Director Marc Webb returns for the second installment of The Amazing Spider-Man, featuring Andrew Garfield as boy wonder, Peter Parker, and Emma Stone as his damsel in distress, Gwen Stacy.
TASM2 slings us with a heavy dose of supervillains – Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) as Electro, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) as Green Goblin and Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamatti) as Rhino. Will it be too much for Spider-Man? Probably not. I mean, they’ve already announced The Amazing Spider-Man 3, but the ride is why we go see films.
The crew had an enormous amount of storytelling to do, but we’ll be looking closely at one pivotal sequence: a confrontation between Spider-Man and Electro in Times Square. The scene has Max Dillon struggling to understand why he is changing into Electro. The crowd around him turns hostile and he starts letting electricity bolts fly – cue Spider-Man to the rescue.
Cinematography
DP Dan Mindel looked to Spidey’s roots to create the film’s color palette and overall look. “We decided it should mimic the Marvel comic books, so we used that as our template,” Mindel explains. But the team didn’t copy and paste, they created something entirely fresh. “We just came at it with a new look, even the Spider-Man suit was changed. It basically was a redo on everything,” says Mindel.
Even the technical approach was altered. In The Amazing Spider-Man, cinematographer John Schwartzman used RED Epics in native digital 3D, while Mindel chose 4-perf 35mm which was converted to 3D in post. “We tried to keep this film thing going. It’s beautiful to start with really,” admits Mindel. Kodak’s Vision3 50D 5203 was used for day exteriors, while interiors and nights were on Vision3 500T 5219, and Vision3 200T 5213 or Vision3 250D 5207 were tapped when more speed was needed.
Mindel collaborated with some friends he’s known for approximately twelve years. Colin Anderson on A-camera/steadicam, Philippe Carr-Forster on B-camera, and A-camera 1st AC Serge Nofield. Chris Prampin was the gaffer behind the creative lighting schemes and Bruce McCleery headed the second unit cinematography.In terms of cameras and lenses, Mindel went with Panavision. Millennium XL2 cameras combined with C, E, and G Series anamorphic prime lenses with his workhorse being the 40mm close focus. “We used a wide and tight camera all the time, and the operators run the set for me while I light them with the gaffer,” Mindel explains.
For the Times Square sequence, a full-scale replica was built at Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage, Long Island, complete with streets and storefronts. Shipping crates were stacked up, covered in billboard material and painted to become fifty-foot green screens. Chris Prampin worked with lighting console programmer Benoit Richard, best boy Ryan Rodriguez, rigging gaffer Derek Murphy, to light the set as realistically as possible.
Two large 40’x40’moon boxes were hung overhead to serve as ambient or toplight across the set. Each box was suspended from a crane and included thirty Lumapanels, lite half tungsten, half daylight through a Light Grid. To create the ambient glow of the Big Apple’s jumbo screens, Prampin created “Lava Lamps,” which were Elation Elar 108 RFBW LED Pars in frames. They built six small units with 60 Pars and two large units with 150. The smaller units were mounted to Gradall forklifts and the larger units were connected to construction cranes, allowing the team to swing them freely around the set. “We would move these around for a lot more ‘throw’ in case we had to be far away,” says Prampin. The rest of the set was covered with 12-light Maxi-Brutes and 18K HMIs with Kino Flo Image 80s to light the green screens.
Two large LED screens were also hung on construction cranes and content was displayed to provide additional moving light textures to the mix. Benoit Richard controlled the color and movement of the “Lava Lamps,” LED screens, traffic lights, and practical units (minus the 18ks) throughout the set. “We would just dance the fixtures around for every setup. We really tried to make it look as real as we could,” recalls Prampin. Two 15-head Bebee Night lights were used as supplemental backlights, while 7K Xenons mounted in 120’ Condors mimicked police-helicopter spotlights overhead.
When Electro walks into Time Square draped in his hoodie – a moment shot on location – the primary light source was a cluster of Lightgear LEDs sewn into the hood of his sweatshirt. This gave him a glow for the VFX department to work from. When Electro sees his face being replaced by Spider-Man’s on the jumbo screens, his anger intensifies. This moment is enhanced through the lighting. “He gains a lot of power from the electric current in the square, and as the chaos develops, the lighting becomes more frenetic,” Mindel explains.
