have to listen more closely. and do the sound designers create the less fantastical stuff?

TdG: Sure, the doors in the hatch [an underground bunker] are an example of that. They're actually made of wood, but, to make them sound metallic, big, and heavy, our sound designers might use five or six elements: metallic impacts, creaks, a latch, and maybe a heavy boom. It's the combination of those elements that make up the sound of the doors. The hatch also has an electromagnetic buzz happening all the time, and the computer room has retro-sounding Apple IIe computers. One of our techno geeks had some of these computers, so we fired them up and recorded them.

The scenes with rain always sound amazing.

SW: When it's raining, the sound changes all the time.

It gets lighter and heavier; it moves with the wind. The sound we use involves several layers of effects with specific elements—rain hitting the leaves, the actors' clothing, and other things. [Producer] Ra'uf Glasgow is very adamant about getting the details right. Rain can very easily turn into a mush of noise.

Mixing is a finely tuned balancing act—it's all about aligning the various elements to sound natural.

TdG: We have to make choices about what's going to play and what's not. On a beach scene, for instance, the surf might be so loud, we have to back off of the effects to let the dialogue come through. Or, if the scene has music, we have to leave room for it and back up on other things. Then we listen to everything together—sound effects, music, and dialogue—because they sometimes compete with each other. The producers might even decide to pull the music out if it's ruining the moment for the sound effects, or we might have to pull back on the sound effects for a musical moment.


Composer Michael Giacchino's score is incredibly cinematic.

FM: Most network shows do a few scoring sessions and then library the cues and reuse them every week. Lost has an original score every week, recorded with an orchestra. They're all live sessions with, I think, 40 string players.

So, There are No synths—it's all real string players. No wonder it sounds so good. how many tracks are you mixing?

FM: There are 60 dialogue tracks; 12 tracks are for music, and the 140 or more effects tracks can run the total to over 200. We use the Digidesign Pro Tools editing system; that allows us to handle even more virtual tracks.

What sort of speakers are you listening through when you make all of these mixing decisions? Some Home Theater readers might want to duplicate your system so they can hear exactly what you heard when you did the mix.

FM: We have a big JBL THX theatrical monitoring system in our studio, but, for the most part, we use a home theater–type 5.1 system with THX-approved M&K MPS-150 speakers and the MPS-350 subwoofer. It's the same system Skywalker, Sony, Warner, and, of course, Disney use. We monitor our stereo mix on Genelec 1029A speakers.

Do you guys have any inside dope about where Lost is headed?

TdG: They do give us advance knowledge on certain story lines we need to know about, but we can't talk about them. I will say there are sound effects in some episodes that provide clues about stuff that will be revealed later on. You could call them Easter eggs for very careful listeners.

Last question: Do you have a favorite episode?

TdG: The episode ["One of Them"] from season two when Sayid was in Iraq was a lot of fun to mix. There's a lot going on in the surrounds, and there are explosions in the subwoofer. The pilot has always been a favorite of mine, and we spent the most time mixing that one. Scott and Frank were nominated for Emmys both years; I was nominated the first year. We won awards from the Motion Picture Sound Editors guild for the pilot episode. It's great to be recognized by our peers, and that's very gratifying for us.

In Search of the “Lost” ICON

By Michael Kunkes

On August 4, a standing-room-only group of TV sound professionals crowded onto Disney’s Victory Stage 6 in Burbank to view a practical demonstration of the power of Digidesign’s ICON Integrated Console System by re-recording mixers Scott Weber and Frank Morrone, CAS, who together produce the acoustically complex mix for ABC’s hit series Lost, now finishing its fourth season. The event, presented jointly by Digidesign and the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE), proved such an enthusiastic success that Morrone and Weber repeated the presentation for three straight evenings.

