A Title Earned

Many in the film business know him. Most at least know of him and what he does: production sound recording for feature films. Some even call him Eddie. And some know him well enough to expect his sometimes sharp but eloquent humor. But even they will be surprised to know the journey of his career — and knowing Edward’s career is to have more respect for the title “Sound Mixer.”

By Glen Trew

During his first 17 years growing up in the USA in Columbia, Missouri, while Edward had interests in politics of the time and played a little guitar, nothing through the late 1960s seemed to point to a career in audio or film production.

“In my hometown of 15,000 the notion of working in films was just completely alien; I was going into politics,” Edward says.

In fact, Edward refers to his career as “this thing that I never intended to do”. But at 18 years of age, studying Third World Politics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Edward saw for the first time the Swiss-made portable tape recorder called “Nagra”, and the seed was planted. Edward recalls, “People in the film business often think about movies that made them want to be in the business, and for me, oddly enough, it was seeing the movie “Hard Day’s Night” when I was in Edinburgh. There was a scene where they were recording out in a field, and the engineer was sitting behind a kind of glass partition with a Nagra 3 recorder on a table. And I remember thinking that was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. That thought got tucked away because I was never going to work in the movies… I was supposed to go from doing my degree at Edinburgh to going on to Oxford for a PhD. But things changed. I got married and moved to the south of England where my wife – who was a gifted theatre photographer – had been accepted to a comprehensive program to study camera and film lighting.

So, in an unlikely twist of fate, Edward found himself in social circles of a select group of 25 students of the National Film School of Great Britain. Not only that – he suddenly had access to a room full of Nagra recorders that stirred the emotion from two years earlier…

“A couple of years after I had seen “Hard Day’s Night”, there I was in England at the National Film School, which was a statesponsored school that had just opened in the old Beaconsfield Studios for properly training and graduating students into the film industry; mainly directors, producers, and cameramen. And there were all these Nagras. It was the first year of the Nagra-IV, so they were brand new; and there was a sound program, complete with a NEVE desk, but not many people wanted to do it. And I thought, “Well gosh, I want to do it.” So, though I was never actually a student at the film school, I took advantage of the fact that there were all these students around making films, and started doing sound for them. I guess some of the best known students of that class were Cinematographer Roger Deakins (“Jarhead”) and Director Mike Radford (“1984″).”

“Because my education from Edinburgh was in Third World Politics, I was painting commercial buildings to make ends meet. So, doing sound and sound editing on weekends for these student films was a nice relief from painting, plus it was a safe place to make my mistakes. I was sort of a non-paid, non-matriculating student there, doing sound work for students and teachers.”

The natural progression for Edward was to move from non-paid sound work to Italian television, and the like, in London.

“Working for Italian television was better than painting, and it led me to discover ‘ethnographic documentaries.’ It was then that I realized I could do both sound-for-film and work in the area that I was interested and trained in, which was third world politics. So, I started doing documentaries on third world countries that were having wars.”

“I began working with Roger Deakins on his graduate student films at the National Film School. And when he graduated, we got together to find work and were able to go straight into the documentary scene at a private British network called ATV [later called Central TV] which was thought of as ‘the home of the high-class documentary,’ specializing in international politics, which was perfect for me.”

Edward continues, “In fact, my first sort-of serious paid job was when we went off to Eastern Africa for a documentary on the Eritrean Popular Liberation Front, who had been at war with Ethiopia for twenty-five years. It was a two-man crew – camera and sound – and often we did our own directing; I mean, it was just Roger and I. Aside from me being the one with the most experience with sound (and the fact that Roger was a fantastic cameraman) one reason I ended up with the recorder instead of the camera is that it freed me up to conduct the interviews and ask the questions – which is what I wanted to do. We worked in Eritrea about seven months, then came back and cobbled together a three-hour series. That was the first of many such documentaries, especially in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.”