The sequence was shot on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 using wider primes like the 35mm, 40mm, and 60mm, and with cranes and steadicam work covering the majority of the angles. “We used everything, absolutely everything at our disposal,” Mindel recalls. “We had to protect the geography in the square, so the audience didn’t get lost.”
When Spider-Man and Electro fight, web and electricity are shooting in all directions. To plan these shots, extensive pre-visualizations and stunt coordination made the process easier. “All of that is heavily reliant on the stunt coordinator,” says Mindel. “What he designed for us would dictate how we would go about shooting. From the beginning, we managed to keep it pretty old school and keep as many real stunts as possible in the movie.”
The cinematographer relied on low angles and moving cameras for maximum coverage of the stunt work. To capture the detail shots, he would add at least one extra camera with a tighter lens. Using multiple cameras allowed the stuntmen to put themselves in danger fewer times. “When it gets complicated, we have two or three cameras going at the same time so the actors and stuntmen don’t have to do things twice. Because, as you know, it’s a little dangerous,” notes Mindel.
Production Sound
As a native New Yorker, production sound mixer Ed Novick is familiar with the audio challenges presented by a city of this magnitude. He relies on preparation and extensive tech scouting to help alleviate some of the guess work.
“There are lots of things for audio to look at. As far as where base camp or generators are placed, how cable is entered into the set, which windows or doors need to be opened or closed, things of that nature,” says Novick. “It’s all about killing the background noise and making the actors sound natural. Maybe a carpet, some curtain, or a wall needs to be put in place so you can plug a noise source.”
Novick brought in boom operators Kira Smith and Julian Townsend for sound utility and second boom. His primary recorder was the Zaxcom Deva 5.8 with a Sonosax mixer using MovieSlate for reports. The overhead mics were Sanken CS-3 and the Sennheiser MKH 50. When lighting, camera, and set construction pieces prevented a boom mic from entering a scene, lavs came into play, specifically Sanken COS-11Ds. “We try to get everything on a boom. Nothing sounds better than an overhead mic on top of an actor’s head. Nothing,” admits Novick. “But we had to put radio mics on actors for exteriors in an effort to knock down the ambient noise.”
Novick utilized a wiring trick he learned working on Christopher Nolan’s Batman films: “always keep the Batsuit wired.” He applied this technique to the Goblin and Rhino setup. The actors would step into their suits and the mics would already be in place. Transmitters were then attached as needed.
Unfortunately, this technique could not be applied to Andrew Garfield’s skintight Spider-Man suit. Novick worked with costumes to wire him up each time. “Andrew was very accommodating,” Novick recalls. “If you listen to Spider-Man, he sounds like a guy in a mask and that’s production. I think we really captured what he sounds like if you were sitting and listening to him in the mask.”
When Spider-Man and Electro meet in Times Square, their dialogue is captured primarily with lavs in order to knock down the background noise. Once they start fighting, the dialogue stops and score from Hans Zimmer starts to play a bigger role.
Novick recorded as many ISO tracks with open mics as possible so post would have a boom track as a reference. For interior shots, the sound team always used two booms, allowing the actors to overlap. “Part of the fun of watching Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield is their spontaneity, so it’s up to me to capture that.” In addition to the primary film cameras, the Times Square sequence required digital footage as well. Novick brought in an additional Deva to run at video timecode speed during these instances.
Production sound had a special collaboration with the visual effects team on set. “This movie had a tremendous number of visual effects shots and our VFX supervisor, Jerome Chen, was extremely helpful in allowing us to place microphones where they would be the most effective,” explains Novick.He would ask Chen about the angles and VFX work for the sequence and then place the bodypack wherever it would be easiest to paint out. The two also collaborated for Electro’s mic placements. “There are other scenes where Jamie Foxx is shirtless and painted blue. We took a COS-11D, stuck it to his chest, and painted it blue. It didn’t disappear, but it made for easier removal,” mentions Novick. “It made a huge difference. There was a great collaboration there that hopefully we’ll get to see more of in upcoming films.”
Visual Effects
This film was visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen’s second collaboration with director Marc Webb, and they have developed a shorthand style of communication that yields excellent results. “He has his notions of what he wants to accomplish story-wise, but he’s always open to anything that’s interesting. He gives me a lot of creative freedom to explore and come up with new things, which only helps make the story better,” explains Chen.
