Sound Editors and Designers Jamie Mahaffey and Martin Taylor have worked extensively in the world of audio post-production on cumulative titles like Team Zenko Go, Prisoners of Age, and several Lego franchise mini-television series. Recently, they have been busy collaborating on sound for the Octonauts: Above and Beyond children’s animated television series, and the Octonauts: Ring of Fire, a movie for Netflix. They also worked on the YouTube original series “The EggVenturers,” centered around a wacky crew of “EggVenturers” who use teamwork and ingenuity to solve problems. Jamie and Martin are also co-founders of The Mix Room Studios, a full-service audio post facility.
We spoke with Jamie and Martin about their roles in audio post productions, their studio, and their most recent projects.
You co-founded The Mix Room Studios, a full-service audio post facility in Vancouver. Can you tell us what your day-to-day looks like?
Martin Taylor: Well.. in 10 minutes from this writing, we have a Zoom meeting about a new animated series. But when we’re not quoting on a show or helping a client through the post-sound scheduling process, we’re usually editing and mixing. Everyone wants (needs) to be as efficient as possible. Production is such a fast-moving train and there are always unforeseen surprises. Therefore, the more organized we are the more time everyone has for the creative process – which is really what it’s all about.
You have both worked in various capacities in the sound department—as sound editors, sound designers, and mixers. Can you give us a brief overview of the differences between these roles?
Jamie Mahaffey: Sound editors are the folks who edit the dialogue, foley, and backgrounds. Sound designers create the sound for things like spaceships, magical fantasy sequences, car chases, battle scenes, creatures, etc. Re-recording mixers then consolidate all the tracks from the sound editors, the sound designers, and the foley session along with all the musical score from the composer. After consolidating all the tracks into one master session, the re-recording mixer then weaves it all together to create the final mix. This will include treating all the dialogue with various effects to put the characters in the actual space they’re in on-screen i.e. a large hall, wearing helmets, on the radio, underwater, in a dream sequence, the list goes on and on! He/she will mix the show with the director & producer making sure their vision is brought to the screen from a sound point of view. The re-recording mixer is also responsible for the final technical delivery to the network making sure the list of audio deliverables has been met and all QC checks have been passed successfully.
What are the components that go into building a “soundscape” for a show?
Martin Taylor: Technically, there’s dialogue, background ambiance, specific SFX and Foley as well as music score and sound design. It’s all “sound design” really, but depending on the requirements of the show, it may require designing sounds that don’t exist naturally. Science-fiction shows or animated shows with various ingenious ‘gadgets’ would be good examples of this. All these elements ebb and flow in and out of one another and that’s where the audio art and vision lay.
Congratulations on the Emmy® win! What was it like receiving the award for your work on Octonauts & the Ring of Fire?
Jamie Mahaffey: The word we keep using to describe the experience is ’surreal’. Being nominated was mind-blowing enough. To actually win was completely off the chart! An amazing evening that will be hard to top!
You were both involved with HGTV’s Pamela’s Garden of Eden starring Pamela Anderson. How did you both embrace the shift from animated scripted to unscripted content?
Martin Taylor: The world of Documentary and unscripted shows is where we grew our business originally. The sound editing of background and specific SFX is generally the same as animated shows. Where things differ is with dialogue. With animated shows, the dialogue is recorded in a controlled recording studio setting and therefore is clean. Live action can be a rougher ride sound-wise. Unscripted location shoots go at breakneck speed and the sound person (if there was one…) doesn’t have a lot of time to adjust to the ever-varying situations. Pamela’s Garden of Eden is a building and renovation show and it can be quite noisy and will often require a lot of dialogue cleaning to ensure the voices cut through. The nature of an unscripted lifestyle show demands that the picture editor knit together sentences to tell the story and sometimes these edits are less than ideal. We call these "Franken-edits”. They’re usually words edited together that were never said in that particular order and therefore need a great deal of audio surgery to make them sound natural.
In any project, what is the collaborative process like between you and the director? How do you work together to bring forth the audio tone of a piece?
Jamie Mahaffey: We start by doing what’s called a ’spotting session’ where we get together with the director after we’ve received the locked cut of the show. We’ll go through every scene with them and talk through what sort of tone they’re looking for or have them point out things that are not immediately obvious. After the spotting session, we get to work. All the editorial work gets done, composers deliver their score, and the re-recording mixer ‘premixes’ the show. The premix is then sent to the director (and sometimes the producer & the network), they go through the show and generate a list of creative notes for us. We address all the notes and then prep the show for the final mix. The director attends the final mix along with the producer. Because we deliver a premix, most of the issues have been resolved by the time we get to the final mix stage. So the final mix session is really about making everything as close to perfect as possible!
What’s coming up for you both?
Martin Taylor: We’re about halfway through Season 1 of the new Disney show ‘SuperKitties’ and have started on Season 8 of ‘Octonauts Above & Beyond’ for Netflix. There are definitely more animated series and Pamela Anderson shows in our future. We’ve just started on two other Lifestyle series, ’Small Town Potential’ and ‘Restored’ for HGTV, plus we’ve signed on for 6 more episodes of a show called ’Haunted Gold Rush’ for Discovery Channel. And some new shows that we’re not allowed to talk about just yet, but keep checking in with us!
For more information on Jamie and Martin, check out their website.
