THE MIX
The mix is the re-recording and mixing of all the sound elements which you've compiled and edited.
You may have three rolls: the dialogue, the sound effects and the music tracks; or you may have ten tracks: two for dialogue, two for music (allowing for overlaps in conversation or underlying or over-riding narration and music segues, respectively,) and six EFX tracks, say for gun shots and bullet ricochets, wind noise, room tones, punches and hits, car and traffic sounds, crickets and bird sounds (for example.)
You can go into the sound studio with all these tracks and the sound engineer will have everything loaded on 35mm mag dubbers and ready for the mixing session; or you can sub-mix your EFX tracks and go in with one EFX track, that way you can use the precious studio time for equalizing dialogue and re-recording music.
Music should not be re-recorded and sub-mixed too much because you don't want it to lose it's freshness. You can also request for your music to be synthesized into a stereo mix, with the dialogue and sound EFX tracks also balanced and re-mixed for stereo. This is not a bad idea, since usually you can "make a deal" that this should not cost you a lot more than an ordinary mix.
Always ask for a little bit more! Your patronizing the studio, right? It's people like you who continue to work with this old but excellent sound technology that will keep the old sound studios going, you'll be recommending it to your film maker friends, isn't that so?
All right then, claim your special discount; what else are they saving that "button" on the mixing board for? Tell them, "Common press the Synthesized Stereo button, it's already wired for the job, what's it gonna cost you, another 10 micro-volts?
The mixing session will go through all your reels, one at a time.
You should've prepared sound logs for the mixing session. These are special forms that list each sound and it's exact duration. Get them and learn to use them.
They're easy. The sound mixer will pre-set all the levels and filters for each roll as he mixes. You sit next to the mixer and go back and forth through the rolls. Each time something isn't mixed right, the engineer stops the interlocking projection. You go back, maintaining sync, and re-mix. You participate in this style of rock'n'roll sound mixing, as you supervise each element of the mix. It's a terrific feeling when you get the mix to work, just the way you imagined it would, when you were putting all those sound elements together and wondering how they'll all mix in. The movie starts to come to life!
Every element of the sound is carefully re-recorded and mixed at the right level and filtration. You go back and redo anything you're not happy with. By the way, make sure you have a package deal, say for two days, at $5,000. Don't faint, this is so cheap you have to beg for weeks and look with a flash light through all the nooks and crannies of Hollywood to find a sound studio that'll do it for that.
Most majors spend weeks in mixing sessions, and you can imagine what they spend. $100,000. $200,000. $500,000. (As for musicals, there's no limit!)
Sometimes, with complex sound tracks, like with major studio sound tracks, you may require more than one sound mixer in the studio, each handling a certain number of tracks.
You're on a shoestring budget? I understand, I've been there! Record good dialogue. Cut in your effects carefully. Record them at proper levels or re-record yourself, so that they can be cut in without equalization. Forget filtration and all that other fancy sound engineer talk.
Go into the optical track phase with one sound track, with a thousand pieces of sound bites (make sure they're well spliced and haven't started to come apart already!)
Always go through the entire sound track before the mix and repair all bad splices and torn sprockets, otherwise your mixing session will become a nightmare.
When the sound track is completely mixed or finished, it's ready for the optical track!
You need to have a negative optical track for printing your answer print and subsequent release prints. Just as your picture track is prepared by the negative cutter for final printing onto positive print stock, your sound track has to be converted from magnetic sound to optical sound (as a negative) to be printed on the edge of your picture. The end result of such printing is called the composite print.
This means that your sound (optical positive) and your picture (positive transparency) are now married on the same piece of film that will go happily from theater to theater as release prints in their journey to make you rich and famous! You do want to get rich and famous, right? Okay, you had me worried for a while! ... Of course, you can do charitable stuff with your money! Look at Paul Newman, he's doing a fine job with the salad mixes, isn't he? (Try the Caesar's salad mix, it's a good one -- my favorite!)
Be prepared when you go to negotiate the mix prices. Find out how you should prepare your sound to fit their way of doing the mix. This way you'll save more money. Do they want the sound to be emulsion up or down. If you take it to them "moviola wind" (emulsion up,) and their equipment takes emulsion down (or base up,) they'll smile and spend studio time rewinding all your 90,000 feet of track! If you've made a package deal, they won't smile; but, you'll get a lot of flak and your mix may suffer, because they'll be rushing, all pissed off and all.
So go well-prepared to the mixing session. Get their sound log sheets, in advance, and prepare them the way they recommend, so that they can quickly understand them during the mixing session.
Then at the end of the mix, ask them to put the mix on three-stripe or full coat mag (completely coated, 35mm film magnetic track,) with the mix on the inside edge of the track (where you can play it on your editing equipment, the sound studio and projection rooms everywhere,) the "M & E track" should be placed on the other edge (for future transfers as the foreign orders come in,) and the dialogue track in the middle of the full coat (this will be supplied separately for dubbing purposes, if required -- also, should you yourself wish to change the music later, after you made some money or whatever, then you don't have to re-mix all over again, you only replace the M & E track!)