When Chen read the script, he could see the tremendous scope of visual effects work that it would entail, especially for the three villains. Electro was a particularly complicated feat for CG and compositing. “We had to shoot Jamie Foxx in makeup, and then very meticulously track his facial movements so that all the additional layers we created would match and line up with his muscles,” Chen says. “The look of an energy source deep within his skin was very complicated in terms of how to integrate it and maintain Foxx’s performance.”
Chen particularly enjoyed the research and development of Electro’s character design. “We tried to create a look that was not traditional lightning or something you would expect with someone called ‘Electro,’” recalls Chen.
His primary inspiration was footage of a lightning storm deep inside a dark cloud. “It was really beautiful and very ominous.” Chen developed rendering technology to emulate a very bright energy source housed deep within the layers of flesh. The color is partly drawn from aquatic influences. “Since he acquired his powers from fusing with these genetically-engineered electric eels, we thought it would be interesting to bring in the palette of deep sea life,” mentions Chen. This included blues with warmer colors like purples and reds, making the lightning formations reminiscent of coral branches.
Chen also looked to the sky for inspiration. “We were trying to find ways to make the lightning bolts look non-traditional. We made them very bright, followed by residual layers of dust, and tried to grab things that looked interesting. Things from all kinds of sources, from outer space to inner space, and basically use that as art direction,” notes Chen. This dust effect was inspired by outer space imagery like nebulae and gas clouds.Though this film is a sequel, almost all VFX elements were built from the ground up. Only the basic geometric assets of NYC were brought over, but the textures needed to be redesigned, especially for daylight scenes. Spider-Man’s suit was completely redesigned as well. “This suit is more traditional and looks more like the comic book, with larger eyes and thicker webbing. It meant we had to basically rescan him and recreate him,” Chen says.
The Times Square sequences required an extensive amount of visual effects work. “That was definitely one of the most complex sequences in the movie. It was pre-vis’d to very high detail prior to shooting,” Chen explains. The team spared no expense in recreating the iconic New York attraction with maximum authenticity. A team surveyed the actual location, scanning it with LIDAR equipment to create a geometric copy.
LIDAR is a remote sensing process of light detection and ranging. A pulsed laser light combines with data recorded by an airborne system to generate precise 3D location maps with rich surface details. “Our artists and techs had to basically recreate all the surfaces, storefronts, and details, and match it as closely as possible to the real ones, so we were able to place it in the correct perspective,” explains Chen.
Behind the scenes at WETA
Extensive energy effects were added in as well and practical effects helped set the stage for visual effects. “We would have extras running and reacting to special effects blasts of air so they could have something to dodge.” In post, debris, light, and energy effects were added in.
During Electro and Spider-Man’s fight, the buildings and screens in Times Square take quite a beating. “We would create a computer simulation of glass exploding, and then our lighting and rendering teams would make it look realistic before compositing it into the scene,” reasons Chen. “One of the most complex debris shots occurred when an explosion causes a jumbo screen to slide down and crash to the ground – it was a complete simulation of all the structures breaking apart.”
Chen explained that the most challenging aspect of creating visual effects for fighting scenes is making doubles of the characters fight in full synthetic environments. These doubles need to cut directly into other real shots of the actual environment. “You have to make sure you can interchange real and CG without being distracting, so it was the scope of the environments that was challenging.”
For animation, Chen looked to Autodesk’s Maya software. For effects and other simulations, the team used Houdini from Side Effects Software. Shots were rendered in Side Effects’ Arnold software and primarily composited in The Foundry’s Nuke software. Other shots were completed in Adobe After Effects. Overall, the VFX work required roughly one full year, from April 2013 to April 2014.
Building Times Square
Chen worked with about six main effects companies to make the film, led by Sony Imageworks, which delivered a 1000+ VFX shots. Imageworks, assisted by the Moving Picture Company, handled any effects, interactions, and environments central to Spider-Man, Electro, and Rhino. Chen strived to maintain optimal consistency between teams. “We would try to provide as many standardized viewing tools as possible to maintain the color,” recalls Chen.
The teams shared several types of look up tables, including a standardized P3 LUT for projector-based viewing and versions for Rec 709 and sRGB. Chen also calibrated color to the master viewing screen at the film’s main production facility. Chen met with director Mark Webb and picture editor Pietro Scalia to view the material coming in from different companies and check them for proper calibration. “We calibrated our look up tables to that viewing environment, so we would have a centralized place to evaluate the imagery.” In turn, this footage was calibrated to the Colorworks facility in Culver City, CA, where the final 4K color grading and DI finishing took place, along with mastering in 2D and stereoscopic 3D.
