Interview

Sound Designer

Electric Shock: How “A Complete Unknown’s” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team Re-Created Bob Dylan Going Electric

In the first part of our conversation with the Oscar-nominated sound team of James Mangold’s music biography A Complete Unknown, they talked about delivering an intensely music-centric film without using playback and differentiating between the soundscapes of 1961 New York, when Bob Dylan (an immaculate portrayal by Timothée Chalamet) first arrives in the city, and four years later towards the end of the film. Now, we continue the discussion with sound mixer Tod A.

By Su Fang Tham  |  February 20, 2025

Interview

Sound Designer

“A Complete Unknown”: Orchestrating 60+ Live Performances for Oscar-Worthy Sound

In one of this year’s tour de force performances, Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters took almost six years to perfect (partly thanks to COVD-19 delays in production). For director James Mangold’s music biopic, A Complete Unknown, Chalamet not only learned to play the guitar and harmonica for the film, but also mastered Dylan’s famously idiosyncratic style to deliver over 40 flawless live-to-camera performances as the narrative charts his meteoric rise after arriving in New York in 1961.

By Su Fang Tham  |  February 19, 2025

Interview

Sound Designer

The “Shōgun” Sound Team on Recreating 17th-Century Japan One Katana Clash at a Time

Praised for its authenticity, beauty, and sensitive storytelling, FX’s Shōgun has just been renewed for two more seasons. Created by Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, the show follows the plot of James Clavell’s 1975 novel, set in Japan in 1600. English pilot John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) and his ship’s crew run aground in a Japanese fishing village, and after a brief imprisonment, Blackthorne is taken on by Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada, also one of the series’ producers) to share his knowledge on European warfare and the Portuguese merchants and priests insinuating themselves into Japanese society.

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  June 20, 2024
“Maestro” Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Mixers on Building Emotion With & Without Music

In Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, the music is flipped. Tracking the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career in tandem with his loving but complicated marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Monteleagre (Carey Mulligan), the film’s music is Bernstein’s music, playing as it did over the course of the composer’s life, whether that’s performed on stage or worked out in the studio at the family’s Fairfield country house. When we revisit emotionally charged, private moments from Bernstein’s life,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  February 27, 2024