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Some avid film lovers out there call the sound department of a project the unsung heroes of cinema. Oftentimes, good or bad sound can be the make-or-break of a filmgoing experience. At just 33 years of age, score mixer Phil McGowan has given audiences some of the sound mixing of our time, with a decade under his belt as a sort of go-to guy for mixing. It’s no wonder he’s worked with the best composers in the game, ranging from duo Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson to John Paesano and Trevor Morris. Uniquely, Phil can brag about another huge feat: Emmy-nominated for two projects in the same category. While enjoying time on vaca, Phil chats it up with us on Cobra Kai and HBO’s TINA, his experiences in narrative and documentary filmmaking, and just how he fell in love with sound and cinema.
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I’m sure you hear this a lot. I’m a huge fan of Cobra Kai. My brother and I watch it religiously, and we consider it our “bro time” together. So thank you for being a part of our brotherly memories in the last few years. So before we get into the juicy award talk, for our audience to get to know you better, tell us about why sound mixing is important to storytelling and how you got started in that.
I grew up a huge music fan. My parents were both keyboard players. My mom taught piano lessons for a period of time, and my mom taught me. I then picked up the saxophone to play in my middle school band. Then I helped out with local events in central Maine, where I am now on vacation, with working live sound. That made me interested in recording. This is 2002 or whatever, and I’d research or read manuals on record. Eventually, I’d get Pro Tools in high school, which would lead me to audio recording and sound. It was my sophomore year of high school I decided this would be a career, so I’d look up colleges that had these programs. I ended up at Berklee around 2006. I thought I’d be a composer as well and write music, but then realized mixing, recording, and engineering was my forte. I got to LA in 2010 and was on staff for Trevor Morris for Vikings. After freelancing in 2015, I put together my own recording studio.
In the music world, people may know what mixing is when it comes to their favorite songs on the radio. When it comes to mixing for sound on television, could you break that down for us?
It includes everything that’s involved in mixing records: we’re dealing with multi tracks and largely in Pro Tools, we EQ and compress and use reverb, we use delays, so a lot of general mixing techniques are the same on a broad level. I mix everything in surround sound and I’m starting to do things in Dolby Atmos, which is the new thing everyone’s loving. So it includes everything involved with mixing records but also includes knowing about time code, frame rates, and video sync, and mixing to picture so making sure everything’s in sync in addition to sounding good.
I’m more of a writer so I learned something new on the music sound! So, your TV and movie credits include Ozark and Vikings and PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN. But you also worked on TINA on HBO Max which is a documentary. When it comes to mixing these two avenues of storytelling – narrative and documentary – what do you see differently in how you work?
The cool thing about TINA for me is I mixed Danny [Bensi] Saunder’s [Jurriaans] score, who also did Ozark. As far as score goes it’s the same kind of instrumentation that comes from them. I wouldn’t say I’d score a doc any different from a TV show since it depends on the genre. Film scores can be anything from a rock score and electronic to anything orchestral. As a side note, that’s the fun thing about mixing, being able to eventually mix every style of music depending on what the project means. For TINA I was commissioned by the director to mix three live concert pieces that they gave me, these historical multi tracks that they dug up from the tape vaults, including concerts in England, Barcelona, and Rio. The beginning of the movie, the end of the movie, and the performance of “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” I did a fresh mix of those songs in 5.1 surround sound straight from the multi track source. They actually gave me the vocals, the crowd mics, and the drum microphones, keyboards, and all that stuff. It allowed me to do a really good 5.1 mix. It brought me back to the days of mixing songs in rock music. They asked me if I wanted to do it and I immediately said “Hell yeah!”
When people get Emmy-nominated, we usually hear about the actors, directors, and writers. We don’t often hear about those in sound, right? I’d love to hear the stories about “Where were you when you found out you were nominated?” So, for you, where were you when you discovered you were nominated for both Cobra Kai and TINA?
This year was especially fun because of the nominations for both projects. Typically, for score mixers, we have to petition ahead of time to be added to submissions. I knew I was added for Cobra Kai and TINA and even The Lady and The Dale, another mini-series I did on HBO. I woke up that morning knowing it was the Emmy nomination announcements and I’m on my phone hitting refresh a million times. I scroll down to see Cobra Kai get nominated. I thought to myself, “Okay, that’s probably about it.” I scroll down to documentaries and I see TINA! So, I’m going nuts. My wife was on a business call and heard me yell. She started telling her co-workers. That was a great morning.
Well, hey, nominations for back-to-back years is cool.
Three nominations by 33 isn’t so bad.
Do you have any die hard Cobra Kai fans who recognize you on the street?
Unless they went to my site or IMDb, people wouldn’t know my face. But usually when I mention Cobra Kai…like, I’m with my family right now and that’s the show my nieces know. They’re like, “Oh my God! You work on Cobra Kai! That’s amazing!” The show bridges all age gaps. There are a lot of middle schoolers who love the show, and a lot of their parents are Generation X who grew up on the movies. The show reminds them of the characters from the KARATE KID movies. A lot of people know the music, too. We just finished Season 4 recently. Lots of great music coming out for Season 4.
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Learn more about Phil McGowan’s work at mcgowansoundworks.com.
by Erman Baradi