Picture Editing
Editor Pietro Scalia was eager to tell a story with characters that grow and seem real. “I liked to see how the characters of Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker are evolving. They’re moving on with their lives, so their relationship evolves as well. That was the fundamental theme of Spider-Man, the idea of conflict and growth in relationships,” Scalia explains. “The fact that Peter is also a masked vigilante just elevates the responsibility and emotion he feels. Those friendships, relationships, and love are just played out on a large scale.”
The editor also found the pure visceral joy of Spider-Man to be a vital storytelling consideration. “With Spider-Man, it’s always about fun and the idea of finding him in his element. I like the aspect of what it feels like to be a superhero, flying through the city and doing good,” Scalia explained. But of course, the emotional roots needed to be in place or the fun parts and big showdowns would not have any meaning. This is why Scalia was grateful to edit material from such a talented cast. “When I have such wonderful actors, that’s the fun part. I love it,” says Scalia. “We have the spectacles. We have the amazing action scenes, the flying, the 3D and all that, but at the end of the day, it’s really the emotions that need to feel real. You always have to be in love with the characters and feel what they feel, so I tried to do that.”
Scalia drew from his previous work on super hero films like Kick-Ass, but overall, he approached the project as something entirely different. “You get inspired by the look of the images and the performances, and try to make it young and fresh, and the best it can be,” he admits.The editing team dove deeply into the characters and story to construct the Times Square confrontation. “It’s such a pivotal moment for Electro’s character, and the initial storyboarding and pre-vis work needed to be expanded to pack a bigger punch. We realized we needed to make this moment resonate, so we did everything we could to help,” recalls Scalia.
Even before Max Dillon’s transformation into Electro, he is edited in a way that highlights the weaknesses of his character: he conveys an overall lack of confidence and self-worth. “He has issues with not being seen and people not caring about him, so it was important that these ideas were planted beforehand,” notes Scalia.
When Max transforms into Electro and sees himself in Times Square, the editing reflects his confusion. “It’s kind of delusional. We made that moment last as he circles around, seeing himself on the screens,” says Scalia. “When Spider-Man arrives, the same moment is repeated, but this time Electro sees Spider-Man’s face overtake his own on the jumbo screens. He feels like he is disappearing again, becoming invisible and not counting. This raises his anger and reveals his psychotic nature as he turns against Spider-Man.”
The editors wanted viewers to feel the importance of Electro’s transition from confusion to anger. “We visually built around this moment, spending a lot more time with people shouting , calling him a freak, a monster and expanded these moments in order to make it resonate with the viewer,” explains Scalia.
This sequence is further enhanced with sound effects and musical cues. “The sense of isolation in Electro’s head was emphasized by reducing the sounds of Times Square. You just hear his voice and you get inside his head as his musical theme comes back up,” Scalia explains.
Scoring TASM2
Hans Zimmer and the musical team built voices into the score, which are the voices inside Electro’s head. “When the table turns and Spider-Man is cheered on, we hear voices, ‘he’s your enemy, he’s selfish, he doesn’t care,’ things that build an idea inside of his head to emphasize his problems,” says Scalia.
The fighting sequences were edited to show just how much of a punch Electro is really packing, highlighting the damage he’s inflicting and the danger Spider-Man and the civilians are experiencing. “You need a villain with powers as strong as your hero, otherwise he’s not a good villain,” explains Scalia.
Scalia teamed with a large editing crew, including an additional editor, several assistants, visual effects editors, music editors, apprentices, and runners. “What I really enjoyed about this project was the ability to have a pre-vis team during the shoot,” recalls Scalia.
The additional editors assembled the sequences, which they would review together with director Marc Webb, fine tuning the sound effects, music, and dialogue lines. The pre-vis’d scenes were cut before they were actually filmed. As shooting progressed, the team would composite the material that was shot and elaborate on the visuals. “It was important to have the pre-vis artists around to be able to continuously do shots that we needed, and also my assistants sometimes created little insert shots,” says Scalia. “We are lucky to have these amazing people and the tools and resources to make things happen. It’s a great team that supports me, supports the director, and everyone else as well.”
