SoundWorks Collection

This week we spoke with production sound mixer and re-recording mixer Stephen Tibbo. Stephen is a winner of two Emmy Awards and a CAS Award for “Best Production Sound” through his association with the hit ‘mockumentary’ TV series Modern Family. Stephen is also an accomplished sound re-recording mixer who has worked on dozens of webisodes, short and independent films such as Madison County, American Pie 2, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Contracted and many others. We discussed what is has been like to work on more then 130 episodes of Modern Family and the creative and technical challenges to capturing clean tracks while keeping up with the large ensemble cast.

This week we spoke with Composer Penka Kouneva at this years Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Penka started her career working alongside Composer Steve Jablonsky, where she composed additional score for game titles such including Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Penka's music, which has been called "haunting and passionate," is a blend of her Eastern European heritage, classical training and media scoring. Penka has also worked as an orchestrator and composer on titles grossing $15 billion worldwide: films - Matrix, Transformers, Pirates, Elysium, Ender's Game; and video games such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Gears of War 2 & 3, Sims 3, Diablo III, Need for Speed, and Dragon Age II.

This week we spoke with Finishing Move Inc. who is Brian Trifon and Brian Lee White, two friends and collaborators who recently worked on some incredible video game music projects including Halo: Master Chief Collection for Microsoft, Massive Chalice for Double Fine games, Borderlands 1 and 2, and the Assassin Creed series. We talk about the incredible success they have had since forming their company just over two years ago and how they continue to navigate the task of managing large budget video game scores and forming their own opinions and choices about their musical compositions. I hope you enjoy!

This week we spoke with Composer and multi instrumentalist Will Bates, who also runs Fall On Your Sword (FOYS) Will's commercial music production company based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Alongside the success of Will’s commercial work he has also collaborated with numerous film directors including Alex Gibney on such films as We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Mike Cahill's Another Earth and I-orgins. We had a fantastic talk about his creative and collaborative process and dive into the technical aspects of running a music production, scoring, and audio post company.

This week we spoke with Academy Award-winning (BAFTA) composer Jason Graves who has brought his passion for music to such game titles as THE ORDER: 1886 , EVOLVE, TOMB RAIDER and DEAD SPACE. We discuss how his diverse musical background as a classically-trained composer, drummer, keyboardist, guitarist and world percussionist allow him to compose many different genres of music. Jason recently finished work on THE ORDER: 1886 (SONY), EVOLVE (2k GAMES) and we talk about how he manages the long production timelines spanning several years and how both these games incorporate his music into the players experience.

This week we had the pleasure to speak with the executive and creative team behind the recently formed post-production sound company Formosa Group. Joining me in this roundtable discussion include President and COO, Bob Rosenthal, SVP Business Development & Operations Matt Dubin and a fantastic mixture of re-recording mixers, sound designers, and editors including Mark Mangini, Julian Slater, Greg Hedgepath, and Todd Toon.

This week we spoke with re-recording mixer Tom Fleischman who worked on Director Alex Gibney's music bio doc Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown. Pioneering the journey from rhythm and blues to funk, James Brown forever changed the face of American music. Mr. Dynamite follows the journey of Brown as he escaped his impoverished Southern roots to become the biggest name in soul music, and one of the most important music talents of the 20th Century.

This week we spoke with Post Production Supervisor Paul Cichocki at Pixar Animation Studio. Paul joined Pixar in 1999 during the production of toy story 2 and has supervised the post production on all feature and short films since then. He is responsible for many of the efforts that take place outside of the studio including actor recording sessions, music composition and recording, international translations and theatrical quality control. Cichocki also works very closely with the Skywalker Sound team where all of the studios films have been edited and mixed.

This week we spoke with John Midgley who is the production sound mixer on the film The Imitation Game Directed by Morten Tyldum. The Imitation Game stars Benedict Cumberbatch who portrays Alan Turing who is a British mathematician, cryptanalyst and pioneering computer scientist who was a key figure in cracking Nazi Germany's Enigma code, which helped the Allies win the Second World War. The film was shot over 9 weeks in various locations around England and we discuss the wide range of gear John uses while working with this talented ensemble.

This week we spoke with the sound team behind Director Richard Linklater’s American coming-of-age drama BOYHOOD. For this interview I spoke with sound re-recording mixer / supervising sound editor Tom Hammond, sound recordist Ethan Andrus, sound mixer Ben Lowry, and sound recordist Ben Lazard about the technical and creative challenges of following a production which was shot over 12-years.