In these episodes you can learn about the lives of veteran ADR mixers Chris Navarro and Patrick Christensen and Emmy and Golden Reel Award-winning dialogue editor Paul Longstaffe.
You can also hear from EA DICE’s Swedish sound team about their process of capturing the detailed and historically accurate sound of ‘Battlefield 1’ and a special PAX West conversation with Gina Zdanowicz from Serial Lab Studios. Plus, the guys at Game Audio Hour discuss their takes on the recent SAG-AFTRA strike. Happy listening :)
In this new edition of the ‘Soundworks Collection’, Michael Coleman speaks with Lead Sound Designer Andres Almstrom and Audio Director Bence Pajor from EA DICE’s Stockholm studios. They talk about developing the sound of ‘Battlefield 1’ (released 21 Oct), from its powerful weapon systems to its detailed ambiences. They discuss working with artists and directors in the early phases to ‘sketch’ concept sounds and how authenticity was not only a goal for the period-specific WWI weapons and vehicles but also for the geographically accurate ambiences and natural reverbs. After running through the trenches and blasting your Model 97, listen to this episode to learn how it was all made.
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In the new episode of ‘Tonebenders’, René Coronado and Timothy Muirhead chat with Patrick Christensen, ADR mixer at Sound Lounge in NYC, and Chris Navarro, ADR Mixer at Formosa Group in West Hollywood, who have worked on just about every film and television show from the last decade. They talk about how they encourage great performances from actors by creating a warm studio vibe and how proper recording environments and mic choices help them match the details of the original source. They also go into how they use macros and templates to efficiently prep their sessions and the difficulty of entering ADR with large studios vanishing. Though some audio pros may find the role of ADR mixer intimidating, these two wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
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In this new episode of Smart Post Sound’s Smartcast, Larry Benjamin speaks with Paul Longstaffe, who has won two Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Reel awards for his work on ‘Storm of the Century’, ‘The Bridge’ and others. He talks about his beginnings as a classical guitarist who immigrated to the US before coming across an article about sound editing, a field that brought him to DSP and Todd-AO. Plus, he discusses his iZotope RX workflows in matching ambiences and cleaning dialogue, especially when props or improperly synced breaths arise in the mix (especially with the late ‘Sopranos’ star, James Gandolfini). He also talks about his workflow when dealing with different mics, and when you’re working with 120 tracks of dialogue in ‘NCIS’, workflow is key!
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Sadly, Odin, the cat of ‘Beards, Cats, and Indie Game Audio’, passed away after battling cancer. Matthew has immortalized Odin with a recording of her voice, which can be used in any of your game projects. On a happier note, Matthew and Gordon were at PAX West and they spoke with Gina Zdanowicz from Serial Lab Studios. They discuss her talk at PAX about saving dev time (aka money) with middleware, and they talk about ‘the sounds that got away’ – the ones you say you’ll record tomorrow and forget until after you’ve moved. Plus, they talk about plugins, traveling with sound gear, creating so many assets you don’t know if you could create any more – and how sometimes in all that work you need to step away, eat a donut and watch a Lifetime movie.
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Kyle Johnson and Vincent Diamante keep it 100 as they discuss the recent SAG-AFTRA strike in this new episode of ‘Game Audio Hour’. They go over some of the pros and cons of joining unions like SAG-AFTRA and AFM and their personal takes on hiring agents. They also talk about how it can be hard to empathize with the strike’s money issues – since they are sound designers who are used to not receiving royalties – but they understand how stressful performances, insufficient pay and poor working conditions will continue if you don’t put your foot down. Though the issues of the strike have been oversimplified in some cases, you will hear only honesty in this episode.