Morrone and Weber just received their third Emmy nomination for Lost and have been mixing the show on Stage 6 since the first episode in 2004. After finishing seasons one and two on a Neve Logic 2 console, they acquired the dual ICON console in time for season three. The two linked systems each have 72 channels of I/O, necessary for feeding 24 channels from each system into the 48-channel ProTools recorder. There are also four additional edit playback and auxiliary input systems, with up to 32 additional channels, and a Soundmaster ION system is used to synchronize four ProTools/HD Accel rigs, ProTools recorder and both mix systems––a total of seven systems. The room also features three stations for music, dialogue or sound editors, any of whom can access any of the ProTools machines or the ProTools recorder via a KVM switcher, do any needed editorial work, and return it to the system.

One of the most unique things about the Lost ICON is a custom shelf at the rear of the console that houses a bank of monitors arranged left to right, displaying Weber’s ProTools rigs for backgrounds, Foley and hard effects, then moving over to Morrone’s music score, ADR, group and production dialogue, various plug-ins and the main mix. “The great thing about this setup [which is unique even for an ICON room] for both of us is that it acts as one big, elongated cue sheet,” says Morrone. “At a glance, I can view when a music cue or an ADR line is coming up and can see all my principal dialogue. On most systems, you are constantly scrolling up and down to see what your tracks are and what’s coming up, but on this ICON, we are spreading the horsepower out among a lot of systems with a lot of visual feedback. It helps us run a lot faster and smoother.”

A typical mix on Lost takes four days, although for the two-hour finale, they were awarded a generous six days to mix a show that was twice as long. “On a normal episode, the first day and a half is dedicated to roughing out the show,” Weber explains. “Then the producer screens the show and provides notes, and we will run off DVDs for the writers, executive producers and picture editors. It’s a complicated show, and we have quite a lot of creative input coming in––more than on most series.” Music is scored weekly by composer Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille) with live orchestra recording (a rarity these days for a weekly series) and arrives at the mix in stereo pairs split in elements such as percussion, melody instruments, woods and harp.

During the mix, Morrone and Weber work closely with the editorial team (not to be known as “The Others” as a Lost fanatic might say), which includes sound effects editors Paula Fairfield, MPSE, and Carla Murray, MPSE; Foley artist Doug Reed; Foley mixer Geordy Sincavage; and supervising sound editor Tom de Gorter, MPSE. That’s important on a show such as Lost, where Weber alone has128 tracks of effects, Foley and backgrounds on his side of the board.

“All the editors on Lost work on ProTools, and we have it worked out ahead of time what tracks to put their edits on so we can easily put them into our template,” Weber explains. “The way we’ve laid things out, certain effects must go onto certain tracks, so I subdivide my effects tracks in groups of eight faders––which correspond to a VCA master fader. For example, we just finished the two-hour season finale, and I had 112 effects tracks; you can imagine trying to toggle through all that. By creating VCA masters to subdivide all those tracks to a custom fader bank, I was able to have all those tracks controlled by only 14 faders. The effects editors cut all their background and volume graphing automation roughly into where it should be, so when I go in to do the mix, I can immediately get a relative level and present it the way they cut it, with all their volume automation maintained.”

Though as a rule they like to work together on a scene through a near field (left>center>right) speaker setup on the stage, Morrone or Weber will on many occasions go to headphones in certain situations in order to mix more efficiently. Says Weber, “If Frank is working on dialogue, I can be on headphones pre-dubbing the next scene, using M-Audio Q-40s. Sometimes he needs to isolate and doesn’t want to hear what I am doing, so I will put on the headphones and go do the next scene, setting up my tracks and rough balances. Or Frank will do the same with his dialogue, and that comes in handy when working with ADR. Producers just aren’t that patient listening to ADR; you get a couple of passes, and that’s it.” “The biggest mistake you can make is playing an ADR line barenaked and letting the producers hear it. That is sheer suicide,” adds Morrone.

