December’s here, and it brings with it our next featured sound designer…Jeff Seamster.

Jeff’s career in game development and interactive audio includes high-profile titles such as Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, Blitz: The League II, SimCity Societies, Caesar IV, and Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War. He has been responsible for sound design at Midway Games and Stainless Steel Studios as well as audio direction at Tilted Mill Entertainment. He is now Senior Sound Designer at Irrational Games.

A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Jeff studied piano performance privately under Gordon Brown and at the Loyola University College of Music under H. Jac McCracken. Following an interest in composition and programmatic music, he relocated to Boston, Massachusetts to study film scoring and piano performance at the Berklee College of Music where he expanded his studies to explore the field of sound design.

Jeff graduated from the Boston University computer science program with a desire to merge the fields of sound design, music and technology. He now uses his diverse background to design and create immersive aural environments for the next generation of interactive entertainment.

Welcome, Jeff!

It’s always a pleasure to announce a new guest on Designing Sound. During this month, Rodney Gates will be sharing with us a lot of his experiences in the world of sound design and audio direction for video games.

Bio

“I became interested in sound and music at a young age, making cassette tapes on my Yorx stereo with a crude electret-condenser microphone with old needle-drop sound effects on LP added in, telling crazy stories in this fashion, at the age of 13 in the sizzling-hot summers of Phoenix, AZ.

The teen years naturally led to an interest in the electric guitar, and after getting my first one at 15, I proceeded to learn every single Metallica song I could, with my brother on drums. I never went the band route though, like my brother did, but instead saved my money working in food service and wholesale printing to get a Tascam Portastudio 4-track cassette-based recorder. I remember vividly the moment I soloed a guitar part over a previously-recorded rhythm track and played it back. It was then I was hugely bitten by the recording bug.

This led to a class at Phoenix College, which opened me up a little to audio engineering. I ended up buying a lot of equipment I didn’t thoroughly understand, which included a Yamaha ProMix 01 digital mixer, an original Alesis ADAT, and a Tascam DAT recorder, plus a couple of mics. I remember buying Cakewalk 3 on a single floppy disk for $300 to use with my Alesis QuadraSynth and a Compaq PC running Windows 3.1 back in 1995, sequencing all kinds of crazy tunes, while recording guitars, bass and drum machines all by my lonesome.

Then I decided to finally jump into something that would hopefully prepare me to be a little more professional – the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe, AZ. What a great school. I sponged up the information they taught me there and couldn’t wait to intern someplace. I had really gained an interest in post production and Foley artistry, and I remember I wished I could have interned at Skywalker Sound when it was over. However, with limited placement there and the fact I didn’t know anyone up in the San Francisco area to stay with, I opted for New York instead. I briefly interned at the Soundtrack Group in Manhattan, whose focus was music production, working the graveyard shift of 12-8AM. The highlight, if you want to call it that, was making hot chocolate for Busta Rhymes and his posse.

Meh.

Let’s just say that it wasn’t my cup of tea. I could see myself spending years there, paying my dues, only to finally get the chance to assist on some sessions, and maybe one day become a house engineer. I didn’t think that was the path for me.

I moved back to AZ a little disillusioned and went back to work in printing, for several years actually. Phoenix was mostly a dead town for recording skills. It wasn’t until becoming so impressed with 2002′s Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on PC that I fully realized there must be people with careers in game audio – this seemed like the niche for me.

After spending a year creating a demo and mailing it out, I finally began my career as an Associate Audio Designer at Sammy Studios in Carlsbad, CA in early 2004, working on a fun vampire-western FPS, Darkwatch.

Sammy turned into High Moon Studios in early 2005 and eventually was purchased by Vivendi-Universal at the end of the year, as I began working on the title, Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy, as Sound Designer. Part-way through the title’s development, I was promoted to Senior Sound Designer, and once the title was wrapped, Lead (the dev cycle ran a little long).

