Important Note: Please listen to these video samples with headphones
(not speakers) in order to hear the full Dolby Atmos effect.
To begin my sound-for-picture mixing journey in Dolby Atmos, I completed four exercises from the Dolby Institute’s post-production learning modules. The main learning objectives of these series of exercises are configuring Pro Tools and the Renderer to work within a multi-bed workflow and creating Dolby Atmos deliverables that conform to industry-standard delivery specifications (DME stems, target loudness levels, re-renders, etc.). The exercises make use of a short film, A Sound Proposal, to demonstrate concepts and scenarios when mixing with the multi-bed workflow.
In my last mix iteration, I completed an English-only version of A Sound Proposal where I was able to remix multiple elements (e.g., audio objects, dialog tracks) from the original. In this case, my process consisted of refining details of the original mix to the visual source in a convincing way. For example, at the beginning of the film, I panned the car objects to match the trajectory of the car in the picture from front left to front right instead of having the car fly above the listener as it did in the original mix. Finally, I did volume and EQ adjustments through automation in dialog, effects, and music tracks to improve the overall presentation of the mix.
For this piece, I used Sol Levante's final Atmos mix session by Will Files (made public in 2020 by Netflix for educational purposes) as a guide to mix this short scene from Bumblebee (2018). In other words, I studied Will's session organization and workflow and used that knowledge to mix this piece in a similar way.
This piece began as sound effects (SFX) recreation project that Ross McCafferty (a classmate from the M.F.A. program) did in Professor Matt Foglia’s sound effects design class.
However, to adapt the piece to work in a Dolby Atmos context, I added more sound effects to the piece to fill out the Atmos sound field. For example, I added layers of background sounds (BGs) to the 7.1 speaker layout sound field, improving the spaciousness and feeling of immersion.
I incorporated the use of a 7.1 sound field as the base of my Atmos mixes after Carlos Solis (re-recording mixer at Warner Brothers, mentor, and friend) shared with me that most theatrical Atmos mixes are still pretty much 7.1 mixes that incorporate objects very intentionally. For this reason, it is not uncommon to find that professional Atmos mixes are often done with a modest number of audio objects. In other words, most sounds live in the "bed", and objects are used sparingly when specific 3D panning effects are needed, e.g., a helicopter flyover. d.
Arlo The Alligator Boy is an animated feature that was fully mixed in Dolby Atmos and released on Netflix in 2021. I was able to obtain an excerpt of the final mix session through the generosity of industry friends for educational purposes.
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The scene was dense. It contained all the elements expected in a high-profile movie project: dialogs, BGs, Fx, and Foley. For this reason, I started the mixing process of this project by organizing the session in a way that made sense to me by using folder tracks, creating VCAs, using memory locations with track views, and color-coding. Next, I deleted all of the automation from the original session except for clip gain levels so I could start re-mixing the scene from scratch.