Edward’s work on war documentaries permanently ingrained basics in the way he works.

“Twelve years of covering war taught me patience and trained me to be ready all the time. At one point we decided that we were not getting enough close-combat footage. So we took a treacherous hike, scaled a hill, and went to the heart of where the fighting had been – and waited while absolutely nothing happened for two days. On the third day, suddenly a MIG flew in and dropped phosphorous bombs just below our position, and an instant later was gone. We got it all because we were used to having to be ready. And because that’s the way it always was, to this day I feel compelled to be almost overly prepared for my work.”

These traits were reinforced again later in Mozambique.

“A RENAMO Colonel from FRELIMO (Liberation Front of Mozambique) ambushed us, threw us in the back of a truck and held us for ransom for several days. To say this guy was mean is a bit of an understatement; I mean his teeth were all filed to a point, and he would kill at the drop of a hat. Fortunately this Colonel was also a drunk, and one night while we were wondering about our future and kind of waiting for an opportunity to improve our situation, he passed out, and a soldier who was sort of sympathetic to us helped us escape in a truck.”

When asked about what equipment he used on these documentaries, Edward explains, “Well, our gear had to be very minimal. I mean, the two of us had to carry everything in and carry it out again. We were hitching rides on the back of military convoy vehicles and stuff like that, and often running ahead of them. We had to carry all of our tape and film and batteries, in addition to the camera and sound gear. I started with a Nagra IV-L, then moved to the Nagra IS, a Stellavox SP8, and then finally the stereo Nagra IV-S. And I always took a Nagra SN
[subminiature 1/8″ open-reel recorder], you know, as a backup. Microphones were always Sennheisers.”

Between war-documentaries, Edward would reconnect with movie production back in England.

“I knew people in the independent film scene in London, and I did sound for a couple of ‘street movies’ [editor: ‘street movies’ was a slang term for independent low-budget movies of the time]. Chris Menges shot one called Babylon. That was my first feature film, a ‘street movie’ set among the Reggae community.”

Edward’s war-documentary career continued into 1984 when he was asked to do an “all wars” documentary; and while trekking the hill country of North Vietnam, his knees gave out. That’s when he decided that working on a film set in front of a cart was probably a better choice. For Edward, war had finally ended. Or so he thought.

The war-coverage experience of soundman Edward Tise was well known around film circles in England, and caught the attention of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, who was about to start production on his Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket… “Stanley asked me to do Full Metal Jacket largely because of all the war-experience I had. But I had to tell him that I’d never really done a feature before, at least nothing anywhere near the scale he was talking about. He said not to worry, that he would show me how, and help me along. Stanley had a long relationship with Nagra and [Nagra founder] Stephan Kudelski, and had several Nagra recorders of his own, which I was to use on the movie. But he didn’t have a proper mixing console. I had never even used a mixer other than the little three-channel SQN. But the next day I rented a car, drove to Switzerland, met Jacque Sax, and bought a Sonosax mixer. It was one of the first SX-S10 models ever made. And the next day I started on Full Metal Jacket.”

This began a long string of films with Kubrick, right up until his last, Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick had definite opinions about what he wanted, and was very involved when it came to recording sound on the set. Edward recalls, “Stanley almost never allowed booms in those early films. He considered them distractions. We planted microphones, and had Micron radio mics, but radios in those days were not very good, so Stanley sometimes insisted on placing Nagra SN recorders right on the actors. Most of the dialog of Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, and Barry Lyndon were done either with plant mics or the Nagra SN.”

It had to say “Nagra”

Edward’s career has spanned several formats that became available with new technology, but he was never one to make hasty changes. And while he has been known to hold on to traditions and bypass popular formats altogether (DAT), he has also been among the first to adopt the more obscure (Nagra D).