When the Vivendi – Activision merger completed, High Moon fell under the new Activision | Blizzard parent and began developing Transformers: War For Cybertron. Unfortunately, the merger had stopped HMS’ development of two other projects, one of which I was the Lead of, so I began to feel redundant.

An opportunity arose at Sony Online Entertainment, and I started there in November of 2009 as a Senior Sound Designer, and shortly thereafter I became and currently serve as their Audio Director.”

Selected Works

• Free Realms (SOE – PS3, 2011)
• EverQuest II – Destiny Of Velious expansion (SOE – PC, 2011)
• Magic: The Gathering – Tactics (SOE – PC, 2011)
• DC Universe Online (SOE – PC / PS3, 2011)
• James Patterson’s Catch A Killer (SOE – Facebook, 2010)
• EverQuest – House Of Thule expansion (SOE – PC, 2010)
• Clone Wars Adventures (SOE / Lucasarts – PC / Mac, 2010)
• EverQuest II – Sentinel’s Fate expansion (SOE – PC, 2010)
• Transformers: War For Cybertron (Activision – Xbox 360 / PS3 / PC, 2010 – uncredited)
• Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy (Vivendi-Universal – Xbox 360 / PS3, 2008)
• Darkwatch (Capcom – Xbox / PS2, 2005)

Rodney Gates on Twitter

This year is going fast, huh? After the great visit of Tim Walston, let’s go with another film sound special! It’s a pleasure for me to announce the visit of Peter Albrechtsen for the month of February. Peter is a true master of sound, with an incredible vision and talent. This is going to be fantastic.

Bio

Peter Albrechtsen has been a professional sound designer, sound re-recording mixer and an all around sound effects nerd for 10 years now.

If you’ve seen The Kingdom by Lars von Trier, that was actually the hospital where Peter was born 34 years ago – no wonder he later got a taste for horror films. The first love, though, was music: Coming from a home filled to the brim with records and tape recordings, it was very natural for Peter to play music and he’s been trained in classical piano and also played in several bands both as a drummer, bass player and vocalist. When one of his bands recorded an album in the early 1990’s Peter got an instant fascination for the tricks of the sound studio and when attending the European Film College in 1995/96 he started doing sound for movies, which was one of the other major interests of his youth.

Peter attended The Danish Film School from 1997 to 2001 and has since then worked on about 70 productions in both Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the US. He has worked as both production sound mixer, sound effects editor, supervising sound editor, sound designer, sound re-recording mixer and music supervisor (ooh, all these titles) and his cv includes both feature films, documentaries, short films and a couple of tv shows. Last year Peter became part of a new studio facility, tonemasters.dk, together with five colleagues but he still works freelance on different projects both back home in Copenhagen and around the world.

Awards & Nominations

• Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley,Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Foreign Language Film – The Girl Withthe Dragon Tattoo
• True Award for Best Sound Design in a Danish Commercial – Ikea commercial by Martin de Thurah
• Danish Academy Award Nomination (Robert) for Best Sound Design – Dag och natt/Day and Night

Selected Work

• Babycall (2011) – Sound re-recording mixer
• Magic Valley (2010) – Sound designer
• Smukke mennesker/Nothing’s All Bad (2010) – Sound re-recording mixer
• Min bedste fjende/My good enemy (2010) – Sound designer/sound re-recording mixer
• Dromme i Kobenhavn/Copenhagen Dreaming (2009) – Sound designer/sound re-recording mixer
• Antichrist (2009) – Sound effects editor
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) – Sound effects editor
• Kollegiet/Room 205 (2007) – Sound designer/sound re-recording mixer
• Supervoksen/Triple Dare (2006) – Sound designer/sound re-recording mixer
• Mun mot mun/Mouth to Mouth (2005) – Sound effects designer/sound re-recording mixer
• Dag och natt/Day and Night (2004) – Sound designer

IMDb | Twitter

Wow, this year is almost over! One year ago I started with the exclusive sound design specials. It’s amazing to see the incredible persons that have visited us each month. And November will not be an exception. It’s an honor to announce the visit of a very talented sound designer: Jamey Scott.