“That’s again why ICON’s preview mode is so great; I can sweep through the EQs, comparing the ADR against the production line, but I am doing it on the headphones,” Morrone continues. Additional plug-ins employed by the Lost team include Massenburg EQs, McDSP’s ML4000, DP575 and Futzbox, Digidesign’s ReVibe, convolution reverbs from TL Space (a Digidesign company), Dolby Surround Tools and Waves L.1and L.2 Brickwall Limiters.

To conform to ABC broadcast standards, Morrone and Weber apply final compression to the mix, employing a Dolby DMU (Digital Mastering Unit) and the Waves L2 to contain the two-track levels below +10db. The end deliverables are a 5.1 mix and a two-track stereo “LtRt.” “We lay down both the 5.1 and the two-track at the same time, but don’t listen to the stereo mix until the final pass, then make adjustments to compensate for any loss in dynamics,” Weber relates. “We supply our 5.1 HD deliver on D5, as well as a stereo composite and stereo M&E for the SD delivery.

Production sound, both dialogue and effects, are a huge part of the mix process on Lost. The show’s executive producers, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Jack Bender and Carlton Cuse, believe strongly in salvaging and using as much production dialogue and effects as possible, and Morrone and Weber have risen to the challenge––to the point where ADR accounts for only a small percentage of Lost’s performances. “We’re cursed in a way, because a lot of scenes take place on the beach,” says Morrone. “When you point the mic toward the ocean, you have the surf noise, and you can’t point it the other way because there’s a highway there and its supposed to be a deserted island.”

To reduce noise and preserve the integrity of the production tracks, the team utilizes a Cedar DNS2000 Dialogue Noise Suppressor, as well as a McDSP notch filter, part of a suite of powerful McDSP plug-ins (including EQs, de-esser, FutzBox, etc.), that the two have been utilizing during this fourth season. “What I love about the Cedar box [the only outboard signal processing used on the console] is that you can bring the controls up to custom faders,” says Morrone. “I can look at the waveforms as they come up and constantly ride them and simultaneously automate my rides.

“The custom faders on the ICON are wonderful for that,” he continues. “I can be balancing my dialogue against ADR, or switch to dialogue against music or the loop group, and the custom faders can be in any order you want or as deep as you want. You just keep creating different configurations, and that feature gives me a lot of flexibility. Not only that, I can go into preview mode on the ICON, go through different ranges on the Cedar, and see if and how it is affecting the integrity of the dialogue. That mapping ability is one of the strongest features of ICON. Most of the plug-ins map out really well.”

“We are essentially mixing a feature film in a fraction of the time, and that’s the quality that is expected of us, especially for the DVD releases,” summarizes Weber. “It’s important for us to have a highly efficient automated system and the ICON has made our lives much easier. That reliability is critical on Lost.”

Michael Kunkes is a freelance editor and writer specializing in animation, production and post-production. He can be reached at writermk@sbcglobal.net.

Frank Morrone Unveils the Sonic Secrets of Lost

Author: Tom Blakemore, MPSE, Recording Arts
March 07, 2012

On January 23rd, award-winning Los Angeles-based recording mixer Frank Morrone (Lost, Boss, Sideways) visited Tribeca Flashpoint Academy with film editor Chris Nelson (Lost, Mad Men, House M.D.) for a Q&A and all-day workshops with second-year TFA students. Morrone's workshop, presented by Avid Technologies and open to Sound Design for Film students, covered the sound design for Lost and the unique challenges presented by this unusual and iconic production.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Lost represents to many one of the brightest spots in television history. Its wildly-popular six-year run garnered critical acclaim season after season, and was nominated 260 times for various television awards. In addition to its compelling characters and captivating plotline, the world of Lost was brought to life by some of television’s most memorable sound effects and orchestral arrangements.

To achieve Lost’s eerie and suspenseful aesthetic, the sound team detailed an overarching audio vision before the cameras ever rolled. As the team worked on concepts for various elements of the environment and sound signatures for various characters, their discussions informed and often changed the scripting and shooting of scenes from the original story ideas.

