Digital Audio Recording Techniques and Surround Sound Production

Film music scoring for orchestra and small ensembles,
surround audio mixing and mastering

Participants will gain a knowledge of Hollywood techniques for orchestral and small ensemble audio recording with real musicians (full orchestra and small ensemble) followed by a master class on final mixing, stem preparation, audio mastering and delivery formats.

The two full-day sessions and one half-day session will be delivered by Hollywood scoring engineer, music producer and session musician, Professor Richard McIlvery. Professor McIlvery is Chair Professor of the Music Industry Department, Thornton School of Music, at the University of Southern California. Robert Ellis-Geiger, Assistant Professor at City University will also deliver talks audio recording techniques for Jazz musicians, small Western classical ensembles and how to integrate a computer mock-up orchestra with real musicians.

Professor McIlvery will present his pre-recorded video material from 20th Century Fox’s Scoring Stage that will contain an entire technical setup for orchestra, the recording session (full audio recording session in action with the whole studio team) and the tear down. In addition, this video will contain interviews with music editors, machine operators, time code operators and engineers to put together the sequence of events and duties from beginning to end of a large scale Hollywood scoring session.

Participants will also gain information on the complete list of equipment needed for a scoring stage; special types of headphones, amplifiers, microphones, stands, cables and so on.

Music for this event will be provided by film composer Robert Ellis-Geiger who scored Johnnie To Kei-Fung’s movie Election 2 (2006), and for the Patrick Tam movie After This Our Exile (2006). Robert will also discuss in detail the music for Election 2 and how he achieved the surround sound music mix.

Aim and Objectives

Besides providing training for audio engineers and musicians and bringing about awareness to film makers and television producers of the advantage in using real musicians, this workshop has the potential to seed serious interest in establishing a Hong Kong film scoring community that does not currently exist. Given the opportunity, Hong Kong has the potential to provide scoring services to film makers, television producers, animation creators and games developers from all over Asia.

Who should attend?

• All sound designers, film music composers, film mixing engineers within the Hong Kong film industry;
• Directors, producers and other filmmakers interested in gaining a deeper understanding of how music and sound is created, crafted and delivered;
• Animation artists;
• Entertainment game developers;
• Professional musicians interested in being part of establishing a scoring orchestra.
• Digital/media educators and students.

Dates

February 22, 23, 24, 2007. Full details on the booking page.