Bio

Jamey Scott is a multi-talented, creative sound engineer and post-production facility owner in Burbank, CA. He’s been working as a creative sound designer, re-recording mixer, foley artist, dialog editor, adr recordist, game engine designer and implementer, and composer for the last 17 years, contributing pivotal roles in excellent independent films, award-winning animated shorts, and some of the most successful and influential video games in the industry’s history.

Jamey began his career as a “creative engineer” when he was very young, beginning his musical training on the trumpet at 10 years old. In high school he began playing guitar and studied Jazz and improvisation; a passion that would carry him through his college education where he studied under Rick Helzer at San Diego State University as his primary coursework for a Bachelor of Music degree with emphasis in Jazz studies and composition. Jamey was a celebrated Jazz guitarist who played alongside many outstanding and famous Jazz musicians.

After recording a CD and discovering the world of recording studios, his attention shifted intensely into the production side of things. He started to purchase recording equipment and slowly evolve a production system which allowed him to start making demos and pitching his musical ideas to potential clients. It didn’t take long, as his very first demo submission was received with a job offer to work for Echo Images, a CD-ROM production company servicing significant San Diego clientele and starting Jamey on his path of creating content for interactive media. This was in 1994, when it was all very new and unevolved so the trials and tribulations of learning a craft before there was any practiced workflows set Jamey up for a mindset of problem solving and innovating new ideas which continue to set him apart in the marketplace even today.

Shortly after working for Echo Images, Jamey was invited to join the esteemed creative team at Presto Studios, a young startup game developer which was home to some of the most talented and innovative digital artists in San Diego at that time. Jamey worked as the sole sound designer and composer at Presto Studios for about 7 years and worked on a large handful of successful and innovative games including Myst 3: Exile, Whacked!, Star Trek: Hidden Evil, The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time, Stephen King’s F13, and Gundam 0079: The War For Earth.

In 2001, Jamey left Presto Studios to become a freelancer and founded his company Dramatic Audio Post, Inc. After an immediate storm of successful projects such as Unreal Tournament 2003, Enter the Matrix, and Shadowbane, Jamey decided to move his operation from San Diego to the heart of the production world in Burbank, CA in 2003. Since landing in Los Angeles, Jamey’s demand has snowballed, bringing him into major feature film productions, celebrated animations and the very best productions in the game industry including Jak3, Daxter PSP, Unreal Tournament 3, Huxley and the massive XBox360 game, Gears of War. In addition, Jamey is ammassing an equally impressive list of credits in the feature film world with major creative contributions to films such as Automaton Transfusion, Van Wilder2: The Rise of Taj, Man From Earth, An American Carol, and Desert Son.

Jamey is currently working on Gears of War 3, Bulletstorm, SOCOM4, and is serving as Audio Director for Bethesda Software’s HUNTED, in addition to other various game, film, and animation projects.

Awards

Jamey has won a handful of prestigious awards including the 1998 New Media Invision Award for his work on The Journeyman Project 3, an EMMA award for his work on Myst3: Exile, 2 regional EMMY awards for various San Diego broadcast productions, over 30 festival awards for his work on Eternal Gaze including the coveted “Best of Show – Electronic Theater” from Siggraph and was also short-listed for a 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Short. He was also recently honored by the Game Audio Network Guild with 3 of the game audio industry’s highest awards for Gears of War, including Best Sound Design, Best Cinematic Audio, and the coveted “Audio of the Year” award. He has been involved with projects which have garnered multiple nominations and a win of Golden Reel Awards, and was most recently awarded an award for Best Score in a Feature Film by the Park City Music & Film Festival, for his musical score in “The Loneliest Road In America”.

