The SoundWorks Collection Interview Series podcast takes you behind the scenes and straight to the dub stage for a look into audio post-production for feature films, video game sound design, and original soundtrack composition. This exclusive and intimate series focuses on individuals and teams behind-the-scenes bringing to life some of the worlds most exciting projects.

SoundWorks Collection Interview Series

This week we talk with Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Martin Hernandez about his recent collaboration with Director Alejandro González Iñárritu for his film, Birdman.

Martin Hernandez - Supervising Sound Editor on Birdman

We chat with Miles Rogers from Meyer Sound about a wide range of cinema focused speakers including the Bluehorn System, Amie Precision Studio Monitor, HMS Cinema Surround Loudspeakers and the VLFC (Very Low Frequency Control Element) recently used by Director Francis Ford Coppola for Apocalypse Now: Final Cut.

SoundWorks Collection

Meyer Sound - Cinema Speaker Chat with Miles Rogers

In this episode we chat with Crip Camp Directors James Lebrecht & Nicole Newnham about how the project developed, structuring their complex storyline and the deeper issues the film addresses.

Crip Camp won the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on Netflix worldwide.

About Crip Camp
Just down the road from Woodstock, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a parallel revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers. Steeped in the humor and music of the era, Crip Camp explores the universal experience of summer camp awakenings that would transform lives and shape the future of the disability rights movement. Told from the point of view of former camper Jim LeBrecht, the film traces the journeys of campers up to the present day, in this compelling and untold story of a powerful journey towards inclusion.

Jim LeBrecht has over 35 years of experience as a film and theater sound designer and mixer, author and disability rights activist. Jim began his career in theater, working as the resident sound designer at the Berkeley Repertory Theater for 10 years. His fim credits include The Island President, The Waiting Room, The Kill Team and Audry and Daisy. A complete list of his film credits (over 145) can be viewed at IMDB. Jim co-authored Sound and Music for the Theater: the art and technique of design. Now in its 4th edition, the book is used as a textbook all over the world. Jim’s work as an activist began in high school and continued at UC, San Diego, where he helped found the Disabled Students Union. Jim is currently a board member of the Disability Education and Defense Fund, which works for the rights of the disabled through education, legislation, and litigation.

Nicole Newnham is an Emmy-winning documentary producer and director, Sundance Film Festival alumnus and five-time Emmy-nominee. She has recently produced two virtual reality films with the Australian artist / director Lynette Wallworth: the breakthrough VR work Collisions, which won the 2017 Emmy for Outstanding New Approaches to Documentary, and Awavena, featured this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Previously she co-directed The Revolutionary Optimists, winner of the Sundance Hilton Sustainability Award, Nicole also instigated, co-produced and directed the acclaimed documentary The Rape of Europa, about the Nazi war on European culture, which was nominated for a WGA award and shortlisted for the Academy Award.  With Pulitzer-prize winning photographer Brian Lanker, she produced They Drew Fire, about the Combat Artists of WWII, and co-wrote the companion book, distributed by Harper Collins. A 1997 graduate of the Stanford Documentary Film Program, Nicole lives in Oakland with her husband Tom, and two sons, Finn and Blaine.

About Higher Ground Productions
Barack and Michelle Obama signed a deal on May 22, 2018 to produce docu-series, documentaries and features for Netflix under the Obamas' newly formed production company, Higher Ground Productions. On the deal, Michelle said "I have always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire us, to make us think differently about the world around us, and to help us open our minds and hearts to others." Higher Ground's first film, American Factory, won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2020.

Crip Camp with Directors James Lebrecht & Nicole Newnham

This week we chat with Composer Kris Bowers about his recent work on the new Hulu show, Mrs. America and the challenges of completing his score during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABOUT KRIS BOWERS

Emmy Award-winning composer and pianist, Kris Bowers, creates genre-defying music that pays homage to his jazz roots with inflections of alternative and R&B influences. The result is a sound rife with contradictions, a work of nuanced alchemy situated at the summit of his influences. A confluence of jazz greats, classical standards, and the alternative and experimental music of his youth, along with the cinematic storytelling of his most studied film scores. Bowers’ earliest musical inspirations were varied, transcending generation and genre to include work by artists such as Steve Reich, Radiohead, Stevie Wonder, Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, and Jimi Hendrix. As a young musician, Bowers brought the language of jazz to his covers of artists like Death Cab For Cutie, Tune-Yards, Radiohead, and Kendrick Lamar.