Post Sound
Sound designers Addison Teague and Eric Norris brought Spider-Man’s audio cues to life after collaborating with Webb and Scalia. The team cemented their creative concepts with help from assistant sound editor Jake Riehle and FX editor Lee Gilmore. Norris headed Electro’s design, while Teague took the lead on Green Goblin and Rhino. Riehle was the team’s ‘secret weapon,’ as he served as the main recordist, prepped dialogue and reels, and understood the workflow throughout the stages.
They also worked closely with supervising dialogue editor Teri Dorman, supervising ADR editor David Cohen, and Foley editor Tom Small. “We had a really great, really strong crew,” Teague recalls.
The film was temp mixed three times on a stage, and a fourth time in Avid. “Each of these temps became spotting sessions that built on themselves, allowing the track and ideas to constantly evolve all the way to premixing and final,” Teague explains. The earliest temp mix began in September 2013.
The team began premixing the film at the beginning of January 2014, and did not have a day off until mid-March 2014. It was seventy-two straight days of non-stop sound design work. “Once we hit the stage, we were chasing the big release date. The stamina required by our crew was beyond what we usually have to endure,” recalls Teague.
When it came to telling a story through sound, it was especially vital to bring New York City to life. “It was important to create ambient cityscapes, with the depth you would experience in a living and breathing city,” Teague explained. The sound designers even looked to local New Yorkers on the crew to ensure the authenticity of the film’s sound design. “Establishing a realistic world was as important as selling an electrified villain, rocketing hover board, or swinging super hero that live within it.”
It was important to Teague and Norris to keep all sci-fi sound elements as plausible as possible. A key example is the hover board of the Green Goblin. “In this version of the Spider-Man universe, this is high-end military technology that doesn’t exist, but could. Meaning it needed to be based in reality,” Teague explains. “Manipulated jet sounds, motor whines and air displacement effects were all twisted and layered to give it something more than a low end rocket sound.”
The Goblin’s mechanical muscle suit consisted of servos and high tech layers of sound design to make it sound realistic, but still interesting. The same approach applies to Rhino’s giant mechanized suit. The team was also careful to remember that children would be an integral part of the film’s audience. “You can play up violence and scare tactics quite a bit with sound,” explains Teague. “Marc was always conscious of the big picture, and at times would have us tone down the balance of the effects in the mix.”
A handful of sound design elements were carried over from the first film to provide consistency, including Spider-Man’s mechanical web shooter. Its main tonal element is an aggressively pitched and compressed bow-and-arrow sound, layered with the sound of air being pushed out of a pump. When Spider-Man is swinging through the air, the core sound design elements are manipulated rope-creaking effects, accented with whooshes and swishes to build momentum.
In terms of adding a ‘sticky’ quality to the webs, foley would shoot silly string from cans and slam silly putty to the floor to mimic the sound of a web impacting a surface. Riehl had also recorded ambient tracks in New York City for the first film, so these were already in the team’s library.
The Times Square sequences are packed with deliciously vibrant sounds of destruction as Spider-Man and Electro fight. Norris and Riehl used styrofoam for a few of the destruction sound design elements, specifically those involving Electro’s electricity bolts. But overall, the majority of the sound elements came from an extensive database of libraries. These elements were augmented with custom foley recordings. “When you get into big scenes like that, where it would be fun to go out and record cars dropping on cars and that sort of thing, you really don’t have the financial resources or time for that,” Teague explains. “There’s a lot of great library material, but you have to pay attention to details, like the sound of specific types of glass shattering. That’s when you lean on foley to give you a detail layer.” The team met with foley supervisor Tom Small to make this happen.Electro’s sound design was inspired by science, music, and more. “One of the challenges we had was making his electricity sound interesting, as it naturally is kind of an ugly sound,” explains Norris. The team accumulated source material by visiting an electricity hobbyist to record the electrocution of various items. Norris also provided electro-magnetic recordings through a very unique process suggested by a colleague. “He had this really clever idea of taking a guitar pickup and using it to record real world sounds like a microwave, radio, light, computer, anything electronic that would generate an electromagnetic radiation of some sort,” Norris explains. These effects became Electro’s steady, idle undertones. Teague assembled a database that embodied the characteristics of electricity, careful to avoid the ‘usual’ electrical sounds. “I worked up a library of sounds ranging from steady electrical tones and pulses, to aggressive electrical strikes, waves, and dissipation,” explains Teague. “That also helped differentiate between traditional electricity sounds that Electro was ingesting, and how the same electricity sounded once it was part of his being.”