Selected Work

• Desert Son (2010) – Sound designer, Sound re-recording mixer and Supervising sound editor
• Gears of War 2 (2008) – Lead sound designer
• Unreal Tournament III (2007) – Sound designer
• Gears of War (2006) – Sound designer and Sound re-recording mixer
• Jak3 (2004) – Sound designer
• Unreal Tournament 2003 (2003) – Sound designer
• Myst III: Exile (2001) – Sound designer and Supervising sound editor
• Star Trek: Hidden Evil (1999) – Sound designer
• The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time

Jamey Scott’s Website

Jamey Scott at IMDb

I’m happy to announce Aaron Marks as our October’s guest on Designing Sound. A multi-disciplinary audio professional with background in music composition, sound design, field recording, and more. Author of “The Complete guide to Game Audio” and teacher at The Art Institute of California. A very kind person ready to share lots of cool things with us this month.

Bio

Best known for his book, The Complete Guide to Game Audio, Aaron Marks is not only an outspoken advocate of great audio in games, he is an accomplished composer, sound designer, field recordist, voice over artist and owner of On Your Mark Music Productions based near San Diego, California. As if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, he is also the lead author of the book, Game Audio Development, and is part of the audio production faculty at The Art Institute of California – San Diego teaching the art of field recording and sound for interactive media.

Music has always been a part of Aaron Marks’ life – but it wasn’t until 1995, when his overgrown hobby became On Your Mark Music Productions, that he began selling it to the world. Aaron started with the Southern California radio and television scene composing jingles and scoring public service announcements. Although he set his sights on Hollywood, he fell headfirst into the game industry instead where his sound design and voiceover talents also exploded – leading him to music, sound design, field recording and voiceover credits on over 120 game titles for the Xbox and Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and 3, Wii, Dreamcast, CD/DVD-ROM, touch screen arcade games, iPhone/iPad, Class II video slot machines, Class III mechanical and video slot machines, coin op/arcade, online and terminal based video casino games and numerous multimedia projects.

Through the years, Aaron has written for Game Developer Magazine, Gamasutra.com, Music4Games.net and the Society of Composers and Lyrists. He wrote an accredited college course on game audio for the Art Institute Online, is a member of the AES Technical Committee for Games, was an AES Game Audio Workshop chairman, was on the launch committee for the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) and is a popular guest speaker and lecturer at game related conferences and academic functions.

Aaron currently divides his time between his love for all things audio, his family and their eclectic menagerie of farm animals.

About OYM

On Your Mark Music Productions is a provider of music, sound effects, field recording and voice overs for the video game, television and film industries with clients such as Codemasters, UbiSoft, Konami, Universal/Vivendi, Activision, Microsoft and Electronic Arts. In operation since 1995, Aaron Marks and his cast of creative characters, have provided audio for over 300 combined projects and proudly continue the pursuit of the ultimate soundscape. With the recent addition of composer, arranger and orchestrator Mark Scholl, OYM rounds out their sonic arsenal and offered services with 2 Emmy Awards, 15 years of live touring and performing experience and a premier drummer/percussionist.

Awards

• GANG Award, Best Game Audio Article, Publication or Broadcast – The Complete Guide to Game Audio
• GANG Award, Best Game Audio Article, Publication or Broadcast – The Use and Effectiveness of Audio in HALO: Game Music Evolved

Selected Works

• The Complete Guide to Game Audio, 2nd Edition – author
• Game Audio Development – lead author
• bittosHD, bittos+, bittos-e, bittos – composer, sound designer
• Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising – field recordist
• large variety of video casino gaming devices – audio director/composer/sound designer
• Sprint Mobile network daily audio news segments – voice overs
• Colin McRae’s DIRT – voice over direction and recording
• Tom Clancy’s ENDWAR (PSP/DS) – composer
• The Settler’s – Traditions Edition – composer
• The Settler’s II – 10th Anniversary – composer

On Your Mark Music

Photo by "Jean H. de Buren"

New month means a new special on DS. I’m very glad to announce the visit of one of my favorite sound designers out there: David Farmer. He will be sharing a lot of interesting stuff, including articles, interviews, videos, and more! I hope you enjoy it.

