By
William Kallay
Disney’s “The
Lion King” is a phenomenon that keeps
reign over the imaginations of movie lovers
almost a decade after its 1994 theatrical release.
The studio has kept the story of a young lion
cub’s journey into adulthood in the public
eye through a successful video release, an
award-winning album, merchandising, a worldwide
Broadway touring company, television spin-offs,
and a recent IMAX/Large Format re-release.
This fall will see the release of the film
on a two-disc DVD. As has been the case with
many of Disney’s recent DVD releases,
this is a high-content and high-quality disc
set. Included on the disc, to name a few of
the special features, are two versions of the
film, deleted scenes, storyboards, games, bonus
documentaries and numerous other features.
One
of the most interesting aspects of the new “Lion
King” DVD is an “All-New 5.1 Disney
Enhanced Home Theater Mix.” Terry Porter,
the film’s original re-recording mixer,
came up with the idea to essentially place
home theater viewers right into the 5.1 mix.
Viewers of this DVD will have the opportunity
to hear “The Lion King” in its
original 5.1 theatrical mix, or in Disney’s
Enhanced Home Theater Mix.
Porter,
who was Oscar-nominated for his work on this
film, is a Disney veteran in sound. Some of
the films he has mixed include “Freaky
Friday” (2003), “Dinosaur” (2000), “Mr.
Holland’s Opus” (1995), and “Aladdin” (1992).
William
Kallay, Widescreen Review: What
motivated you to come up with the idea for
the home theatre mix for “The Lion
King”?
Terry
Porter: It’s actually been
kind of an interesting journey. I had done
the original mix back in the early ’90s,
and we did that in 5.1. And 5.1 at that time
was fairly new, so we were all kind of learning.
We did what we could on that mix. And then
later on,
[Disney]
had decided to take “The Lion King” into the Large Format, which
consists of Large Format
[70mm]
theaters and IMAX. They asked me because I’ve done a few Large Format
films, those being “Fantasia/2000” (2000) and “Beauty and
the Beast“ (2002). What I found with the IMAX theatres is you have a
very controlled environment, more controlled than the average theater. You
have to be careful when you mix for a regular theater, because you can’t
always mix for that sweet spot. You have to make sure that the movie is heard
properly from all over the theater. You do have to make it good for the entire
audience. In a Large Format theater, the sweet spot of the audience is quite
large because of the way the speakers are set up. You have left, center, right
channels, just like in a regular theater. But the big difference is in the
surrounds. In a regular theater, you have a wall of left surrounds and a wall
of right surrounds. But in a Large Format theater, you have a single surround
up in the left corner, and a single surround up in the right corner. Those
speakers are of equal quality to the front
[speakers]
. When I started doing that mix, I realized that we could start
doing something a little more exciting dimensionality-wise.
Instead of just a pan over your head, we could do something
real dimensional in the audio. Speed ahead a few years, I heard
that Disney was going to be re-releasing “The Lion King” and
it got me thinking about home theater systems. If you set up
your home theater system the way the book says, and I don’t
care what book it is, from Yamaha to Rotel to Onkyo, what you
have is a left, center, right channel and a single left surround
up in the corner and a single right surround up in the corner.
I started to think; Wow! This is really similar to Large Format
as opposed to a real theater. I was quite astounded with some
of the results I started to get. My goal was to, instead of
steering the sounds coming out of the speakers, try to create
a sound field that would emanate somewhere in between the speakers
and the person listening to it. And it works. The hardest thing
about the process was making sure that the integrity of the
mix wasn’t changed. We spend so much time when we mix
a film with the directors, the producers, and the studio making
sure that the internal balance is exactly the way people want
it.
WSR: You’ve
mixed “The Lion King” for its original
release, the IMAX/Large Format release and
now for the DVD. You can basically recite most
of the movie’s lines and songs.
Porter: You
know, that’s okay. It’s “Lion
King.” Our animation. Our 2D conventional
animation and it is the best. It’s funny.
I brought home the DVD and I have a 22 year-old
daughter and a 20 year-old daughter. They haven’t
seen it since they were little kids. To this
day, they can sing every word of every song.
It still amazes me the impact that this movie
had on them.
WSR: Did
you have to go back to each and every element
of the soundtrack (dialog, music and effects)
and re-build everything from scratch?
