Scott Millan, Bob Beemer
and Ken Weston
Gladiator
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Scott Millan: When asked to recount the experience of mixing 'Gladiator', so many things come to mind. From the beginning of the first reel, we had the task of creating a battle between the Roman Empire’s army and the primitive forces of Germany in 180 A.D. Ridley wanted to show the contrast between the regimented expertise of the Roman army and the rest of the unconquered world. The complexity of the mix continued on throughout the entire film.
The challenge was to get detail and power out of each scene, while not detracting attention from the screen. We were very careful not to hurt the audience with levels that would artificially draw attention to the soundtrack.
Throughout the film we played with sonic contrast as much as possible. We had very quiet intimate scenes, where the trick was to get the dialogue as clean as possible so that we could use the textures of the environments and the details of the foley to play transparently and complement the beautiful production design. In many cases, our production mixer, Ken Weston, used a double microphone technique, which gave me options in the final dub. I used a lot of different treatments on the dialogue to create space and complement the environments that Ridley created.
We also had the challenge of scenes in the Coliseum, with crowds of 50,000 people cheering or chanting in unison. We used cut effects of crowds with production tracks and layers upon layers of group, all recorded in different environments. This film had the most group ADR I’ve ever seen (brilliantly supervised by Chris Jargo). It took us a week just to pre-dub the crowds, and we had as many as four 8-track crowd pre-dubs per reel, not including the close-up group.
The compelling and complex music score by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard was recorded in London by scoring mixer Alan Meyerson. Our picture editor, Pietro Scalia, had cut the film with many of the musical themes in mind, and music editor Adam Smalley did a terrific job.
One thing we had going for us was our schedule. Ridley is a seasoned pro, and the studio (DreamWorks) allowed him the time to work in a civilized fashion. As we all know, this can make a world of difference to the final outcome of our labors. A reasonable amount of time also gives us the opportunity to remember the experience!
We were all overwhelmed by what Ridley Scott’s vision and artistry had created and very proud to have been a part of it. There is a quote from the film, "What we do in life echoes in eternity." Listen closely – it does.
Bob Beemer: The biggest challenge in the mix of 'Gladiator' was to express sonically the emotion, grandeur and complexity of the visual triumph Ridley Scott had presented us with.
There were more rich layers in this movie than any other I can think of because of the depth of the images and their emotional intent. The story covered a tremendous range of experiences and the soundtrack strove to complement it. Literal sound effects, impressionistic sound effects, spatial treatments – all were molded in a fashion hopefully clear and defined, not only because there were crucial verbal performances to protect and enhance, but also because the amazing score was nearly omnipresent, in many ways another character in the film.
The issues of sonic balance, of light and shadow, of focus and blur were great fun because this movie was an uncommon combination of professional tours de force. Per Halberg’s editorial crew was "in the zone". Nearly everything provided was used – an amazing feat of artistic economy, in my opinion.
A particular challenge for me was controlling the element of exhaustion for the audience. The movie is so visually compelling that we were mindful of not burning the audience out with overly dense sound.
I found the use of Dolby EX – that is, a matrixed LCR surround – to be particularly useful. The chariots clearly racing LCR behind you, the crowds cheering from every speaker independently, the weapons whipping over, to the left and to the right of your head, the reverbs bouncing separately behind, the design effects having more channels to roam in – the EX format was perfect for the project.
Ridley let us go with our instincts, and in all honesty, collaborating with him was one of the absolute highlights of my mixing experience. Probably the toughest moment of the project was when Ridley complimented us, turned and left the stage and we realized it was over.
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine
Vol. 22, No. 2 - May/June 2001
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