Editor’s Guild Awards Watch

From the Motion Picture’s Editors Guild:

The Editors Guild congratulates all the Oscar nominees in the post-production categories. Now the race is on! Pictured is Wylie Stateman, nominated for Best Sound Editing for ‘Inglourious Basterds.”

Check out their full awards watch for more names and titles.

The Sound of “Inglorious Basterds”

Another great post over at Designing Sound with a video regarding the sound work onInglorious Basterds. From the post:

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Director Quentin Tarantin’s “spaghetti western but with World War II iconography” sets the stage for a stellar soundscape produced by his talented sound team. In this sound for film profile we talk with Sound Re-Recording Mixer Michael Minkler, Sound Re-Recording Mixer Tony Lamberti, and Sound Designer Ann Scibelli. A basterd’s work is never done…

Behind the Scenes on Mechanical Morph

There’s a special on Richard Devine over at Designing Sound, focused on the making of Hollywood Edge’s upcoming Mechanical Morph. Check it out:

Todd-AO’s Minkler and Lamberti, Soundelux’s Stateman, Stoeckinger and Rankin Receives Oscar Noms

Creative talent from CSS Studios’ Todd-AO and Soundelux are among the nominees in the 82nd Academy Awards.

• Todd-AO’s Michael Minkler and Tony Lamberti have been nominated for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing for Inglourious Basterds. They share the nomination with Production Mixer, Mark Ulano. This is the eleventh nomination for Minkler, who has won the award three times (most recently in 2007 for Dreamgirls). This is Lamberti’s first nomination.

• Supervising Sound Editor Wylie Stateman of Soundelux is nominated for Best Achievement in Sound Editing, also for Inglourious Basterds. This is Stateman’s fifth Oscar nomination.

• Soundelux Supervising Sound Editors Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin are also nominated for Best Achievement in Sound Editing for their work on Star Trek. This is Stoeckinger’s second Oscar nomination and Rankin’s first. Star Trek also received a nomination for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, with the nominees including Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin.

“Michael, Tony, Wylie, Mark and Alan are exceptional artists and we take pride in celebrating their success,” said CSS Studios’ President, Robert C. Rosenthal. “These nominations provide the ultimate recognition for these very talented professionals and their teams for their hard work and dedication to the craft of sound.”

Additionally, Re-Recording Mixer Gary Summers of Todd-AO received two nominations for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing as part of the teams on Avatar and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

The 82nd Academy Awards will be held on March 7th in Los Angeles.

Foley artists in sync with filmmaking process

Post-production artists brings skills to screen

By DAVID JOHN FARINELLA

Post-production has many skilled specialties that make an artistic contribution to a finished show. Few can argue that they are actually performers, though, in the sense that actors and musicians are performers.

That’s one claim Foley artists make with confidence.

“We watch the screen and put ourselves in the actor’s body, so to speak,” says Foley vet Gary Hecker. “That’s what makes it organic, I like to think, because it does have a human element to it.”

From door slams to footsteps, key jingles to ice tinkling, swishing fabric to jammed machinery, Foley artists and mixers are charged with recording sounds from scratch, in sync with the action that happens on the screen, using props and tricks that sometimes look less like 21st century movie production than the contents of a child’s toy chest.

Yet while their props can be as low-tech as in the heyday of radio dramas, the hardware and software they use is some of the most advanced in audio post.

The biggest change has been the addition of nonlinear digital audio workstations (DAWs) like Digidesign’s Pro Tools along with sound-manipulation software that can alter audio in dozens of ways.

“(The process has) just been getting faster and faster,” says Phil Stockton, partner at C5 Editorial in New York.

Speed is just one of the benefits, adds Hecker. “This technology helps us create sounds and add depth to them. In the old days, we just had the props and a little equalization from the mixing console.”

DAWs also let Foley mixers record hundreds of passes during a session and to cut, copy and paste where necessary. That’s especially crucial while working on a film like “2012,” which boasted a soundtrack filled with hundreds of sound effects and Foley tracks…

See the rest at VARIETY.com

From the Guild: 3D Sound?

Mix Stage 2 at Todd-AO in Burbank with Iosono installation.