Bio

David Farmer grew up in the little town of Gladys, Virginia. He was always interested in music growing up, and played drums, guitar, and bass in his youth. Drums actually come the most natural to him, but he wanted to write songs in their entirety, so picked up the guitar. He  would record a drum part to a cassette, then play guitar along with that cassette while recording the composite mix to another cassette. Rinse & repeat with other instruments until the song is done. This is far from how songs are actually made (using multi-track recording), but was all he had access to. More than just music, he found he was actually interested in sound itself, which led him to my career in sound effects for feature films.

Condensing the next phase of his life, he wound up in Burbank CA working on films, such as Mortal Kombat, The Mask, Dumb & Dumber, etc…. After that, he started working on films out of Skywalker Ranch, including The Arrival, Armageddon, Con Air, Space Cowboys, and so on. He wound up as the Sound Designer for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Clearly this was a dream job for someone in this field.

Awards & Nominations

• Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing in Computer Entertainment – World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
• Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing in Feature Film (Foreign) - King Kong
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Computer Entertainment - Goldeneye: Rogue Agent
• BAFTA Nomination for Best Sound/Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• BAFTA Nomination for Best Sound/Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• BAFTA Nomination for Best Sound/Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Selected Work

• A nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – Sound designer
• God of War III (2010) – Sound designer
• Invictus (2009) - Sound designer
• God of War II (2007) – Sound designer
• King Kong (2005) – Sound designer
• Need for Speed: Underground 2 (2004) – Sound editor
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – Sound designer
• Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003) – Sound designer
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) – Sound designer
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - Sound designer
• Space Cowboys (2000) – Sound Designer
• Fallout 2: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game (1998) - Sound Designer
• Mortal Kombat (1995) – Sound Designer

David Farmer IMDb
David Farmer Music Site

New month and new guest! For July I’m glad to announce the visit of Bruce Tanis as our special guest. He is a veteran sound effects editor who will share his knowledge with us. We will have a fantatic month with several articles on sound effects editing and design. Hope you enjoy it!

Bio (written by Bruce)

I was born in Oakland, California in 1959. My father was in the Navy at the time so after a couple of weeks to get used to being on the planet, we moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. Several moves later, my family had moved to Reno, Nevada. I went to high school and college in Reno, ultimately receiving a bachelor of science degree in Forestry from the University of Nevada at Reno. Sadly, this was in the early 80′s after a decade of students deciding they wanted ecological jobs in the great outdoors so my prospects for employment weren’t great in an already full marketplace.

Fortunately for me, one of my professors in the Art Department at UNR was also the local film critic for the CBS TV affiliate in Reno and he was able to help me get a job there as a studio camera operator. This was an entry level position and quickly led to running the audio console for news broadcasts and specials. I like to think I was somehow drawn to the audio position as a matter of life choice but it was probably more a matter that no one else wanted to do it! I stayed at the station for a few years and it turned out to be a great education in sound work which allowed me to go on to the next step of my career. I already had a B.S. at this point but in order to get into film school in L.A., I had to begin again since no school I applied to wanted a student with a background in audio, whether I could recognize trees or not, as part of their graduate program. I began classes for a general film arts degree at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ca. in 1989.

Our Department Chairman at that time was Jim Jordan who had directed a lot of the Pillsbury Doughboy commercials among other things and I always thought that was kind of fun. I spent one year there and my film editing teacher told me they were looking for an assistant editor at Cannon Films in the TV spot & Promos Department. I applied on a Friday and started working at Cannon on Monday. Cannon was a good place to work in one respect: being non-union, although they didn’t pay well at all, I could walk into any room and ask whoever was there to show me what they were working on. Sound cutting, mixing, & picture editorial; it was all done in the same building on San Vicente Blvd near Wilshire in Beverly Hills. The people were great about explaining what they were doing so it really was a great place to learn all about post production.