Porter: Absolutely
not. That would be a remix and I think that
it would be disastrous to try to attempt, because
the original mix process involves so many points
of approval from the picture editor, sound
editor, the director, even the head of the
studio. When we created the original mix, we
created three 5.1 stems: one being dialog;
one music; and one sound effects. That always
gave me a point of reference to go back to
as I started to manipulate the sound field
with each of those elements. I could always
reference instantly back to the original balance
of the mix. That was very important to me.
Even though I did the original mix, I didn’t
feel I had the right to take it upon my own
to remix something. That‚s just not right.
Going back to the stems ensured that I was
able to keep the integrity of that original
mix.
WSR: And
that made your job less difficult not to have
to remix the whole film?
Porter: Absolutely.
I wouldn’t have that kind of schedule.
We probably spent 8-10 weeks on that original
mix, then an additional three on the IMAX mix.
I couldn’t ask the studio for three months!
[laughter]
Plus, I didn’t need to. Intellectually, what my process involved wasn’t
remixing. I actually don’t like the word “remix.” Remix to
me sounds like I’m taking the elements and re-balancing them and changing
them. It wasn’t. I was changing the sound field within the original mix.
Normally in a 5.1 mix, if you were just to listen to the musical score, the
feeling you get generally is if you’re listening to an orchestra from
15-feet away. And it’s in front of you and the reverberant and the acoustical
sounds are slightly behind you, but the image is clearly in front of you. What
I attempted to do, and I think I accomplished that, was to put the listening
body right in the center of that orchestra. The instruments tend to come off
the speakers, floating somewhere in between the speakers and fully enveloping
you from behind. There’s even one song that I went the whole nine yards
on. I tried to pull out every trick I’ve ever learned on “Can You
Feel The Love Tonight.” Because it was appropriate for the film, the
characters are not on-camera when they’re singing. It’s a montage
with the voices. The voices are emanating right in front of your face when
they’re singing. When I did it, my intention wasn’t really to do
something better. I do not want to use the word, especially since I did the
original mix.
[laughter]
I don’t use the words, “It’s a better mix.” It’s
different. Some people might love this, other people might not love this. They
might like the original mix, and that’s why Disney, rightfully so, offers
up both soundtracks on the DVD.
WSR: Do
you have a preference between the two?
Porter: I
think this new mix is exciting for a home theater.
You know, you go out and buy a home theater
system and you install it in your house. I
think it is pretty exciting for a lot of people
to sit down in their living room and hear this
fully enveloping sound throughout most of the
film, where you hear stuff behind you just
as much as you hear it in front of you. It’s
not out of balance. The original mix sounds
the way it did, it’s just around you
a little bit more.
WSR: How
did you set up your mixing stage to optimize
the sound field?
Porter: I
work in the main theater at Disney. I’ve
been here 18 years. That’s where I mixed
the original film. It’s a 420-seat theater.
Big theater. I asked them to bring in some
Genelec Speakers on stands. And I brought in
my Rotel book from my own home theater system,
and we set up the speakers exactly by specs.
We put a monitor in front of me. We put the
left, center, right channels and the surrounds
on stands, just as if it was a living room.
I had my board set up. If I sensed that maybe
I unbalanced something or something was askew,
I could just throw a switch and listen to my
regular theater mix, and go, “Okay, the
dialog’s a little low in this sequence.
I’m doing something wrong.” And
then I’d go back to the home theater
mix and make sure that I didn’t overdo
something or have to re-balance it to achieve
the original balance.
WSR: Was
there a consideration to enhance the mix with
additional channels?
Porter: No.
I’m a realist. I can try to do something
really cool and special for Surround EX for
somebody who has a rear-center speaker. But
I think at this point in time, we’ve
made the leap to 5.1 in home theater and there
are quite a few people who have that. My main
goal was to serve 5.1. Plus, the original mix
was in that format. I didn’t really want
to open that can of worms, yet.
WSR: I
heard that you’re quite a home theatre
enthusiast. What is your home theatre like?
Porter: I’ve
got kind of an eclectic group of things. I’ve
got a Rotel DVD player and power amplifier.
Instead of having all matching speakers, I
got different kind of speakers. I’ve
got Klipsch in the surrounds. And I’ve
got B & W’s. I’ve got several
different speakers.
WSR: So
you have some high-end equipment?
Porter: Definitely
some high-end ones. And generally speaking,
and I highly recommend that everybody gets
matching speakers, but this is my business.
I can get them to tune the way I like it.
Special
thanks to Terry Porter, Tara Conrad and Michael
Coate |