Deluxe New York utilizes Dolby Atmos technology to mix the sound for Darren Aronofsky's Noah at their new mixing stage in New York
Deluxe New York announced that the makers of Paramount Pictures' epic feature Noah selected Deluxe's new mixing stage at 435 Hudson Street to create the soundscape for director Darren Aronofsky's powerful feature film. The theater—among the largest Dolby Atmos capable sound stages in New York—was the site where Skip Lievsay, the recent recipient of an Oscar for Gravity, and Craig Henighan mixed the film, utilizing the powerful, lifelike sound made possible by Dolby Atmos technology.
"[The stage] is a welcome addition to the city," says New York-based Lievsay, who mixed dialogue and music for the film. "It's nice to have another relatively large stage in the city and this is the largest with Dolby Atmos capability, which was vital for Noah. It was a great place to work."
"Darren is Brooklyn born and bred and he has his family here," Henighan adds. "So we really wanted to be able to finish in New York. The crew at Deluxe and Dolby started in late December and burned the midnight oil to get everything completed so by the start of 2014 we were able to do all the sound work with the entire team based in New York."
"It has been a phenomenal collaboration with Dolby to create one of the largest Dolby Atmos rooms on the east coast, Enthuses Domenic Rom, Deluxe New York's General Manager. "To have Darren Aronofsky and his talented team do the first mix on the stage is something I never could have imagined. We are so proud of the room."
Dolby Atmos allows mixers an unprecedented degree of control over the audio with "object based" mixing—far greater than the 5.1 or even 7.1 standards—with the ability to spread sounds throughout the theater, including directly overhead, in a way that is scalable and allows each individual Dolby Atmos-enabled theater to get the most of the sound design, independent of its size or the number of speakers it has.
"Dolby Atmos repesents an enormous leap forward in the motion picture sound experience," says Doug Darrow, Senior Vice President, Cinema, Dolby. "It allows filmmakers to use sound in creative ways that were previously impossible. We are so pleased that Deluxe has created this incredible Dolby Atmos mixing stage in New York and that it's been used by such incredible talent on such an important project as Noah."
"Dolby Atmos gives you more options for moving energy around the room and ceiling," Lievsay elaborates. "If a character is speaking off-screen--say they would be to the rear left of the theater--we can accurately place that character in that space. If you're a director who is open to that idea as Darren is, then Dolby Atmos is really the only way to do it."
"Obviously, there is a lot of rain in the story of Noah," Henighan adds, "and Dolby Atmos allowed me to take the rain to the back of the theater and overhead. I had recorded a lot of real rain from outside and inside wooden barns and I was able to spread all these sounds throughout the theater to give the audience an incredible sense of really being inside the ark."
"Noah demonstrates perfectly that Deluxe New York can help even the most elaborate feature project finish right here in the city," Rom concludes.
Source: Deluxe New York
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
