Tonebenders Podcast

We talked with an amazing lineup of guests about all angles of recording in the desert. George Vlad, Thomas Rex Beverly, Bethan Kellough, Zach Goheen

We pick up where we left off in episode 163 with guests Kate Finan, Dominic Lawrence & Heather Olsen talking about doing sound design for series animation. We cover how to deal with the tight scheduling and deadlines, the hard lessons we all learned when getting started in animation sound and the need to respect how important these shows are to young viewers.

In this episode we welcome Heather Olsen (Gravity Falls, The Fairly OddParents), and Kate Finan (Muppet Babies, Invader ZIM: Enter the Florpus) from California, as well as Dom Lawrence (The Octonauts, Danger Mouse) from Ireland to talk about the art of doing sound design for animated series. They join our regular hosts Teresa Morrow (Nina's World, Elinor Wonders Why) and Tim Muirhead (PAW Patrol, Bakugan) to really dig into what it takes to bring animation to life with sound.

Supervising Sound Editor Nicolas Becker, Foley Artist Heikki Kossi and Re-recording Mixer Jaime Baksht join us for a talk about their work on the amazing film The Sound of Metal.

In this episode we talk with the sound team behind the excellent new film Judas and The Black Messiah. We dig deep into a standout scene involving a speech to an exuberant crowd with lots of call and response happening. Marlowe Taylor talks about how he captured the sounds on set, as Production Mixer. Rich Bologna explains how he edited those sounds, in post, to create the intensity, and re-recording mixer, Skip Lievsay, tells us how he made it all sound HUGE.

In this episode we talk about the sound work done on the latest Aaron Sorkin film The Trial of The Chicago 7. We are joined by Reneé Tondelli (supervising sound editor) & Michael Babcock (re-recording mixer) as they tell us all the challenges they overcame to make this protest/courtroom drama come to life. From overcoming challenges of recording loop group and ADR in early lockdown conditions, to blending the sound of new scenes and original archive footage seamlessly this film presented endless challenges for the audio team.

In this episode speak with Sergio Diaz (Supervising Sound Editor) & Zach Seivers (re-recording mixer) about their work on director Chloé Zhao's new film Nomadland. This film has very little dialog and music, so a lot of the sonic emotion of the film is built by the sound design and the very prominent ambiences used in the film.

This episode we are joined by Gilbert Lake who was the SFX re-recording mixer on the recent Patty Jenkins film Wonder Woman 1984. Gilbert tells us how he got started with his mixing career in New Zealand only to end up back in his home town of London England, the type of sound effects the director expects for a Wonder Woman film and how to make a scene inside a swirling vortex work when the characters are whispering!?

Melissa Pons is a field recordist and sound designer who recorded an amazing album of wolves and wildlife in Portugal at a sanctuary named Grupo Lobo. In this episode we discuss how she got started in sound, how the project came to be, what the edit was like, and the ecological value of wolves in nature.

We sit down with Ren Klyce to talk about his work as Supervising Sound Editor and Re-Recording Mixer on David Fincher's latest film Mank. We go done a rabbit hole on how he created the 'patina' over the entire soundtrack to make it feel like it was made in the depression era. It was no easy task....

In this episode we talk with Steve Boeddeker about the sound of the new documentary, The Dissident. He handled the entire sound edit and mix on this engrossing and complicated story that leans on sound heavily to make things clear. After that we visit with Cory Rizos, out of Montreal, and discuss his career in sound.

In this episode Richard King joins us to talk about the ultra complicated sound for Christopher Nolan's film, Tenet. We talk about creating interesting sound design for scenes happening in reverse time, how to build big cinematic body punches and his thoughts on the controversy over the film's dialog mix.

We are joined by the sound team behind the hit series The Mandalorian. Re-Recording Mixer Bonnie Wild & Sound Designer/Supervising Sound Editor Dave Acord tell us about making the sounds of light sabers, the beskar spear, and seismic bombs. They also discuss their approach to creating the endless array of new creature vocals that the Star Wars universe conjures up.

We welcome Tim Nielsen and Kai Paquin to talk about organizing & participating in Crowd Sourced Sound Effects Libraries. They have both run successful Crowd Sourced libraries that went on to raise lots of money for charities once completed. We also talk about the Universal Category System initiative, that Tim and Kai are the brains behind, and how it has helped streamline metadata in crowdsourced libraries.

The winter 2020 Journal of Media and Diversity included an important study produced by our good friend Emma Butt, illustrating the current state of diversity in the film sound industry in the UK. In this episode we discuss the origin and methodology of the study with Emma, and get into some possible solutions.

We are joined by the sound editorial team for the hit series The Queen's Gambit. Rachel Chauncey (foley artist), Gregg Swiatlowski (Sound Supervisor), Eric Hirsch (Sound Editor) and Leo Marcil (Sound Effects Designer), all talk about their work on this challenging project.

In this episode Eric Hoehn walks us through what it was like to do the final mixes for the Queen's Gambit during the lockdown. He also talks about his tricks to make dialog pop and what it is like working with Wylie Stateman.

Today Rene and Tim talk with the legendary Production Sound Mixer John Pritchett. John has worked on projects from Dirty Dancing to Avengers: End Game and just about everything in between. In addition to all the blockbusters he has also worked with auteur directors like Altman, Malick, Mendes, Oliver Stone, PT Anderson, and many more. He has seen it all and has the stories to prove it!

We do a deep dive into the ground breaking Sound Design of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, to celebrate it's 10th Anniversary. Supervising Sound Editor Julian Slater tells us about his favourite moments and how they came to be.

In this episode we sit down with Sound Supervisor Tim Rakoczy in Austin Texas. We talk about his long collaboration with director Robert Rodriguez working on films like Alita: Battle Angle, Predators and Sin City. Tim is a great storyteller, you don't want to miss this one.