Greg Russell Dolby Atmos Interview
Check out this cool interview with Greg Russell, a Hollywood sound mixer (re-recording mixer) whose resume includes Skyfall, Spider-man, Spider-man 2, and The Usual Suspects. Greg has been the sound mixer for all of the Transformers movies and personally oversaw the Dolby Atmos mix for the Blu-ray Disc version of Transformers: Age of Extinction. This is the first of the Transformer films to be mixed in Dolby Atmos specifically for home theater. The Greg Russell Dolby Atmos interview sheds light on just how exciting the new format can be from behind the recording console—and hints at the new possibilities that open up for mixing audio for home theater.
If you don’t know what Dolby Atmos is, check out our What is Dolby Atmos article which also features an interview with Brett Crockett about the new format and the recent product introductions at the 2014 CEDIA Expo. If you refuse to click on the link, let me sum it up for you: Dolby Atmos adds either two or four height speakers on the ceiling (or directed at the ceiling), giving you a second layer of sound that enhances the listening environment as well as provides additional options for point-source sound effects. With Dolby Atmos, sound comes from all directions, including (specifically) overhead, making you feel like you are truly inside the story.
Instead of channels, Dolby Atmos uses object-oriented elements in mixing—replacing the more antiquated ways of assigning sounds tin the theater space. Plus, it’s backwards compatible with any system or surround speaker configuration so you lose nothing if you don’t happen to have Atmos-enabled speakers or ceiling speakers.
Having guys like Greg Russell be excited about Dolby Atmos is a lot like having James Cameron excited about 3D—it pushes the format forward and gets even more people excited. That seems like a good thing for the new format and we’re starting to appreciate the potential already. The more we see about Dolby Atmos, the more we like it.