From there I went to Todd-AO on Seward Ave. in Hollywood to work as a department assistant. I started as a television assistant moving units to and from stages, both foley or ADR stages and dub stages, and helping with whatever the editors might need in the way of delivering materials to them or helping with cue sheets or whatever. Two years of schlubbing heavy two-inch multitrack tape cases around was enough so I spent my time after work learning how to run one a Synclavier which, at that time, was the workhorse of Todd-AO’s fx editing rooms. I never made a conscious decision to edit effects instead of dialog but that’s the way it worked out. Todd-AO had basically divided it’s department into one or the other based on the gear installed in each room so I went down the effects path. I started cutting as a real job in 1992 and now, in 2010, I’m about to start work on, approximately, my 87th feature, “Yogi Bear” for Warner Brothers. Whew!

Awards

• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Long Form (Sound Effects & Foley) – And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Domestic Features (Sound Effects & Foley) – Road to Perdition
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing (Effects & Foley, Domestic Feature Film) – Black Hawk Down
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Mini-Series (Effects & Foley) – Dune
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special - And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries or a Special – The Shining

Featured Work

• Fringe (2009) – Sound Effects Designer/Editor
• The Pacific (2009) – Sound Effects Editor
• Watchmen (2009) – Sound Effects Editor
• The Incredible Hulk (2008) – Sound Effects Editor
• Rush Hour 3 (2007) – Sound Effects Editor
• And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003) – Sound Effects Editor
• X2 (2003) – Foley/Sound Effects Editor
• Road to Perdition (2002) – Sound Effects Editor
• Black Hawk Down (2001) – Sound Effects Editor
• Dune (2000) – Sound Effects Editor
• The Shining (1997) – Sound Effects Editor

Bruce Tanis at IMDb

This is a very special month for Designing Sound (we’ll have our first anniversary in a few days) and of course we have a new special guest for this month! A very talented sound designer, sfx recording specialist and also a very kind person: Charles Maynes.

Bio

Charles Maynes was born at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico Viginia, and moved to San Diego California with his parents at the age of 4. He graduated Grossmont College with a dual major of Broadcast Journalism and Television Production.

His earliest credit was the cult film “Return of the Killer Tomatoes” with Addams Family star John Astin and a very young Geoorge Clooney. He has since worked on numerous films such as Flags of Our Fathers, U571, Twister and Starship Troopers. Currently he does freelance weapons sound recording, and studio sound design for film and videogame for clients world-wide.

Nominations and Awards

• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (1996) Twister
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (1998) Starship Troopers
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Computer Entertainment (2010) Biohazard 5
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Computer Entertainment (2010) Wolfenstein
• MPSE Golden Reel Winner for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (2006) Letters from Iwo Jima
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (2006) Flags of Our Fathers
• Satellite Award for Best Sound – (2006) Flags of Our Fathers
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (2002) Spider Man
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (2001) Tomb Raider
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Direct to Video – Sound Editorial (2000) Little Mermaid II Return to the Sea
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film (2000) U571
• Academy Award for Best Sound Editing - (2000) U571

Selected Works

• The Pacific (HBO) (2010) Sound Editing- Battle Sequences
• Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Sound Editor – Sound Recordist
• Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Sound Designer
• Constantine (2005) Sound Designer
• Lara Croft : Tomb Raider (2001) Sound Designer
• U571 (2000) – Sound Effects Designer, Sound Effects Editor, Sound Recordist
• Starship Troopers (1997) Sound Designer, Sound Editor, Sound Recordist

After the great special of Erik Aadahl (who shared lots of amazing stuff on film sound design) we’re ready for our next guest. This time focused on game audio and field recording stuff, please welcome: Chuck Russom, who will be with us all this month giving interviews about his best works, notes and articles on field recording, and a nice dose of gunshots making stuff! Stay tuned.

