Leslie Gaston-Bird talks about her childhood, film sound restoration, Black women in audio, and more. Kedar Shashidhar speaks about his work at Steam Audio, Magic Leap and Ossic, as well as the importance of connecting with others while creating new worlds. Jed Shiheng Xu goes into detail about recording dialogue and location sound for film, commercials and interviews. Marlena Graslewicz shares why she came to the US and her massive documentary work with Ken Burns. Alexandria Perryman has “officially the coolest job ever” as a NASA Audio Engineer letting school children (and the rest of the world) hear what mission control hears. Nainita Desai is a multi-award-winning composer and she talks about working on Telling Lies and For Sama. Dallas Taylor talks about his Twenty Thousand Hertz Podcast & Defacto Sound work, and Julian Slater shares stories behind the sound for Scott Pilgrim vs The World. And finally, in case you missed it, Episode 7 of the A Sound Effect Podcast is out with terrific interviews with Tim Nielsen about UCS-compliant metadata and the sound of Radioactive with Steve Fanagan.
Episode outline: ‘My guest today is Leslie Gaston-Bird. She has been in the industry for over 30 years. Twelve of that in public radio (including National Public Radio), Seventeen in sound for picture, and Thirteen years as an educator. She’s the author of the book “Women in Audio.” She’s a member of the AES, where she chairs numerous committees and on the board of governors. She runs Mix Messiah Productions as a freelance re-recording mixer and sound editor. She was a tenured associate professor of recording arts at the University of Colorado Denver and is co-director for the Sound Girls, UK chapter and Sound Girls scholarships, travel grants. She’s been busy, to say the least, and I’m thrilled to have her on the show. Leslie Gaston-Bird, coming up here on the Working Class Audio Podcast.’
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Episode outline: ‘In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by technical sound designer and XR evangelist Kedar Shashidhar via Zoom from LA, US.
Kedar Shashidhar is an XR creator with a focus on spatial audio design and technologies. With a focus on creative research and development, he has worked to help develop new tools, create content, and explore the boundaries of audio in new realities. Most notably he has contributed to the development of various audio toolsets including Steam Audio, Ossic, and Magic Leap Soundfield Audio. He also formed an indie game studio, Blackout VR, focused on developing audio-only games. Kedar is also an active voice for audio in new realities having previously spoken at Audio Engineering Society, GameSoundCon, Indiecade, and more. In his time at Magic Leap, Kedar was working on bringing the newest innovations in mixed reality audio to content creators in order to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible for audio in new realities. Currently, Kedar is working on the next generation of virtual venues and concerts in XR with Stage XR.
In this episode, Kedar speaks candidly about his time at Steam Audio, Ossic and Magic Leap, whilst sharing insights on cutting edge tool development for spatial audio and gives personal advice on how to keep high-level creativity and performance whilst maintaining a healthy work-life balance.’
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Episode outline: ‘Jed Shiheng Xu is a Production Sound Mixer based out of Los Angeles, California. Jed also does post work including dialog editing. He uses a Zoom F8n mixer/recorder, Sennheiser 416 shotgun mic along with a Schoeps CMIT & Sennheiser MKH-50, Lectrosonics SRc wireless receivers and Lectrosonics SMQV wireless transmitters, Audio Ltd. A10 wireless boom, dpa 6060 lav, and Sennheiser MKE-1. Jed also uses Tentacle Sync for timecode.
Each episode we talk with location sound mixers, boom ops and other industry pros about the various aspects of recording sound on-location for feature and independent films, TV commercials, interviews, anytime where dialog from actors is recorded. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or just starting out, this podcast is packed with great stories and lessons about recording on-location.’
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Episode outline: ‘In this episode Ethan Beigel speaks with dialogue and ADR editor Marlena Graslewicz, best known for her work on Ken Burns’ documentaries.
We discuss her escape to the US from Communist Poland, the differences between the documentary styles of Europe and America, the gigantic workload of a 10 hour Ken Burns series, as well as her preference for dialogue over sound effects, and her work teaching sound editing to the next generation of filmmakers.’
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Episode outline: ‘We’ve all heard the iconic recordings from the Apollo missions. But how exactly does NASA manage to run live audio between Earth and the moon? And how might we chat with astronauts on Mars and beyond? Featuring Astronaut Peggy Whitson, NASA Audio Engineer Alexandria Perryman, and Astrophysicist Paul Sutter.’
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Episode outline: ‘This episode we chat with Dallas Taylor, the host and creator of Twenty Thousand Hertz, a lovingly crafted podcast revealing the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds. Dallas is also the Creative Director of Defacto Sound, where he has led thousands of high-profile projects ranging from blockbuster trailers and advertising campaigns to Sundance award-winning films and major television series.’
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Episode outline: ‘Working at the forefront of a new wave of emerging artists, RTS and BIFA nominated composer Nainita is a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit, and is the International Film Music Critics Association Breakthrough Composer of 2020. She has scored countless BAFTA, Oscar, Emmy acclaimed productions. The PRS placed Desai at No 2 in their Top 10 female writers whose work was most used in Film & TV through 2018. She has also been awarded Best Original Music at the Music+Sound Awards 2019 and Naturvision Film Festival 2019. Nainita’s most recent feature releases include OSCAR 2020 nominated and BAFTA, Cannes, BIFA, SXSW winning feature doc For Sama which was also nominated for Best Music at the BIFAs 2019. Other recent projects include Untamed Romania, the most successful Romanian non-fiction film of 2018, WW2 period drama Enemy Within, psychological horror Darkness Visible [BFI], and Interactive game / video game Telling Lies one of the top critically acclaimed releases of 2019 by Annapurna Interactive including Scala Radio’s Top 5 Video Game Scores of the Year and Music+Sound Award winning Title track.
Her 2020 projects include feature film The Reason I Jump (Sundance World Cinema Doc Audience Award winner), upcoming Netflix original series Bad Boy Billionaires and innovative Quibi | BBC Studios series Fierce Queens.’
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Episode outline: ‘We do a deep dive into the ground breaking Sound Design of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, to celebrate it’s 10th Anniversary. Supervising Sound Editor Julian Slater tells us about his favourite moments and how they came to be.’
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Episode outline: ‘Hear how sound supervisor Tim Nielsen is reinventing and supercharging sound effects metadata with the UCS system + go behind the creative sound for ‘Radioactive’ with Steve Fanagan. Interviews by Jennifer Walden • Hosts: Asbjoern Andersen & Christian Hagelskjaer’