The collaboration between film directors and sound mixers is a balance between objective and subjective responses. Mostly, a sound mixer’s responsibilities are technical, like notching the music and SFX frequencies around the dialog to maintain intelligibility. But the mixer often has some latitude to make artistic decisions, like muting an instrument or putting a Foley track through a guitar fuzz box. F&V asked some top sound mixers to share some of the most creative contributions they’ve made to feature films, and about working with some of the best-known directors in the business.... »
Lots of directors are good at wrangling automobile action, but Tim Damon's dedication to the craft is impressive. Unhappy with merely renting the gear he needs for any given automotive shoot, Damon has amassed a purposeful collection of proprietary gear — much of it modified to exactly suit his preferences during a shoot — that's meant to make sure he never has to tell a client, "We can't do that."... »
Production sound mixer mark Ulano won an Oscar for his work on Titanic. F&V asked him about the latest in audio gear and got his thoughts on the potential of the coming digital broadcast transition to wreak havoc on diversity wireless-mic systems.... »
Gordon's version of the story, which stars Mena Suvari as the driver and Stephen Rea as her victim, is rewritten to give the poor guy a fighting chance. It's a violent B-movie that's as disturbing as it is funny, a black comedy that's genuinely interested in the psychology of a driver who could ignore the dying man stuck in her windshield.... »
Working from her New York apartment, Nina Paley expanded the scope of a series of shorts she had been working on (they set stories from an ancient Hindu epic, the Ramayana, to the tunes of early jazz singer Annette Hanshaw) to feature-film length. Talk about a personal film.... »
A major tenet of the production was keeping things real—from the suit to the cameras. By the end of post-production, however, animators at ILM were helping to design shots, including tweaking the camera. “Production drove the bus,” says Academy Award-winning VFX supervisor John Nelson, “but everybody was involved. Jon [Favreau] and I both believe the best idea is going to win, wherever it comes from.”... »
In one key scene, actress Emma Bell gives a terrific performance in a two-minute close-up. The only problem with the shot? No tears. Guava, which was already looking to expand into feature-film work, said it would see what it could do about that.... »
Probably bound to be Errol Morris' most controversial film, Standard Operating Procedure examines the cases of torture and murder at Iraq's now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Mixing 35mm and HD video, Morris uses re-enactments to depict torture and other images he wasn't able to film directly.... »
James Haygood got his big break back in the mid-1980s, when he connected with a young music-video director named David Fincher. More recently, he just worked as co-editor (with Spike Jonze regular Eric Zumbrunnen) on Where the Wild Things Are, and took up residence at Union in Santa Monica, CA, where he just finished spots for PlayStation MLB and Range Rover. Read about his career path, storytelling in 30 seconds (or less), and what he really thinks of Final Cut Pro.... »