This sonic consistency gave Lost an identity that set it apart from the majority of episodic television, resulting in a very cinematic production value. However, where the audio process of most major theatrical films can take anywhere from six months to well over a year to complete, each hour-long episode of Lost was taken from beginning to end in just six days (including original music composition and recording with a sixty piece orchestra). 

It took no small amount of skill and creativity to elevate the sound design of Lost to the award-winning level it achieved. Naturally, our students had a lot of questions. So after a morning panel discussion and Q&A session with both Morrone and Nelson, audio students joined Morrone in one of our Post-Production audio suites where he set up his Pro Tools sessions to shed some light on how Lost’s award-winning sound was achieved.

Morrone began by playing through a complete scene from an episode of Lost, letting the students hear each individual layer of sound that went into the final mix. From sound effects design to the Foley process, dialogue editing to music composition, he showed in detail how the show came together from sound standpoint.

One major sound challenge the class discussed was the one posed by the show’s many outdoor locations. Lost takes place on a mysterious tropical island, very much in contrast to the show’s less-than-deserted Hawaiian shooting locales. 

To give an idea of what the sound design team was up against, Morrone played one particular scene in which three characters have an intimate conversation in the jungle, surrounded by only the sounds of wind in the trees and birds lightly chirping in the background.  But when he played the original recordings for that scene, it became immediately apparent that there was a major highway right behind the camera.

With this challenge as a jumping-off point, the students discussed possible solutions.  After hearing their suggestions, Morrone opened iZotope RX Advanced, a noise-reduction program that has been designed for exactly these types of problems. The students were amazed at the result – clean dialogue with no traffic noise left in the recording.  Morrone also demonstrated the software using a scene from the documentary series The Kennedys and showed how it could be used for an incredibly fine edit of problematic and noisy audio.

This demonstration is sure to come in handy at the beginning of spring semester, when iZotope debuts as a part of second year students’ curriculum (just in time for students’ major capstone films).

By the time our students gave him their standing ovation, Morrone had spoken with them for a half hour longer than his allotted time. He later told us faculty that our students were among the best groups he has had the pleasure of presenting to, and looks forward to the opportunity to visiting us again.

Our thanks to Frank Morrone and Avid Technologies for making this day possible.

Avid Hosts Lost Editor and Sound Designers at USC's First Look Film Festival

Apr 23 2010, 10:13 AM by Mark Williams

Last night at USC, Avid was proud to sponsor a panel discussion with the editor and sound designers from ABC’s Lost, now in it’s sixth and final season, as part of the School of Cinematic Arts’ First Look Film Festival. Editor Chris Nelson and sound re-recording mixers Frank Morrone and Scott Weber went through a scene from last season and showed in detail how it was composed – from a primary green screen shot to finished scene complete with CG, scoring, and sound.

Nelson said it wasn’t unheard of to work a 24+ hour day in the run-up to final delivery, and showed time and time again how Media Composer was integral to his workflow  - allowing him to produce results impossible on any other editing platform. He described the workflow as a kind of dance, utilizing Avid storage and workflow solutions to freely pass work across the team, allowing them to creatively sculpt scenes, not just edit static footage.

Frank Morrone and Scott Weber took Nelson’s finished piece and then raised the bar considerably with their innovative audio work. Every episode uses unique original music, requiring the recording of a 50 piece orchestra on a regular basis. Final mixes exceeding 300 tracks are common, requiring multiple synch’d Pro Tools HD systems , resulting in  layers of sound being woven together to create feature film worthy results.

USC School of Cinematic Arts’ First Look Film Festival runs from April 17 to the 27th. The festival concludes this weekend with the winning films being screened for an audience of industry professionals at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood, CA.

