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Story by M.A. Giorgio On the corner of a quiet street in suburban Los Angeles sits a 1928 Spanish Revival home originally owned by actor Bela Lugosi. Star of the classic 1930's era "Dracula" movies, and a key figure in Tim Burton's Academy Award-winning Ed Wood, Lugosi might be thrilled to learn his former home maintains its Hollywood ties, albeit in an unexpected way. Some six years ago, when DVD players first arrived on the consumer scene, Grammy Award-winning recording engineer Robert Margouleff and his partner Brant Biles took an immediate interest in the emerging format. While their initial projects focused on producing, mixing and mastering music in 5.1 surround for Digital Theater Systems (DTS), the growing home theater market inspired a new business plan. In 1997, the duo founded Mi Casa Multimedia Inc., focusing exclusively on post production of surround audio for feature film DVDs. Two years later, they moved into the former Lugosi home, began a major restoration, and installed the first of what has grown to three audio-for-DVD mastering studios. Since their initial assignment, re-mixing New Line Cinema's Pleasantville, they have completed many high-profile DVDs. And with over 25 million DVD players installed across the country, and hundreds of new titles released each month, Mi Casa is well positioned for the future. Recent credits include mixing and mastering 5.1 and 6.1 audio for such notable films as Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Reservoir Dogs. Mi Casa also restores and re-masters audio on classic features including eight James Bond films for MGM Home Entertainment. Designed in association with the Walters-Storyk Design Group (NY), Mi Casa features two 5.1 high-end home-theater mixing environments: the "Living Room" and the "Dining Room." "The Study," a dedicated pre/post-production suite, opened up this spring. The primary design objective was to retain the original architecture of the historically significant house. "Our goal was to harmoniously merge technology with humanity, and get the rooms to perform transparently," says Margouleff, whose early career includes engineering hit albums for such stars as Stevie Wonder and The Jackson Five. "We felt it was particularly appropriate to be working in an authentic home environment as our projects are designed to be viewed in home theaters. The fact that Bela Lugosi had owned this house lent an added poignancy to the atmosphere. Legend has is that he [Lugosi] died on a couch in the living room while reading an Ed Wood script." Through painstaking attention to detail and a direct, hands-on approach, Margouleff's vision is now a reality. With the recent completion of their third and final (for now) studio, Mi Casa is operating at full capacity with all the comforts of a real home – a fully stocked fridge, guest bedroom and bath, and a lagoon-like swimming pool – its water always at 80 degrees. "This is a real home in every sense of the word. In fact, it's my home – I live here," Margouleff says. "Occasionally, directors stay overnight while working on their projects," he continues. "For example, John Cameron Mitchell, director, and star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (New Line Pictures), was our guest for two nights. He sat by the pool and worked on his film in a way that he could never do on a mixing stage with the clocks ticking and five engineers waiting for instructions. It gave him a chance to totally focus on our work. The DVD mastering process is a last chance for directors to rethink decisions they may have been rushed through during the initial feature release post-production process. In addition to remastering original elements, we also polish audio for the DVD menu, deleted scenes and actor/director commentaries. Many directors complain about incredibly tight deadlines prior to theatrical release. The DVD is the ‘archival' version that will have on-going life in private film collections, and the work we do at Mi Casa is their opportunity to get it totally right." "We didn't want to build a commercial facility," Biles emphasizes. "Because our projects are screened in 5.1 and 6.1 home theaters, we want our work space to emulate that environment complete with Tiffany lamps, comfortable furniture, plush carpets and lush draperies." "Our primary challenge was to isolate the rooms acoustically, while preserving the architectural integrity of the house," comments WSDG principal architect/acoustician John Storyk, who served as chief acoustic consultant. "We scrutinized every nook and cranny to get it right. The end result is two great-sounding, comfortable and aesthetically-pleasing ‘working' home theaters." LA-based architect Vincent Van Haalf provided additional acoustic consultation. Measuring 14x13 feet, the smaller of the two mixing suites, the Dining Room, was constructed in just under 30 days. "John built five sloping monoliths [efficient wall diffuser baffles] which mask a set of three French window/doors, the kitchen door and a blank wall to break up mid-range, bottom