Interview with Mixers François Groult and Bruno Tarrière of The Messenger: The Joan of Arc Story

The mix of the first European film in Dolby® Digital Surround EX™, The Messenger: The Joan of Arc Story, was completed at the state-of-the-art studio 'Digital Factory,' built on the grounds of director Luc Besson's own chateau in rural Normandy, France. In October, 1999, the mixing team of François Groult and Bruno Tarrière met with us to answer questions about the mix and their experiences using the then-new surround format.

On what principles do you base your use of sound?

Luc Besson places a 50/50 balance of importance to both picture and sound in his movies. Our main goal in this film is to use the combination of dialogue, music, and effects in the various channels to bring to the audience the emotions of Joan of Arc herself and her fellow countrymen living in the fifteenth century.

What were your main techniques for the complex sound design?

The whole mix is built up of layers of sounds. We pushed each layer to the extremes of the channels to ensure good separation when the layers were finally added together. Obviously for this kind of technique the more channels the better, and the extra surround channel really helped.

You have always been among the first in France to use the improved formats coming from Dolby Laboratories; what was your experience with this new technology?

It was certainly a learning curve for us all getting used to the new surround format, and we were a little nervous at first. But we found that a lot of the effects we wanted to go to the back wall naturally went there anyway. It took more time getting used to controlling the combination of mono and stereo ambiences and using the Dolby Surround EX encoder to get our desired effect.

Another of our concerns was how the sound in our relatively small theatre would relate to a large cinema. During the mix we took the six-track dub on MO disks to a large auditorium in Paris and were delighted by the results.

How does the extra surround channel in the Dolby Digital Surround EX format help you create your desired effects?

It was perfect for the sound effects of many of the medieval weapons. For example, the catapult really does fly from behind the audience and onto the screen. And there are many quick sound effect 'flashes,' for example, arrows swishing past the audience to the back of the theatre. These quick surround flashes, combined with equivalent picture flashes of only five or six frames, create a hugely exciting experience for the audience. Multiple effects also benefit. The third surround channel provides more precise imaging and separation for the many different sound elements during the complex battle sequences.

Any comments on your future use of the system?

Certainly for our next mix we will start preparing for Dolby Surround EX earlier on in the process by track laying in 6.1 channels instead of 5.1. Although this takes more channels in recording chains and console space, the time in the mix will be greatly reduced for us to achieve our desired surround effects.

It is obvious now that the cinemas and installers really have to take their surround speaker systems as seriously as the screen channels. The speakers must be of a high enough specification, and correctly aligned to be able to cope with the complex surround mixes now being produced. Gone are the days when the surround channel was simply used as an ambience track.