Full Sail University Welcomed AVID Panel Featuring the Sound Mixing Team Behind the Television Show LOST


Winter Park, FL (PRWEB) June 23, 2010

Full Sail University (fullsail.edu) recently welcomed the sound mixing team behind the award-winning television drama, LOST. Re-recording Mixers Frank Morrone and Scott Weber, along with AVID Application Specialist, Gill Gowing, who moderated the presentation, came to campus for a special presentation and Q&A session for the students, staff, faculty and AVID guests.

Held in the newly opened Full Sail Live venue, Weber and Morrone gave attendees an exclusive look at their two-man mixing console in the Disney Buena Vista Sound Services Room 6 in Burbank, California, where the team worked on LOST for the entirety of the show’s six seasons. The two worked side by side on every episode of the show, with Morrone handling dialogue and music, while Weber mixed the show's sound effects, earning them an Emmy® for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series in Season 4.

“Having the Emmy award-winning sound mixing team from LOST on campus to speak with our students and share their insight was simply remarkable,” said Scott Dansby, Industry Relations for Full Sail University. “Being able to share and converse about real world industry experiences with working professionals in the entertainment field encourages our students to develop their craft and prepare for their future careers.

The Lost Boys

The South Magazine - November 1st, 2010 

It’s not very often that I am able to sit and chat with a group of people who have ultimately changed the lives of millions of viewers throughout the world, and are responsible for helping create a cult that lovingly refer to themselves as “Losties.”  So when I sat in the Lennon Bus today with the video, dialog and sound editors of Lost I was extremely eager to learn how it was all done.Chris Nelson, Scott Weber and Frank Morrone worked on the six seasons of Lost with the job of creating visual and audio suspense every week. If you are familiar with the show, the video and sound created 90 percent of the thrilling sequences viewers yearned for every episode.  Through a complicated web that is more or less seen as a major movie production than a television series, these three worked on enhancing scenes and in turn, the show’s plot, which is by no means an easy feat.

All three agreed that working on Lost was the most challenging job of their career.

“The amount of content was challenging. We had a smoke monster, plane crashes and a deserted island,” Sound Editor Scott Weber said. “Not only that, the environment they were filming was a busy, populated island, O’ Ahu, with a highway nearby, an Airforce base nearby and a lot of that audio had to be worked on in the studio.”

It was funny however, to find out that with all the technology they had at hand  to create, distort and hide sounds and visuals, it turns out that some time old tricks-of-the-trade were still in use. The infamous clicking of the smoke monster was the sound of a New York taxicab printing a receipt that Morrone recorded before he worked on the show.

Here to speak to SCAD students about editing as a profession and the realities they face in the business, I asked each of them what lessons of the profession they wanted to relay and they all had the same ideas: teamwork, observation and most importantly, leaving the ego at the door.

Nelson was quick to respond with a quote from his first boss, Gloria Clark.

“The moment you start loving your work is the moment you stop getting better at your job,” said Nelson. He also stressed if you want to be great in this business you have to be a good student of human nature.

Morrone noted that 50 percent of the job is how well you relate to people, “that and networking! Get out and meet as many people as possible.”

Nelson summed it up well by saying success is an equal combination of “talent, personality and luck.”

The Avid Lecture Series Goes to Hollywood

Mar 21 2011, 11:03 AM by Mark Williams

On Monday, March 7th, Christopher Nelson (editor of LOST and Mad Men),  Frank Morrone and Scott Webber (sound re-recording engineers from LOST) joined over 130 students from The Los Angeles Film and Recording Schools for a two hour discussion on Avid’s essential role in producing one of television’s biggest hits.  Students were taken through 3 clips (rough cut, producers cut, and final cut) and were shown first hand how Chris, Frank, and Scott edit and fine tune video and audio tracks to create the final cut using Media Composer and Pro Tools. 

The following week, the guys were back at The Los Angeles Film and Recording Schools to work with 45 students, in two smaller groups, for specific Avid Student Master Classes.  Chris held a “Video Master Class”, while Scott and Frank held a “Audio Master Class”.  This two hour class allows the students and our guests to talk more in-depth about technique, workflow, and the industry.