Three-Dimensional Sound?
Iosono Installs Immersive Audio Process at Todd-AO

by Michael Kunkes

It is probably the oldest truism in the development of motion pictures that advancements in sound always follow developments in picture technology. This has been true since William K. Laurie Dickson first attempted synching music and voice to his boss Thomas Edison’s experiments in the 1890s. Today, with stereoscopic films finally becoming an economically viable and practical fixture in entertainment, it was only matter of time until a new audio technology bursts on the scene in an attempt to revolutionize audio post. With this in mind, Todd-AO’s mix stage two in Burbank has become the first post audio facility to be outfitted with “3-D Sound,” the proprietary immersive sound format created by Germany’s Iosono, Inc. (www.iosono-sound.com)

Iosono, founded in 2004, is a spin-off of Germany’s Frauhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology, and was founded by Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg, considered the father of MP3, AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) and other audio compression formats. Based on a principle called “wavefield synthesis” and with a unique algorithm first demonstrated in 2002, next-generation Iosono software systems with third-party speaker technology, have also been installed at the Mann Chinese Six in Hollywood, The Haunted Mansion at Disney World in Orlando, Los Angeles’ Museum of Tolerance, and other venues in Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Qatar. This is only the start. Iosono expects to have 50 theatres equipped for 3-D sound by the time the formal rollout is announced in 2010.

Click here to read the rest at editorsguild.com

Mix on Music and Sound for Rob Marshall’s “Nine”

The December issue of Mix Magazine features an interesting story written by Blair Jackson regarding the music and sound for NINE – the Rob Marshall directed movie musical domesticall released on December 25, 2009.

Click here to read the bit at MIX

“Inglourious Basterds” Features Penteo Surround

Panorama Slicing Creates 5.1 From Stereo Classics

Pictured at Todd-AO West (L-R) are Penteo inventor John Wheeler, “Inglourious Basterds” re-recording mixer Michael Minkler, and music editor Jim Schultz. Photo by David Goggin.

In keeping with Quentin Tarantino’s use of eclectic music from his personal vaults as opposed to commissioning new musical scores, “Inglourious Basterds” features more than a dozen familiar and exotic tracks. What’s new is that the stereo masters dating back to the 60s have been converted to 5.1 audio through the new proprietary Penteo Surround process.

“Quentin was open to using the new process,” recalls Tarantino’s re-recording mixer Michael Minkler of Todd-AO, “as long as he could close his eyes and still feel emotionally attached in exactly the way he did with the original music sources he had chosen from his own collection.”

First used in the Warner Bros. blockbuster “Watchmen,” the Penteo process allows film mixers to incorporate 5.1 audio elements converted directly from stereo music sources. Multiple Oscar-winner Minkler, who has worked on numerous Tarentino films, first incorporated the new Penteo process earlier this year when working feverishly to prepare the new film for the Cannes festival.

Minkler and music editor Jim Schultz chose various pieces of music for Penteo to process before presenting them to the director for evaluation. It was the new 5.1 version of David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)” that convinced Tarantino to have the remainder of the music sources similarly processed.

Click here to download and read the rest of the article at eMusician…

Take the Customer Satisfaction Survey and WIN!

With the new year comes a new generation of music and sound effects from The Hollywood Edge. Your feedback is very important to us, which is why we’ve developed a survey that only takes a few minutes to complete. To those that take it we’re offering 60 high quality, free sound effects and the chance to add your name to our unique giveaway where SIX randomly chosen winners will receive their choice of any one of our new sets: Alien Machine Shop, Cosmic Environments, Eilam Hoffman Signature Series, Musical Accents, Master Edition, and Edge Edition 3.

We hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity to help us create the sound and music effects you’re looking for. You can find your 60 free sound effects and entry form for the giveaway at the end of the survey.

Veteran Foley Artist Gary Hecker Joins Todd-AO

From MIX magazine

HOLLYWOOD – Foley artist Gary Hecker has joined the team at CSS Studios’ Todd-AO. Hecker’s career spans almost three decades, with contributions to more than 200 films. Some of his recent credits include work on 2012, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Angel & Demons, Watchmen and the Spiderman trilogy.
(9/9/2009)

After 16 years at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Hecker’s move to Todd-AO reunites him with many artists he’s worked with in the past. His career includes three Golden Reel Awards, most recently in 2006 for War of the Worlds, and more than 20 Golden Reel nominations. He has also contributed to several films that have garnered Academy Awards or Academy Award nominations for sound, including Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, War of the Worlds, Road to Perdition and Memoirs of a Geisha.

Hecker is also well known for creating special voices for films, including Godzilla in the 1998 remake. He also did voice work for the aliens featured in 1996’s Independence Day, and supplied vocal elements for Seabiscuit, 300, Shrek and Mighty Joe Young.

At Todd-AO, he will serve as supervising Foley artist. In addition to film work, Hecker will seek to grow the studio Foley department.