CA: When you began working on marrying sound to the images, were you influenced more by what you saw or what you heard?

DL: Jeffrey?s 5.1 mix is really subtle and not overbearing or false. You can sit in that pocket of sound and be cocooned by the music. Let it envelope and embrace you, so what you have coming over your shoulders is a nice warm wave of sound. You probably, at times, won?t notice any of the 5 speakers, because they are working so perfectly together that you are quite literally being covered by the vibrations. It is a sensory experience.


When I was in the studio listening to the mix, I?d shut off one side for a second and it is like the entire sonic image deflates. That said, what you are seeing on the screen is naturally what you are also going to try and hear. It was great for us to be able to use the sync-ed up video and then, if we see Phil really dropping bombs, we can reinforce that sonically.

CA: Like Garcia did when he mixed the soundtrack to The Grateful Dead Movie (1976)?

DL: Exactly. That was 100% our inspiration and motivation behind doing that. It is a benefit to mixing audio to a visual and there are a couple of really inconspicuous instances of that. For example, if Bobby is playing a tasty line that got buried, we can emphasize it for maximum effect.

CA: Let me pose to you a question I asked Jeffrey: How much of a difference is there between what is on the DVDs, and what was broadcast live on KQED?

DL: There are some very minor changes. Maybe 5% . . . maybe. I?ll give you a few examples: We?d alter the original shot whenever there were character generated graphics that said "Tune into KSAN for FM simulcast," "Happy New Year," or "Brought to you by The Gap." So, that was a creative decision to use the "iso" camera if and when that happened during the Grateful Dead's set. There were no "iso" shots for the Blues Brothers, so you will see a bit of that scroll at the very beginning of the footage.

We also trimmed the tuning down a bit. For instance, between ?Fire On The Mountain? and ?Me and My Uncle? there is seven minutes of down time. We cut that to a minute or so, and there was a lot of text on the screen that we could remove that way. When we did the final round of video edits — synching up the audio and video as tightly as possible — we watched on two separate monitors. The one on the left was the main program or KQED broadcast, and the one on the right was the "iso" camera footage, when available. So, when we?d see that the "iso" shot was more interesting, we?d switch over. We also used a split-screen effect a few times, during ?Its All Over Now,? ?I Need A Miracle,? and ?The Other One.?

CA: That reminded me of the Woodstock (1970) documentary.

DL: That is what everybody said. We immediately decided not to run it into the ground though, we wanted to incorporate it tastefully. Those were the most compelling times to use the effect. Now, that is something which did not end up on KQED and we felt it would make the visual composition more interesting for the modern viewer. Another really nice touch that comes to mind occurs on ?Around and Around,? during the second or maybe the third verse. Bobby is singing lead of course, and between the lines, Donna [Jean Godchaux] unleashes a massive wail. So, the regular broadcast shot was of Bobby singing. However, the "iso" angle showed both Bobby and Donna. So, on the DVD you can see a close up of Donna bracing herself. After she expels the vocal, she gets a big smile from somebody off-stage and we see her do this cool little boogie. The same goes for the shots of Garcia and Phil as they engage each other in ?Dark Star? or ?Fire On The Mountain.? We chose those shots to capture moments like that because we really wanted to emphasize the interaction. But we didn?t have to do that too often. The original director did a darn good job the night or morning of the show. The shots were well composed and the whole thing flows really well.