The alternating current in electricity has a tonal element already built into it, and the team aimed to integrate this tone into Electro’s sound design. It was also important that the tones were pitched to harmonize with Electro’s music. Even before Max Dillon’s transformation, strong electric elements play into his sound design. Max is shaving when we’re first introduced to him and the sound of his electric razor is pitched to match the musical score, a stylish bit of foreshadowing.
When Electro arrives in Times Square, sound design allows us to better understand the emotions he is experiencing. It was very important to Scalia and Webb that the sounds of New York took center stage at the beginning of this sequence. “They wanted to have the people yelling, the horns, the sirens, the cars, to be very present at the beginning of the sequence. Then as we got deeper into Electro’s head, we start peeling away all the other elements, and it becomes more about Electro and his transformation,” Norris explains. When Electro realizes Spider-Man’s face is now up on the screens, this ignites his jealous rage. Norris added a big breaker sound effect to augment this moment and draw the audience’s attention to the new face on the screens. The sound of the crowd cheering for Spider-Man and booing Electro, captured in group ADR recordings, comes back up in volume, further driving Electro toward madness. When Electro snaps and unleashes his power, his sound design overlaps heavily with Hans Zimmer’s musical score, which is very rhythmic, bass-driven, and reminiscent of dub step. “We added crashes and swells in places that worked with the music, where realistically, if somebody listens to the mix, they won’t be able to tell the difference between the music and the sound design,” Norris explains.
Norris designed Electro’s unique voice effects, which required extensive ADR work. Because of the heavy processing work required, Jamie Foxx’s production dialogue recordings could not be used. Any background noise would create inconsistent processing results, so it was vital to use clean studio recordings. Norris used Serato’s Pitch n’ Time plug-in for AudioSuite to pitch Foxx’s voice down variably, sometimes as much as 15 percent. Electro’s voice modulation work was completed with the Waves MondoMod plug-in, and Morphoder vocoder plug-in, also for Waves, added an electrical sound that followed the envelope of his voice. The overall concept was to modulate electrical sounds with Foxx’s voice while maintaining an organic sound. “We didn’t want it to sound synthetic. We ended up using a static electricity sound that follows his voice and trails off after he speaks,” explains Norris.
Electro vs Spider-Man
At the start of the Times Square sequence, almost no treatment was used. As Electro becomes angrier and more aware of his power, a heavier voice treatment comes into play. The most challenging aspect of treating Foxx’s voice was striking a balance between effects and intelligibility. Norris approached this challenge by automating his recordings on a syllabic level in Pro Tools. Less important syllables received heavier treatment than important ones. “We would apply more treatment to breaths between words. For held vowels, we would lessen the treatment at first to establish it, and then increase the treatment as it was held,” explains Norris. He used reFuse’s Lowender plug-in to synthesize subharmonic frequencies one or two octaves below the bass in the track, which added a deep quality to Foxx’s voice.
Every sound design task required a different combination of plug-ins. The team would begin by bringing sounds into the Kontakt sampler by Native Instruments for various tweaking, layering, pitching, and compression. Next, they would layer on as many plug-ins as needed for Waves, GRM Tools, and other software.
The film was mixed in Dolby’s Atmos cinema sound system format from start to finish. It was the first Atmos mix at Sony – taking place at their newly renovated William Holden Theater facility in Los Angeles – and the first mix to be integrated on the Harrison audio console. “We had a Dolby representative with us from day one, which was fantastic. We had a lot of support to make sure it went smoothly and that we made release day,” recalls Teague. The sound designers worked with re-recording mixer David Giammarco on the premix stage to make revisions and additions. “Arriving at the final mix with printed Atmos pre-dubs saved valuable time that we would have otherwise had to play with the effects,” explains Teague. Re-recording mixer Paul Massey would then begin to move his music around the Atmos environment, and he and Giammarco would make adjustments as needed. The end result was a mix for Atmos, Auro 11.1, and 5.1 cinema sound systems, making it the first film to utilize this combination.
What truly sets this film apart is the groundbreaking workflow between departments. Sony Pictures facilitated collaboration between the film’s visual effects, post sound, and post picture teams with their unique shared storage environment, the Production Backbone. More than 2.4 petabytes, which is more than 2,457 terabytes, of original production elements and metadata were stored in the system. This data could be accessed by all departments working on the film whenever needed, and in whatever file formats were necessary. It was the web that held everything together.