About the move into digital recording, Edward says, “I was anxious to move on from the analog Nagra tape recorders to digital recorders. For me it was about getting rid of the tape hiss, which people often forget was always there. And on shows such as Full Metal Jacket I had [analog tape] print-through with all of the shouting and stuff. At the time, the only two digital choices, really, were DAT and the new Nagra D. I was never a believer in DAT. I didn’t think the fidelity was acceptable, nor did I believe in its reliability. And I knew that Stanley would never let me use a recorder that didn’t say ‘Nagra’ on it.”

The first show Edward did with the Nagra D (which he paid $36,000 for in the early 1990s) was Mad City. But the machine was really purchased in preparation for Kubrick’s next film, Eyes Wide Shut, which immediately followed.

Edward recalls, “…Stanley was hesitant about going with the Nagra D. He was nervous about its complexity and the whole digital recording concept. Finally, I put my foot down and said, ‘You’re gonna love it.’ And he did. But he still sometimes walked over to the cart just to watch, in amazement, as the scanner would spin up and the transport did its little dance and loaded the tape against the heads.”

But Edward also wanted the four tracks of the Nagra D.

“Stanley was always interested in the notion of recording each actor on their own track. We had often discussed the system pioneered by [sound mixer] Jim Webb for [director] Robert Altman, and while the ‘Altman style’ was not exactly what Stanley was after, he did want the additional options that four tracks would give him. I used the four tracks to split radio mics, and maybe the boom. Times that there were more microphones needed than I had tracks to put them on, I just grouped them sensibly.”

“I owned three Nagra Ds. They were wonderful machines to work with, and I believe they were the best for me at the time. I always wanted to use the best and most reliable available, rather than depending on cheaper multiple machines that had to be backed up.”

“I think I did twelve shows with the Nagra D – the last must have been I Heart Huckabees. It was utterly reliable and fabulous-sounding to me, but it changed the way I worked because it made me less mobile; it was so big and AC-powered and all. So when nonlinear hard-disk-based recorders came on the scene, I was very interested; and frankly, I was ready for a change. When I finally decided to go that route, I went with the [Aaton] Cantar. The Cantar was far preferable for me for the way my work was going. I needed more tracks and to be more mobile.”

“The only thing I miss [about the Nagra D] is the thing I’m also glad to get away from: that sort of precision, mechanical movement, because of the long-term maintenance. I love the sound of the Cantar, and love that it has all the onboard facilities it has; so I never really felt like I gave anything away. I felt like it was just a steady improvement in my equipment and technique, going from the ‘D’ to the Cantar.”

Backup? No. Whether or not to record a simultaneous ‘backup copy’ has been a common debate among sound mixers for many years. The debate continues, and Edward Tise is not shy with his opinion:

“No. I never record to more than one recorder for the purposes of backing up. As [sound mixer] Chris Newman used to say, ‘I only took one car to get here’ – so I buy the most reliable car I can. The notion of recording backup copies came along when DATs started being used, and since I never used a DAT, I never needed to record backups.”

“On Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley did want me to record to a stereo Nagra in addition to the Nagra D, but it wasn’t for machine backup. He referred to them as ‘protection copies,’ to be used in case a tape was physically lost. But now, with file-based recording, where there are suddenly many copies everywhere, there is not even that reason for recording onto another machine.”

Edward’s views on tracks and mixing

Philosophies and practices vary about how to use the multiple tracks now available on nonlinear recorders. Some prefer to never change the number of tracks being recorded – always using the maximum available whether they are needed or not, and isolating every input to its own track. Others prefer to do only a mono mix, except in rare situations.

Here’s Edward’s way: “I use the number of tracks I need for each scene and turn off tracks I’m not using. If I only need one, I only use one. If I need options, or if I’m recording for a pair of cameras doing different things, I’ll use the number of tracks that gives me the options I think might be needed. But I don’t fill tracks just because I have them; it’s just too much data.”

