NUGEN Audio announced that Fonic, a full-service audio postproduction facility based in Shoreditch, East London, has chosen the company’s Halo Upmix plug-in to provide upmixing for a range of television and cinema productions. Available in Avid AAX, VST, and AU formats, Halo Upmix automates the creation of a stereo-to-5.1/7.1 downmix-compatible upmix with unique center channel management and spatial density controls.
“Increasingly, we’re required to deliver broadcast projects in 5.1 surround audio, but most music composers still produce audio tracks in stereo. In order to keep to tight delivery schedules, we need to be able to create surround mixes quickly and easily without degrading the sound quality,” said JM Finch, dubbing mixer, Fonic. “Compared to other tools we’ve worked with, Halo Upmix is truly unique in its ability to produce both a high-quality and great-sounding 5.1 upmix and a downmix that sounds almost identical to the original stereo source. Plus, the tool’s highly intuitive user interface and extensive manual controls make upmixing fast and easy.”
Recently, Fonic has used Halo Upmix for two high-profile projects — “Thomas and Friends: The Great Race,” a 60-minute animated film released in May; and “To Build a Fire,” a film based on a book by Jack London. The common thread on both of these projects was the outstanding musical track, originally mastered in stereo. With Halo Upmix, Fonic was able to produce a 5.1 upmix of the music that was almost 100 percent true to the sound of the original mix.
In addition to Halo Upmix, Fonic uses NUGEN Audio’s VisLM-H2 plug-in for loudness metering and monitoring, ISL 2 for reliable true-peak limiting, and LM-Correct 2 to make quick fixes for easy loudness compliance. Together with Halo Upmix, those NUGEN Audio plug-ins are instrumental in Fonic’s audio workflows — not just for TV projects, many of which are now subject to international loudness regulations, but also for online and film productions. In addition, Fonic is exploring the use of NUGEN Audio’s new 9.1 extension for Halo Upmix, which will expand its capabilities to 9.1 upmixing with overhead positioning.
“Our partnership with NUGEN Audio is very important to our operation,” Finch said. “The ironclad quality and reliability of their solutions is something we can count on; in fact, to this day, we have not had to call on the NUGEN Audio support team. That says a lot about the build of the plug-ins and the rigorous testing that goes into each one.”
“Fonic has been offering some of London’s finest audio postproduction services since 2004, with a culture of providing ‘creative sound by people who care.’ That’s an ethos that we share at NUGEN Audio; therefore we feel especially privileged that Fonic Post has chosen our loudness and upmix solutions,” said Jon Schorah, founder and creative director, NUGEN Audio.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More