Oscar Watch: La La Land Sound Editors Make History
The immigrant's tale culminating in double Oscar nominations for La La Land sound editor/mixer Ai-Ling Lee began in Singapore, where she spent her weekends as a kid repeatedly watching Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park in the home theater put together by her audiophile father. The pictures were nice but what really captivated Lee was the ...
Sonic Soul: Talking to Manchester by the Sea’s Sound Designer
What does a sound editor on a film do? While most people could reasonably explain the role of editor, costume designer or cinematographer (and think they know what a producer does—often they don't), it's a safe bet that your average movie lover would have a tough job explaining the role of sound editor. "The way ...
How Daredevil‘s Emmy-Nominated Sound Designer Makes the Punches Pop
During a marathon stairway brawl early in Daredevil's second Netflix season, hero Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) sounds like he's beating a gang of bikers to a bloody pulp. In fact, the hits seem far more furious than they really are thanks to Emmy-nominated sound designer Jordan Wilby. "There's a lot of different ways we get ...
Mad Max: Fury Road Earns 6 Oscars, Crushing Technical Categories
It's not all that surprising that Mad Max: Fury Road did so well at the Oscars last night, winning six Oscars, the most for any film. George Miller's sand blasted chase epic was a technical marvel, reminding viewers what a thrill good, old fashioned stunts are. Although it's a mistake to consider the film solely a marvel of ...
Oscars 2016: Spotlight Surprises With Best Picture Win
A genuinely surprising Oscars wrapped with Tom McCarthy's Spotlight winning Best Picture over equally likely contenders The Revenant and The Big Short. Mad Max: Fury Road cleaned up the technical awards, which wasn't surprising, but Mark Rylance beating out Sylvester Stallone for Best Supporting Actor sure was. Despite five nominations, Star Wars: The Force Awakens didn't pick up a single award (but droids C-3PO, R2-D2 and ...
Know Your Oscar Nominees: Sound Mixing & Editing
We've put together what we're calling our 'Technical Oscars installment.' Today, we turn to two of the most mystifying categories of the Academy Awards: sound mixing and sound editing. The two categories, both of which are shrouded in mystery for many annual viewers, almost always have extensive overlap and are often filled with popular Best Picture ...
Talking to Mark Ulano, Production Sound Mixer on The Hateful Eight
Production Sound Mixer Mark Ulano has been recording and mixing location sound for Quentin Tarantino’s films since 1997’s Jackie Brown. Entrusted by the director with obtaining the best possible recording of his legendary character dialogues, along with the rest of the location sound work, Ulano takes understandable pride in the fact that not a single ...
New The Last Witch Hunter Clip Emphasizes Sound Design
Vin Diesel’s voice alone qualifies as a marvel of sound design. The man’s deep, gravely timber is so absurdly manly that moviegoers about lost their minds when it was paired with the sentient tree-creature Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy. Diesel says all of five words in the movie, yet his work helped turn Groot ...
The 10 Best Star Wars Sound Effects (& Where They Come From)
The StarWars.com editorial staff like to huddle to discuss and debate their favorite elements of the Star Wars franchise, ranking the best starfighters, best bounty hunters and best Yoda quotes, to name just a few. Their most recent topic of debate speaks to the importance of post production, and specifically, how the filmmakers involved in sound design make a ...
The New San Andreas Trailer Has Great Sound Design
Warner Bros. released a third trailer for their big screen action-thriller San Andreas, opening in 3D and 2D theaters on Friday, May 29. The basic storyline revealed in this 2:34 minute sneak peak is an orderly timeline of events which ends abruptly with a cataclysmic earthquake centered in the eponymous fault – then order and time are ...
Made in Maryland: Hanging With the Crew on the Set of Veep
It was a cold, blustery Tuesday in December when we were on the set of HBO’s Veep in downtown Baltimore. On the production front, however, It was a relatively calm day of filming by Veep standards, but a calm day on the set of this show still requires dozens of crew members to work their butts off. Whether it ...
2014 in Review: Portrait Artists, Sound Designers & More – Part I
As a wild year in film draws to a close, we’re looking back at some of the talented filmmakers we’ve had a chance to speak with, and all the ways they schooled on us how films really get made. Sound designers, construction crew managers, creature supervisors, production designers, a portrait artist (for Wes Anderson, naturally) ...
Godzilla Sound Designers Erik Aadahl & Ethan Van der Ryn on Creature Language
“Whenever I heard his roar, it’s a long roar, a screaming, and to me it almost feels like Godzilla is scolding us for humanity’s foolishness. It’s like Godzilla exists as a symbol of human consciousness. It’s a scream involved with sadness.” So said Ken Watanabe, one of the stars of the latest incarnation of Godzilla, describing ...
Soundtrack Heaven: Inside Llewyn Davis, Her & More
Part of what we try to do on this site is introduce you to all the people who make movies. By that we mean all the people, as each film you see is a final product that was assembled by dozens, sometimes hundreds, of talented people. Looked at a certain way, there's a Russian nesting doll quality ...
Star Wars: Episode VII’s Galaxy of Talent Behind J.J. Abrams
As useful as IMDBpro is, it’s recommendable to take the “projects in development” rubric with at least a grain or two of salt. Because really, how could one man have 28 projects in development, including the next Star Trek and Mission Impossible, while also working on a little film franchise called Star Wars? If it ...
Hearing Is Believing: MPAA’s TED2013 Master Class With Music Supervisor Randall Poster
Everyone knows ‘seeing is believing,’ but master music supervisor Randall Poster will tell you: what you hear in motion pictures is just as tantamount to the images whirring across the screen. Poster is one of the most sought after music supervisors in Hollywood (a sampling from his impressive oeuvre: Rushmore!, Velvet Goldmine, Boardwalk Empire) —and ...
Sound Supervisor Scott Gershin on His Job As An ‘Audio Photographer’
The Credits recently chatted with Sound Supervisor Scott Gershin at Soundelux Studios about his work on some of the most iconic movies in recent memory. Among his credits? The Doors, The Last of the Mohicans, Gladiator, Kill Bill: Volume 1, American Beauty, and Braveheart–and that hardly scratches the surface. Gershin has contributed to the scores of several award-winning movies and has ...
Did You Hear That? Nightmare on Elm Street Foley Artist Gary Hecker Reveals How Horror Movies’ Scariest Sound Effects Are Made
Ear-splitting screams. Ominous silence. The howling wind. The telltale creak of the stairs. It’s hard to imagine horror films without these heart-pounding audio elements, but they wouldn’t exist without the talented foley artists who use everything from celery stalks to leather belts to create aural terror. As Halloween approaches, we thought we’d check in with ...
