A Pleasanton man who falsely claimed he was a three-time Oscar-winning sound designer was sentenced Friday to four years in federal prison for defrauding investors of nearly $4 million in an investment scheme.

Scene 1 – Lying

It was Brice Carrington who gave King Kong his roar, the T-Rex and other dinosaurs their menacing sound in the movie Jurassic Park, put the hiss in Snakes on a Plane, the swoosh in Superman’s flight and the swirling sound in Spiderman’s web-shooting.  Carrington is the man behind the pops, bangs, booms and blasts of the firepower in Miami Vice, True Lies, The Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, etc.

Carrington received 3 commemorative Oscars for “King Kong,” “Ghost and the Darkness,” and “Jurassic Park.”  He has created sound effects for 41 blockbuster films, including Jurassic Park 3, Blade, The Blood Hunt, Rush Hour 2, Van Helsing, Superman Returns, Spiderman, and the Mummy Returns sequels.

Scene 2 – Retraction

I am Brice Carrington. I am writing this note to address comments made about me and to state some facts about my work. All the statements made that say directly that I have NEVER worked on a film or have won an academy award for sound is absolutely true. I have never worked on a motion picture nor have I ever won an academy award. The fact is, I am a sound designer, and I make recreations of sounds found in films and sell them to the public through a brand called Ultimate FX. I am completely responsible for all the misleading or incorrect statements made about me in the press. My effort was to create press for the brand Ultimate FX, which I am the author. I did this foolishly. This is a library where I have made my OWN versions of movie sounds. I have no association with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I commemorate the Oscars by creating a version of the main characters in films that win Oscars. Like in Jurassic Park, we make a T-Rex using hogs in water, lion growls, a lawn mower and elephant roars. That is My version. I sell this and other sounds complete with the stems to consumers. This is a lawful enterprise, but misleading the public or allowing mis-characterizations is wrong. I am issuing an apology for making all of the misleading or mischaracterizations of my work. I apologize to those in the sound industry and the makers of the original works and studios that distribute them for this offense. To correct this, I will ask for retractions were appropriate in the press. I will also refrain from any further public comments and allow the brand and the product to speak for itself through traditional means of sales and marketing. To those in the sound industry and those specifically I have offended, you have a right to be upset, and I offer my sincere apology. I am sorry that you had to spend one minute of your time addressing this.

The End – Sentence

Carrington admitted that he had lured investors by spinning a series of yarns. He told people he had won three Oscars, had an extensive background in sound design and had ties to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Carrington admitted that he had received $3.6 million by victimizing 13 people. Almost none of the money went to designing sound effects; most went for such expenses as the mortgage on his $2.6 million Pleasanton home and fancy cars.

In 2006, Carrington paid $52,000 to Walnut Creek jeweler Davidson & Licht to create three fake Oscar statuettes, according to a civil suit that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences filed, claiming copyright infringement. He displayed at least one of the fake Oscars at his home, authorities said.

Carrington, born Antonio Wilson, has a previous forgery conviction in San Diego and a larceny conviction in Dallas, court records show.

His Twitts (I don’t know if this is the official account of Brice but is fun)

His Website

Moral: Be careful with your words.

Via: EURweb | San Fransisco Chronicle | The Music of Sound

Another great video via thesoundguys at YouTube, this time about the sound design of Jurassic Park with comments by Gary Rydstrom, Steven Spielberg, and Chris Boyes. Additionally, don’t forget to read the article about Jurassic Park sound on the Gary Rydstrom Special.

Let’s begin the Gary Rydstrom Special with Jurassic Park, an Academy Award-winning movie directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1993 marking the debut of DTS in motion picture theatres on 876 screens.

There is an article at MPSE taken from a special event called “Big Movie Sound Effects: Behind the Scenes and Out of the Speakers” presented in Hollywood by Dane A. Davis and Gary Rydstrom, who spoke about the Sound Design of Jurassic Park.

“Sound effects, to me, are not just to make the unbelievable believable, or to make sounds that make the movie realistic. They’re really there for the sake of storytelling. And one of the key things I try to keep in mind when doing sound effects work is how can we use sound effects to help tell a story. For a dinosaur movie — for “Jurassic Park” — it’s going to give us a sense of fear, a sense of who these dinosaurs are, it’s going to tell us things that are happening off screen, it’s going to give us a sense of scale. It doesn’t really, to my mind, because I’m a sound effects guy, it doesn’t play all that well without sound effects. So I will demonstrate this… Steven Spielberg is not in the audience, right? So I’m going to play a clip from “Jurassic Park” with just dialogue. And we’ll get a sense of how that works.”

“It’s very important, I think, to plan ahead for sound. One of the things that good directors like Steven Spielberg do is they think about sound early on. One of the important aspects of the T Rex attack scene which I’ll show you on film at the end is that they decided to play it with no music. Which is great! It puts you there. It made it feel not like a movie but like real life. It became scarier. He planned to introduce the T Rex with the sound before you saw it, by hearing it off in the distance before you see it. His use of sound is great, I can’t take much credit for some of these great ideas which really come from the director.”

Read full article here.

Jurassic Park (1993) – Official Trailer

Jurassic Park Official Website

Jurassic Park at IMDB