Bio

Chuck Russom is a freelance Sound Designer and Recordist based in Los Angeles. He spent the first decade of his career working in-house for top game studios and publishers such as: Infinity Ward, Sony Santa Monica, Electronic Arts, and Activision. Since 2008, He has been working as on a freelance basis. He has played a major part in the development of multiple hit game franchises including: God of War, Call Of Duty, Medal of Honor, James Bond, and Heroes of Might and Magic. Custom sound recording is a key component of his work, and He has been on countless recording adventures, chasing down unique and exotic sounds like guns, explosions, large animals, and car drops/crashes.

Awards and Nominations

• AIAS Award for God of War
• AIAS Award Nomination for Call of Duty
• GDC Choice Award for Call of Duty
• GDC Choice Award Nomination for God of War
• GDC Choice Award Nomination for God of War II
• GANG Award for Call of Duty
• GANG Award for God of War
• GANG Award Nomination for God of War II
• BAFTA Award Nomination for God of War II

Selected Work

• Medal of Honor (2010) – Sound designer
• Dante’s Inferno (2010) – Sound designer
• 007: Quantum of Solace (2008) – Audio lead
• God of War 2 (2007) – Audio lead
• God of War (2005) – Sound designer and mixer
• Medal of Honor: Pacific Assualt (2004) – Audio Lead
• Call of Duty (2003) – Audio Lead
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV (2002) – Sound designer
• Might and Magic IX (2002) – Sound designer
• Legends of Might and Magic (2001) – Sound designer and Sound effects recordist
• Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer (2000) – Sound designer

Chuck Russom Official Website
Chuck Russom on Twitter

We have a new special guest on the blog: Erik Aadahl, a talented sound designer who will be with us during this month, giving some articles, interviews and lots of cool stuff. We hope you enjoy it.

Bio

Erik Aadahl was born in San Francisco, and graduated high school Valedictorian. He took a full-ride scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC) and studied Film Production in the Cinema Department.

His early television credits include the Dune and Anne Frank miniseries, which garnered him two of his four Emmy nominations.

Since, Erik has sound designed films such as I, Robot, Superman Returns and Transformers, and was supervising sound editor on Valkyrie, Kung Fu Panda, Monster vs. Aliens and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. He is currently working with partner and Oscar-winning supervising sound editor Ethan van der Ryn.

Awards & Nominations

• Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special – Children of Dune
• Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special – Feast of All Saints
• Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special – Anne Frank: The Whole Story
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film – Kung Fu Panda
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film – Transformers
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing in Sound Effects and Foley for a Feature Film – Superman Returns
• MPSE Golden Reel Nomination for Best Sound Editing in Domestic Features – Sound Effects & Foley – I, Robot
• MPSE Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – Television Mini-Series – Effects & Foley - Ready to Run
• MPSE Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing – Television Movies and Specials – Dialogue & ADR - Introducing Dorothy Dandridge

Selected Works

• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) – Supervising sound editor
• Monsters vs Aliens (2009) – Supervising sound editor
• Valkyrie (2008) – Supervising sound editor
• Kung Fu Panda (2008) – Supervising sound editor
• Transformers (2007) – Sound designer
• Superman Returns (2006) – Sound designer
• Fantastic Four (2005) – Sound effects editor
• Hide and Seek (2005) – Sound designer
• Elektra (2005) – Sound effects supervisor
• I, Robot (2004) – Sound designer
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) – Sound effects editor
• X2 (2003) – Sound effects editor
• Daredevil (2003) – Sound effects editor
• Undisputed (2002) – Sound effects editor
• Avon (2001) – Sound effects editor
• Dune (2000) TV mini-series – Sound effects editor
• Forces of Nature (1999) – Assistant dialogue editor

Erik Aadahl at IMDB