<TG> Zoo Scene

 Posted on 1/6/1998 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post had no questions}

"Also, the reworking of Sinclair's narration of the Battle of the
Line, with Requiem for the Line and the battle transmissions was just
gripping, it really showcased Michael O'Hare's strengths as an actor."

Yeah, that was an experiment I wanted to try. When we did the
audio spotting (me sitting with the sound folks, Chris, others), I
explained what I wanted done with that scene, and they kinda got it but
were a little dubious as to whether or not this could or would work.
When we came to the day of the audio mix, it was kind of a jumble...so
I worked with the music and the voices to basically fill in the gaps
between Sinclair's words. Then I backed up and chose the ones that
most related to what he had just said, or was about to just say. It
took about half an hour to get that 30 second piece down pat.

One of the least visible things I do is mess with the music and
how the music lays out on the track. I'm often at the front of the
mixing room, working with the mixers, bringing up one instrument
(percussion, for instance), bringing down the horns for one piece, up
in another. In "In the Beginning," for instance, there was percussion
all through the Battle of the Line itself...and we had big EFX of guns
and explosions going off, and the two muddied together. So I went with
the explosions for the first of it, then replaced some of the
gunfire/explosions with percussion, then ducked down the SFX altogether
and just let the music take it. You kind of have to be a conductor in
these instances.

(Which is why the astute will notice a slight change in the main
title music starting with 507. I was down sick when they had to do the
main title mix, and couldn't get into it. When we had to modify some
voice stuff for 507, I went in and pulled out all the music stems and
rebalanced stuff to bring out the themes more, which kind of got buried
a little in places. All the same individual pieces are there, but in
different perspectives.

jms