SoundWorks Collection

Peter Albrechtsen is a Danish sound designer and music supervisor based in Copenhagen and working on both feature films and documentaries. Peter is well-known for his extensive work in film and television including such projects as the Oscar-winning film Dunkirk (sound effects re-recording mixer), Netflix’s Godless (re-recording mixer, sound designer, supervising sound editor), Thelma, When She Runs, The Distant Barking of Dogs, and the documentary The Last Race (re-recording mixer, sound designer, supervising sound editor), which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Among Peter Albrechtsen’s recent fiction credits are the Danish thriller smash hit "Darkland", Finnish Cannes winner "The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki", and sound effects recording for Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk". His recent documentary credits include the festival favorites "Bill Nye: Science Guy", "Land of the Free" and "True Conviction". This year, Peter was invited to become a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Along with his sound work, Peter Albrechtsen has worked as a music supervisor and has collaborated closely with globally acclaimed musicians such as Antony and the Johnsons, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Efterklang. Peter has also written about music and movies for different Danish and international magazines and has been lecturing about sound design around the world.

Philip Sheppard is a composer, producer, virtuoso cellist, inventor, public speaker, philanthropist, professor at the Royal Academy of Music and a creative innovator who has worked with some of the biggest names in music, tech, sport and film. Philip has composed more than 60 film, gaming, television and theatrical scores including Sony PS4’s highly acclaimed video game, DETROIT: Become Human, and the Star Wars Force Awakens behind the scenes Comic Con trailer which has over 11 million YouTube plays. Philip’s first film of 2018 is Mercury 13, a Netflix original which premiered at the SFFilm Festival. His other major film works include The Final Year, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, In the Shadow of the Moon (which received an International Film Critics Award nomination for Best Original Score for a Documentary and won numerous awards including the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary at Sundance), Meru (which won numerous awards including the Audience Award for Documentary at Sundance), Sergio (which was nominated for a Prime Time Emmy), Legion of Brothers, which premiered at Sundance, and Chosen, starring Harvey Keitel, Bobby Fischer Against the World, The Tillman Story and Love, Marilyn. Philip was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a member of the Music Class of 2017. www.philipsheppard.com

We wrap up our Oscar nominees series with the team from Dunkirk. In this two part episode, the artists show how the carefully engineered track builds and maintains tension for the entire running time of the movie, with music playing almost continuously from the opening shot of soldiers walking down the street to the moment Finn falls asleep on the train. They talk about how the mixing time works: they make a complete pass through the film and screen it every week during the final mix; and finally, why director Christopher Nolan feels you don’t necessarily need to understand every word of dialog in his films. “Everything is evaluated for its emotional content as it goes into the mix. Even the dialog has a pace, and a pulse, and a purpose in our mix, and it sits exactly where [Christopher Nolan] orchestrates it to be.” Gary Rizzo “[Composer] Hans [Zimmer] is making the sounds that the audience hears, and I’m making the sounds that the characters hear.” Richard King Oscar nominees: Alex Gibson, Gregg Landaker, Richard King, Gary Rizzo, Mark Weingarten

Ren Klyce, primarily known for his sound design of David Fincher’s films, talks about the challenges and opportunities of joining an already-established sound universe while adding his own spin. Ren Klyce, Matthew Wood, and Michael Semanick discuss the security of reading the script before the shoot, and the feeling of walking onto the set of the Millennium Falcon. The team also discuss some of your favorite sequences from the film: the Fathiers chase, the mirror cave, the Force connection between Rey and Kylo Ren, and of course, the famous “silent” jump to hyperspace through the First Order star destroyer. Oscar nominees: Ren Klyce, Matthew Wood, Michael Semanick

The artists behind The Shape of Water discuss the creation of the sounds of the creature (nicknamed “Fishman” by the team), revealing that director Guillermo del Toro’s vocalizations became a key part of the sound of the creature’s breathing. They describe how the creature’s sound design evolves over the course of the film as he goes from being a potential threat to the romantic lead, and how the movie theater downstairs helps score the film. Oscar nominees: Christian Cooke, Nelson Ferreira, Glen Gauthier, Nathan Robitaille, Brad Zoern “[The creature] had to be the romantic lead. You’re asking a lot of the audience, to get them to be on board with this beautiful relationship that develops. I knew the best place to start is with human sounds [for him]. And so I started with my own voice, and then added animal sweeteners and then for a final pass, Guillermo gave us a breathing layer.” Nathan Robitaille “It’s so much harder to mix something quiet, than to throw everything at it. It takes a lot of bravery to turn it down.” Brad Zoern