“I believe that sometimes I can get as good a mix on the floor as anyone’s going to have time to do later. So if I’m confident that I can do a floor mix, I’ll bundle everything together on one track and I won’t keep things discrete. But if I think I can help the sound editing process by splitting tracks, then I’ll split tracks, but I have no really hard and fast rule, and it can change on a scene-by-scene basis. But if I start splitting tracks, I’ll keep it consistent within that scene.”

Good Night And Good Luck

As of this writing, Edward’s most recent completed film is Good Night, And Good Luck, directed by George Clooney. By all accounts it is a film worthy of much acclaim, and it has many awards to show for it. One such award that is directly related to Edward’s work is the 2006 Grammy for “Best Jazz Vocal Performance,” most of which was recorded and mixed on-the-fly by Edward Tise, directly onto his Cantar hard-disk recorder.

Notable jazz critic Nat Hentoff referred to the soundtrack as “the best jazz vocal recording since 1967.” In addition to the Grammy, the album has now also been nominated for a Mix TEC Award for “Album Record Production.” It is up against Eric Clapton and Kanye West in a sort of “David and Goliath” face-off, so it will be interesting to see how the film set sound cart recording fairs against the big studio recordings.

Edward tells how it was done: “It was all recorded live on the set. George wanted to shoot it that way; he wanted a live performance. He wanted the feeling that Diane Reeves and her combo were rehearsing sets for some program other than the Edward R. Murrow show in a nearby studio. George wanted the scene to be simple, so I knew the recording had to be simple – and there was never any question about using a mobile recording truck or anything. I mean, there we were, fifty feet from the best recording stage in Los Angeles, Todd-AO at CBS/Radford, but the music was simply integrated into a normal day’s filming, really, some of it straight into the Aaton Cantar. I used the Sonosax [mixer] for some grouping, then into the Cantar [recorder]; and some mics just went right into the Cantar.”

“In a couple of instances I had to keep two tracks set aside for dialog. For example, there was one scene with dialog leading right up to the first song. On the other music scenes I could use all eight tracks. Two of those tracks were sort of a stereo overview, using that wonderful Schoeps stereo mic.”

“At one point I realized I was going to have to pull the string bass up, so I got one of those old RCA 77 ribbon mics. I grabbed it right off of Murrow’s desk and stuck it in front of the bass. Then I put a Schoeps boundary layer mic [BLM] on the piano. I put another one way up in the beds [catwalks] as a distant mic because I wanted to have the ability to go from room to room and make the sound become distant in case that was needed. As it turned out, it was never used that way, but at some point I felt I was missing the cymbals, and when I checked the distant mic overhead, there they were. In the final mix we used that track to bleed a little cymbal in, so it turned out to be incredibly useful.”

Those who have heard the Diane Reeves album may have noticed that there are some songs that do not appear in the movie. Edward explains, “She recorded, in a studio, more songs to add to our original recordings, to fill out the album. She made an incredible effort to make them sound just like the recordings we made for the film, and I think succeeded enormously.”

Of course, even when music is recorded live on a set, it is common to play the tracks back for lip-sync on different camera angles, cutaways, etc. But, Good Night, And Good Luck bravely stuck to the simple, purist approach that helped make it the admired film that it is.

Edward expounds, “We shot each song – all the way through – with two cameras, so the cutaways were done with the B camera while we were filming the live performance. So, no, there was no sync playback – and it was because of George. He wanted to shoot it that way. He apparently had enough confidence in me and in Dianne Reeves, that between us we could do it; she could do a wonderful performance and I could do a sensible-enough mix. And it was decided without any discussion. I mean, there were no threats, no pleading, or great planning or anything; it was just like ‘OK, what’s up next.’ It really was like that.”

“I had a similar prior experience with George that worked happily on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (though to a much lesser degree) where we did some of the Chuck Barris Gong Show band live, and some of the acts live as well. So George is a great believer in the idea of getting good people and then doing it live.

