Ian Eisendrath (45:10)
So you know, our pre recording process is, I bet we spent six to ten hours with each actor on each song. And you know, every, every actor works differently. We want to figure out what is the best possible environment and situation and modality for each actor that will give their best work. So no session is the same, but either. We're recording many, many takes of the whole song and every time there's a take we're saying, okay, this time let's really focus on this. Let's focus on this. Let's make sure this note is correct, this rhythm is correct. Let's think about what's happening on camera and make sure that we're connecting to that action so that it sounds like something that you would actually sing and say in that situation. And you end up with many, many takes. And one of my great joys is combing through those takes and selecting, cobbling together a performance. And of course it was a plethora of riches with each of these actors and we will end up putting together what is sort of our dream version of how the song might sound. And then once comps are put together, I share them with Benj and Justin. Songwriters, you know, Benjamin, Justin are highly involved in the producing side of things and have incredible thoughts and opinions. And we spend a while going back and forth and sort of finding this is the sort of golden version of this song. And then we bring in our orchestrator, August Ericsman, who then creates a MIDI so like a mock up orchestration around the song so we really understand, hear and feel the vibe of what the instrumental track is going to be. We send that to the cast. They spend a lot of time with that and what they're doing is they're spending time trying to figure out how do I sort of match what was put on the pre Record so learning the timing and the sync so that the lips and the voice and the breath are all moving. But then once we get to set, we keep the set quiet so everyone's hearing everything in their ears and we're recording them live, doing every single song. And the reason we have the prerecord really is that's our grid, meaning the words happen at the same time from shot to shot, which is essential for many reasons. It means that once we have the recording of the live audio with our pre record, the production audio with our prerecord and picture in front of us, we can go through syllable by syllable, word by word, breath by breath, and be like, what is the best and most honest to support what we're seeing? So each of these songs are like these patchwork quilts cobbled together. I think we probably ended up in the end 50% live. 50% from the pre record. You'll tend to always use live for anything that's sort of conversational and free and speech like. And then for everything else, it's really a toss up of what sounded best. And, you know, we had. Again, I cannot give enough credit to Derek Lee, who is our mixer engineer, who is the master at putting all that together, as well as our music editor, Michal Lieberman, who then really works with everything we have, syncing it to what we're seeing on screen. And it's just this endless puzzle that I find so challenging because you're just like, oh, I loved the way it sounded there, but that isn't real anymore. So, okay, how are we gonna do this? But it's also just so delightful because when you get it, you really feel it. Like, I'm really.