Since 2013, the Juilliard-educated pianist has established himself at the forefront of Hollywood’s emerging generation of genre-defying composers. What sets Bowers apart is his unique ability to compose music that resonates across such a diverse continuum of artists, storytellers, and audiences. From scoring documentaries like Kobe Bryant’s Muse (SHOWTIME, 2015) and Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You (2016), to scripted series including Shonda Rhimes and Paul William Davies’ For The People (ABC), Netflix’s Dear White People, and SHOWTIME’S Black Monday (Exec. Produced by Seth Rogen & Evan Golberg), Bowers’ work as a film and television composer is a testament to his versatility as an artist. 

Bowers first made a name for himself in 2011, when he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where Aretha Franklin chose him as a favorite to win during the semi-finals concert. The win earned him a record deal with Concord Jazz, who later released his debut album, Heroes+Misfits, which opened at number one on the iTunes jazz chart in 2014.

ABOUT MRS. AMERICA

Mrs. America tells the story of the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and the unexpected backlash led by a conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly, aka “the sweetheart of the silent majority.” Through the eyes of the women of the era – both Schlafly and second wave feminists Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug and Jill Ruckelshaus – the series explores how one of the toughest battlegrounds in the culture wars of the 70s helped give rise to the Moral Majority and forever shifted the political landscape.

Mrs. America features an all-star team in front of and behind the cameras. Two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe Award winner Cate Blanchett headlines as Phyllis Schlafly, leading a stellar cast portraying some of the most iconic women of the era, including Emmy Award nominated Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Emmy Award winner Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, Emmy Award nominated Elizabeth Banks as Jill Ruckelshaus, and Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan. The cast also boasts Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Sarah Paulson, Emmy Award nominated John Slattery, Emmy Award nominated Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ari Graynor, Melanie Lynskey and Kayli Carter. Executive Producers are Emmy Award winner Dahvi Waller (Mad Men), who serves as creator and showrunner, Academy Award nominated Stacey Sher (Django Unchained, Erin Brockovich), Coco Francini, Cate Blanchett and Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck (Captain Marvel, Billions), who directed four of the nine episodes, including the first two.

Composer Kris Bowers

Bonnie Wild, the sound effects editor and re-recording mixer of Disney+’s hit show The Mandalorian, takes us behind the scenes for a conversation about achieving cinematic scale and production value on a television budget, balancing the palette of new sound creation with classic Star Wars sounds we all know and love, why mixing in a home theater environment was important for the show, and how to do a Jawa loop group session.

Bonnie Wild — Sound Effects Editor/Re-Recording Mixer

SUBSCRIBE NOW: http://bit.ly/Subscribe_Dolby
LEARN MORE: https://dolbylabs.co/33NNrgw

About Dolby:
Dolby transforms the science of sight and sound into spectacular experiences. Through our innovative research and engineering, we develop breakthroughs that we share with the world through collaborations that span artists, businesses, and consumers worldwide. These breakthroughs deliver incredibly vivid experiences in the cinema, at home, at work, and on the go — experiences so lifelike that people feel as if they’ve been transported into a cinematic story or a pulsing sphere of music, a distant conference room or an action-packed game. In both entertainment and communications, through audio and imaging, we give everyone the power to see, hear, and feel the spectacular.

The Sound of The Mandalorian

Hamilton is a landmark Broadway production of remarkable scope, now streaming into your home on Disney+. In producing the film version, the show’s creative team sought to give the audience “the best seat in the house,” and in this podcast we talk with original Broadway team artists Alex Lacamoire and Nevin Steinberg along with the film’s sound team Tony Volante, Roberto Fernandez, and Dan Timmons about a number of Hamilton topics, including the challenges of designing a custom sound system for the historic Richard Rodgers Theatre, translating the live show into a cinematic world, and how Dolby Atmos played a key part in giving the audience at home the transformative theatrical experience. We also review clips and discuss in detail the numbers “Alexander Hamilton,” “Satisfied,” and “The Room Where It Happens.”

The Sound of Hamilton

The goal for the SoundWorks Collection is simple; we are dedicated to profiling the greatest and upcoming sound minds from around the world and highlight their contributions. The SoundWorks Collection was created by Director Michael Coleman in November of 2009 in a partnership with MIX Magazine, several audio focused college schools and programs, and the support of the online sound community worldwide.

The SoundWorks Collection takes you behind the scenes and straight to the dub stage for a look into audio post-production for feature films, video game sound design, and original soundtrack composition. This exclusive and intimate video series focuses on individuals and teams behind-the-scenes bringing to life some of the worlds most exciting projects.

Martin Hernandez - Supervising Sound Editor on Birdman

Soundworks Collection