“When I heard the album, I couldn’t believe how great it sounded. But there’s one song that’s a bit woolly, where I was getting my mix together. The saxophone player had stepped away from the microphone I intended to pick him up on. So, his solo is a little in the background on that track. George liked the sound, but I still cringe when I hear it. I then locked him down and readjusted the microphone for the rest of the songs. But there was no chance of them doing it over again.”

Inspiration

For Edward Tise, when thinking about who had the most influence on his career, it comes down to two:

According to Edward, “Well, I never had any proper training; it was all trial by fire. But I was terribly encouraged by Peter Handford, [the British Soundman for Billy Liar, Frenzy, The Go-Between, Out of Africa. He was incredibly kind and generous with his knowledge, and one of those guys who just welcomed you into the fold.”

But the most influential was Stanley Kubrick, as Edward explains. “I learned an enormous amount from Stanley. He had sort of a meticulous approach to everything, and he had a very strong idea that, above all else, the dialog had to be clear. If Stanley had a problem with the sound, often it was not a technical problem but a problem with performance and reading. I learned to think about what the actor was doing and what the actor was saying. And if I could possibly influence that, and chose the time well, I could maybe make a few suggestions – either to Stanley or the actors – and I was expected to. I learned a lot about pace, tone, attitude, and the musicality of dialog from Stanley. He insisted on little ‘grace notes’ to make a line flow the way he wanted. And he was terribly interested in the rhythm of the line. If you listen to Full Metal Jacket the lines are all very rhythmic. And that’s very purposeful. The script was written that way, and he wanted it spoken that way. It’s no coincidence that [the loud, crude drill sergeant] Lee Ermey’s performance was so, you know, kind of poetic. I guess you could say that my ear was tuned by Stanley Kubrick.”

Currently

Edward’s still hard at it. “I’ve been at this line of work a long time, but I plan to keep doing it until the very end. I love it and I don’t want to be away from it. I love the creative process of film production; working with actors, and directors, and everyone else involved in making a movie.”

As of this writing, Edward is midway through a film directed by Sean Penn that is in some ways reminiscent of his early career. The locations for many scenes are very remote and require steep hikes and forging rivers in the wilderness. Knowing this in advance, Edward set out to refine the way he contained and transported his gear for such an adventure – something other than the traditional heavy sound cart. True to his independent nature, Edward came up with a unique solution and developed a very portable and collapsible rig that is actually more of a tripod with wheels than a cart (see photo). After a couple of months use, Edward reports, “The tripod has been fantastic. I can pick it up and carry it in rough terrain. And the legs can be adjusted to be stable even on sloping hillsides” – always a problem with four-wheel carts.

With his years of varied experience to look back on, when asked what advice he has for the rising stars of this profession, in addition to the need for preparation it is interesting that Edward picks another of the very basics: “Listen”, he says without hesitation. “I can know the schedule, study the call sheet and read the script, but I must know what the set is going to sound like first, absolutely before anything else. So I start listening early on. I always, always require an open mic on the set so that I can listen. Listen not only to dialog but to the character of the set, the ambience, the murmuring of the background actors. I am always making stereo recordings of the background, because the nuances of these sounds are often just impossible to fabricate – at least believably – in post. But if you’re not listening closely all the time you’re going to miss opportunities to do this, and then it will be too late. And the need for close listening goes beyond just what goes to the recorder – it’s all the things you hear floating around in the room that’s going to affect your job: from a line change, to a costume change, to where the gaffer wants to put a light. Learn to listen. It’s the very core of our job.”

“But it still always comes back to being prepared. My aim is to be so prepared that the compromises – that are inevitably going to be made – do not box me in and keep me from doing what I need to do. Sound is so fragile. Being prepared allows one enough wiggle-room to adapt to those instances of spontaneity that happen within the performance; the moments that will make it so that, when you’re finished with a scene, you take your headphones off and go, ‘Yes… oh yeah, that was good’.”

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