The team behind Blade Runner 2049 talks about how they paid homage to the iconic original film while breaking new sonic ground. They explore the film’s distinctive blend of sound design and musical score, and discuss the producers’ wise decision to start the sound design while the shoot was still going on. They then examine key scenes, including the fight among malfunctioning holograms, and how K’s walk in the desert evolved from full score to playing in almost silence. Oscar nominees: Ron Bartlett, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill, Mark Mangini, Mac Ruth

In this episode, production sound mixer Mary Ellis talks about her very first day of the shoot—recording the sound on set during the continuous 5-minute shot set to “Harlem Shuffle,” and the challenges of mic’ing all those fast-moving cars. Sound supervisor/mixer Julian Slater talks about using tinitis to take the audience into the head of main character Baby. He and dialog mixer Tim Cavagin also discuss the unique challenges of mixing all the crafted sound design and dialog to blend with a driving music track. Oscar nominees: Tim Cavagin, Mary H. Ellis, Julian Slater “We want the audience to understand within the first 60 seconds that sound is important to this film; it’s something to register.” Julian Slater

In this exclusive SoundWorks Collection podcast conversation we chat with Composer Wilbert Roget II about his work on Call of Duty WWII and discuss the unique creative challenges of writing music for video games, his extensive career working as a video game composer and how he landed the project from a conversation at GDC. ABOUT WILBERT ROGET II: Wilbert Roget, II is a veteran composer in the video game industry. He joined LucasArts as a staff composer in 2008, where he scored several games in the Star Wars universe, including Star Wars: The Old Republic and Star Wars: First Assault. He later became a freelance writer, scoring Call of Duty: WWII, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Dead Island 2, Anew: The Distant Light and other indie and AAA titles. His scores have earned him several awards and nominations from the Game Audio Network Guild, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (D.I.C.E. Awards), and others. Roget also co-founded Impact Soundworks, a successful music software company, and is an accomplished lecturer on game music, giving talks at the Game Developers Conference, SF Conservatory of Music, Yale University and other institutions. He frequently gives online masterclasses and tutorials on music composition and production, and has a passion for teaching the craft. Inspired at an early age by classic Japanese game soundtracks, Roget specializes in writing music that employs memorable themes, developed throughout the score in a traditional fashion. He balances modern production with classic construction, creating fresh and contemporary soundscapes as well as nuanced orchestrations. Wilbert studied music at Yale University, is originally from Philadelphia, PA and currently resides in Seattle, WA. He is an avid multi-instrumentalist, performing solo flute, keyboards, accordion and guitar on many of his scores. Roget is an ASCAP-affiliated composer and a member of the Game Audio Network Guild, and is represented by Cheryl Tiano of The Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency.

In this exclusive SoundWorks Collection podcast, we talk with the sound team behind Director Guillermo del Toro's latest film, The Shape of Water. Featuring re-recording mixers Christian Cooke and Brad Zoern, supervising sound editors Nelson Ferreira and Nathan Robitaille. Elisa is a mute, isolated woman who works as a cleaning lady in a hidden, high-security government laboratory in 1962 Baltimore. Her life changes forever when she discovers the lab's classified secret -- a mysterious, scaled creature from South America that lives in a water tank. As Elisa develops a unique bond with her new friend, she soon learns that its fate and very survival lies in the hands of a hostile government agent and a marine biologist.

Composer Carter Burwell and sound designer/mixer Skip Lievsay talk about their remarkable 30-year collaboration with the Coen Brothers and share stories starting with Blood Simple in 1985 and continuing through all 17 of the Coen’s films. Scenes are discussed from Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Burn After Reading, and you’ll learn how it turns out there is actually musical score in No Country for Old Men. In this series of six episodes, we focus on the long-time collaboration of some of the leading directors and their sound supervisors working today. These remarkable directors talk about the importance of sound to the films, and how they work with sound design and music.