and standing waves," Margouleff explains. "Modex attenuators and skylines from RPG Diffuser Systems, Inc., camouflaged the rooms' acoustic treatments to balance out reflections and reverberations. All these elements coalesced to create a very acoustically flat environment." Distinguished by a sunken floor and a dramatically arched entranceway, the cozy 20x17 foot Living Room went online eight months later. In keeping with Margouleff's determination to maintain the original style of the house, Storyk created a large acoustic cloud that seamlessly complements the rich, intricately hand-painted green and gold leaf-trimmed mahogany ceiling. Instead of boarding-up and plastering over the French windows, he isolated them with three layers of glass to sound-proof the room. When the heavy red theater drapes are drawn, visitors enjoy a fetching view of the swimming pool. "We also put up additional walls to isolate the Living Room from the hallway," Margouleff continues. "The woodwork on the exterior of the rooms along with the columns, etc. were all faux-painted and are exact replicas of the original architectural elements." The entire skill set of contractor/carpenter/craftsman (and musician) Tony Clearwater was enlisted to help preserve aesthetic authenticity. The two mixing rooms are identically equipped with Sony DMX-R100 digital mixing consoles, a TC Electronic System 6000 multichannel processor, Z Systems Detangler Pro 64x64 digital audio routers, and a SADiE Artemis 24-track workstation. The entire facility is wired with Gepco audio cables, selected to accommodate AES switching and digital transmission needs. "High-quality audio is our primary concern, and that's what DVDs are all about," states Biles. "The Sony DMX-R100s sound great and are extremely flexible. We especially love the fact that the board has separate surround output busses. I can switch from stereo to surround with the flick of a button." Mi Casa has also recently installed high-speed symmetrical DSL service, and is capable of delivering its output, ready for authoring and compression, via the Internet. The upstairs Study is a QC pre- and post-production studio geared towards loading, conforming, cleaning and prepping audio tracks for mixing. "The smallest (12x13) of the three rooms, this space is similarly equipped (minus a console), and reflects all of the thinking that went into the rest of the house," Margouleff points out. "It took nearly eight months to construct. John [Storyk] had to build a curved front wall, and we needed an additional door for the room to accommodate a sound trap. This house was built in 1928 so we had to have the new doors custom built. Even the doorknobs were researched to fit the original style." "Even our monitors, Genelec 1032As in the Living Room, LSR28Ps in the Dining Room, and Meyer HM-1s in the Study are more akin to home theater listening. Positioned at ear level, all our speakers are direct-radiating and equidistant from a center point. Every speaker has its own performance curve," Margouleff adds. "We specifically sought out speakers with varying characteristics to ensure that we do not produce DVDs with a generic sound. We wanted to ensure that every film would reflect its own personality and mood." "The rooms look and sound beautiful. We've been fortunate to attract high-end clients," says Margouleff. Mi Casa's surround mix for New Line Cinema's DVD release of Seven garnered Video Store Magazine's Award for Best 5.1 Channel Audio Mix for a feature film for 2001. Recent assignments include 5.1 and 6.1 remixes for John Q, I Am Sam, Life as a House, and From Hell, and the full restoration, mixing and 5.1 mastering of all 29 episodes of the groundbreaking TV series Twin Peaks (Artisan Entertainment). "Remixing from stem elements gives us a lot more control in cleaning up the tracks and rebalancing for home theater," says Biles. "Audiophile audio is our mantra," concludes Margouleff. "We really take the material to another level. We load in each soundtrack separate from the picture, match the audio to the picture to make sure that they are perfectly in sync, remove all the clicks and pops, level match everything, EQ all the harsh elements, remove distortion and background noise and, finally, re-mix the audio for the direct-radiating home theater system. We also restore the sound for old movies. We just finished The Quiet Man, Rio Grande, and High Noon for Artisan. They were mono tracks that we cleaned up, and then converted into 3.1 which entailed adding a subwoofer track and then spreading the mono out to the left and right just a tiny bit to make the soundtrack fuller." Bela Lugosi might not comprehend this bizarre technology when next he rises from the grave, but knowing his old home maintains a stake in Hollywood's future shouldn't make him cross. Acoustic Design and installation by John Storyk of the Walters-Storyk Design Group, 262 Martin Ave. Highland NY 12528, (845) 691-9300, www.wsdg.com. Learn more about Mi Casa Studio at www.micasamm.com. Studio A: The Living Room Studio B: The Dining Room Studio C: The Study |