In Conversation With Sound & Music Maestro Paul Massey

From astronauts in space to rock gods on a concert stage, there’s nowhere IMAX hasn’t been. An essential part of that journey is the brilliant technical minds behind the camera and in the sound booth who’ve been working to perfect the IMAX craft since the medium’s invention.

Read our interview with sound & music Maestro Paul Massey below and then check out our interview with s cinematographer James Neihouse here.

Both professionals worked on ROLLING STONES - AT THE MAX, the very first concert film to be shot with IMAX Film Cameras, hitting theatres this week.

How did you get involved in IMAX so early? 

I actually got involved quite a bit earlier than [THE ROLLING STONES – AT THE MAX]. I was involved when it was the three original founders of IMAX in Toronto. I was living in Toronto at the time, and so I got involved with the early documentaries like SKYWARD and BEAVERS, all of those that were for World's Fair events - Omnimax and IMAX. Then I just carried on working with IMAX off and on through the years, from about 1983 onwards.

I moved to LA in 1990 and then this one [the Rolling Stones project] came around while I was in that move between Toronto and LA. I got involved in Toronto, working on behalf of IMAX as a consultant to the Stones and to the mix. Mick came over and started to listen to some of the music mixes in Toronto, and he wasn't really happy with what he was hearing, and so he turned around to me and said, “you're the guy from IMAX right?”

And I said, yeah, and he goes, “well, can you mix this?” I said, sure. He goes “Okay, well, you’re on.” And so that’s how I got involved, really and got entrenched.

Do you have any other fun anecdotes from the making of ROLLING STONES – AT THE MAX?

We completed a certain amount of the music pre-mixing in Toronto, and then moved down to LA where we mixed it in Studio City on the CBS lot. So I carried on doing the music pre-mixes there and then we went into re-recording. One of the things I wanted to get was a sense of the scale of the stadium during the show and adjust the size, not just duplicate it with reverbs and such. So, I hired a PA and set it up in-between the shooting stages on the CBS lot. And then, on a Friday night when everyone was gone essentially, I started pulling the whole show through the PA and mixing it in different places to try and get the slaps off the buildings and reverbs and such to imitate the stadium.

I just about got the mic set up fine, and I was really happy with it. I’m just rolling and we’re gonna do the whole show now, and a security guard came up on a cart with his light going, and he’s like “what are you doing?” And I told him what we were doing and I thought he would be happy about it, and let us carry on, but he said no, you gotta shut it down because there’s a whole crowd down there at the gate, and they all think the Stones are here doing a concert and they want to get in. They’re all shaking the gate and trying to climb the fence.

So I never got to do that.

What was your own relationship to cinema growing up? Do you have any creative influences that you use in your work?

Gosh, not really. I’ve always been a fan of cinema and loved it, I’ve always loved an event where there’s a few hundred people sitting around you and we’re all sharing in that same experience at the same time, I think there’s nothing like that. To me, IMAX just epitomizes that, because not only are you sitting in a theatre with a few hundred people, but you’re getting something that’s so oversized with such fine audio quality as well.

It’s nothing you can replicate in your home, it’s no experience you can have anywhere else. So, for me, it’s always been that excitement of being in a situation that’s almost larger than life, both with regular film and definitely with IMAX.

While the landscape of the industry is constantly changing, do you have any advice for readers who might be looking to follow in your career footsteps?

Um....don’t do what I did. [laughs] No, I think always just go for your passion. It’s so hard to describe how to get into this industry, and there are so many different avenues you could pursue. From working as a mix tech at a studio, to working in live events or jobs in theatre. I always say to younger people who want to get in, you know, just follow your passion. Pursue every single lead that comes your way. If you’re interested in sound, you might find an avenue that you maybe didn’t think about. Maybe you didn’t know that you like theatrical sound, or that you like, you know, movie sound more than you liked TV for instance.

Anything that comes up in sound, pursue it, grab those opportunities. Being in the right place at the right time is often the way that you tp get a foot in the door.

Your Oscar for BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, can you take us back to that night? Did you think that you were going to win?

No, I had no idea. I’ve been fortunate to be nominated I think ten or eleven times, and so I’d been plenty of times before where it’s absolutely nothing. It’s very exciting to go, but you sit there and you lose yet again. So, I truly had no expectation. I was very, very excited to represent Queen and the product that we had done.

I was especially happy with the IMAX mix on that particular film. So, I knew we had a chance, but you always think you have a chance. You do, you’re one of five, so you have a chance. But I have to say, I was still very surprised when they called it out.

When people are trying to decide between watching a movie on a big screen or a small screen at home, the reasoning that's often thrown around is about the grandness of the visual spectacle, but what might you say to somebody about the importance of sound and music in cinematic presentation over just watching it on their phone?

Gosh, to me there's no comparison whatsoever.

I mean there's some wonderful phones, there's some wonderful headphones, there's some great TVs, soundbars at home that you can get now, but it just simply does not compare to the scale and the acoustic imaging you can get in a cinema. Especially a cinema as wide as IMAX. The total immersive feel when I listen to IMAX 12 [channel audio] especially.

Or even 5 [channel audio] because it’s so discreet and all around me as an audience member. You know you’re getting huge subsonic sounds, you’re getting clarity in the mid-range and upper frequencies and acoustic imaging like nothing you can recreate at home in any system, I think.

It’s a larger-than-life experience. I think there’s nothing that compares. Listening at home and listening on headphones, yeah, they’re great. They’re great for what they are, but they are not what they could be, which is what happens when you get into a huge theatre.

If there's any movie you could watch for the first time again in IMAX, what would it be?

Gosh. I would really like to see ALMOST FAMOUS in IMAX. I was on that mix and it was a great time, but we didn't do an IMAX release at the time. I think that would be wonderful to pursue.

This interview was transcribed from a Zoom conversation. They have been edited for clarity and length.

Experience ROLLING STONES AT THE MAX in theatres this December.

Experience the best of IMAX educational documentaries at your local museum or science center.