In this exclusive SoundWorks Collection video profile, producer Michael Coleman sits down with the oscar nominated sound team of HUGO including co-supervising sound editor Philip Stockton, co-supervising sound editor Eugene Gearty, and re-recording mixer Tom Fleischman.

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Brian Selznick’s award-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret stars Asa Butterfield, as an orphan boy who lives in a Parisian train station. Sent to live with his drunken uncle after his father’s death in a fire, Hugo learned how to wind the massive clocks that run throughout the station. When the uncle disappears one day, Hugo decides to maintain the clocks on his own, hoping nobody will catch on to him squatting in the station.

His natural aptitude for engineering leads him to steal gears, tools, and other items from a toy-shop owner who maintains a storefront in the station. Hugo needs these purloined pieces in order to rebuild a mechanical man that was left in the father’s care at the museum — the restoration was a project father and son did together.

SoundWorks Collection

Set of 9 videos featuring sound designer Ben Burtt talking about sound and his work on “Super 8″.

New profile by SoundWorks Collection, featuring sound designer Gary Rydstrom and composer John Williams talking about the sound and music of “War Horse”.

From director Steven Spielberg comes “War Horse,” an epic adventure for audiences of all ages. Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War, “War Horse” begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him.

When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets—British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter—before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.

In the exclusive SoundWorks Collection video we talk with Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer Gary Rydstrom and Composer John Williams.

Full Sail has uploaded the recording of a panel called “Beyond 5.1: The Future of Sound for Picture”, with sound designers Harry Cohen and David Farmer, and re-recording mixers Marc Fishman and Gary Rizzo.

Livestream embed code doesn’t work properly, so go to this page for watching the video.

Even though home enter tainment equipment has become more sophisticated, experiencing a movie in the the- ater is still unsurpassed. With the increase of digital cinemas, a greater offering of IMAX films, the improvement of 3D technology and the growing popularity of the 7.1 format, theaters are able to offer the audience a movie experience like no other.

According to Robin Selden, senior VP, marketing at Dolby, Dolby Surround 7.1 is one of the fastest growing cinema audio formats in the history of their company.Their 7.1 format consists of eight chan- nels in the layout: Left, Center, Right, Low-Frequency Effects (LFE), Left Surround, Right Sur- round, Back Surround Left and Back Surround Right.With the addition of two surround speak- ers, mixers are able to more accurately pinpoint where a sound is placed.They also enhance the spatiality of the sound.

Continue reading here.

/via @lydrummet

Home Theater Forum has interviewed Matthew Wood about his work on the Blu-ray edition of Star Wars.

We met with Matthew Wood from Skywalker Sound to find out more about the sound mix and what was done to ready it for Blu-ray.  He started working on the Blu-ray audio back in 2007.  Here are excerpts from that presentation.  It was very obvious that he has a lot of passion for these films.  Please note that the questions came from multiple participants, including myself:

I’ve [Matthew Wood] been involved in the restoration and remastering of Episodes IV, V and VI since about 1996 when we started the special editions and all the way through the DVD releases now.  I’ve actually brought all 6 movies that I got the print masters from Skywalker Sound so that we can listen to some scenes today. The cool thing about Blu-ray is the fact that when I play you these masters, it’s effectively as what’s on the disc, it’s the file copy that goes on the disc, we have an uncompressed master on the disc.

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While the debate rages on across every industry that is fighting to be heard in the living room, video games are now an additional component that is drawing a sharp focus. As an audio team or director working with a constantly shifting fully interactive sound environment, how should we be approaching this space so as to attempt to equalize across different media types that may be played back from a single device? In a discipline that is often compared to film which almost always includes music, are there processes in place in other industries that we can take and apply to our growing ability to affect these kinds of aesthetic changes and mix decisions?

The latest installment of the Game Audio Podcast rounds up with a group of people far more versed on the subject than myself. Bob Katz has been a champion of dynamic range and standards in the recording industry for over 30 years and brings a wealth of knowledge and history to the conversation. Additionally, Tom Hays is a game audio veteran who has recently been spreading word of standardization at various conferences and shares some his experiences and findings that are unique to games. Finally, Shaun Farley of Dynamic interference brings the broadcast angle and, as a avid gamer, helps to bridge the gap between worlds with his insightful perspective. Anton and I do our best to hold our own amongst these three and hope that you can find something in the discussion that resonates.

So please join us for:

Game Audio Podcast #10 – Reference & Mix Level Standards

Guests:

-Shaun Farley – Dynamic Interference

-Tom Hays – Technicolor Interactive

-Bob Katz – Digital Domain

Acting as a foundation with an origin story for a new film series, Director Rupert Wyatt takes the audience on the science fiction summer hit, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The stunning visual effects produced by Weta Digital for the apes are complimented by the wide range of sounds recorded and edited for the film.

Leading the sound team is supervising sound editor and sound designer Chuck Michael and co-supervisor John Larsen with the talents of first assistant sound editor Smokey Cloud and sound re-recording mixers Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett.

Chimp Haven serves as The National Chimpanzee Sanctuary. They are an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide lifetime care for chimpanzees who have been retired from medical research, the entertainment industry or no longer wanted as pets. For more information visit:

www.chimphaven.org

SoundWorks Collection

I was about 20 seconds into the first preview for the film last fall when it dawned on me that Cowboys & Aliens must have been really fun to work on sound-wise, and indeed, interviews conducted during the final mix in mid-June with supervising sound editor Frank Eulner, FX sound designer/mixer Christopher Boyes and sound designer Dave Farmer confirmed my suspicions. As Boyes puts it, “For both Frank and me, it was a gas because one thing about this film is it honors the Western tradition, and you are very much in a Western film when it opens and whenever we’re being cowboys in the West. We’re very true to the desert and the town. But then it’s this whole other thing, too.”

Neither Boyes nor Eulner had a pure Western under his belt (Boyes came close with the wonderful animated Rango earlier this year), but each brought extensive experience in different genres to this film—including work on the two Iron Man movies together. Multiple Oscar-winner Boyes’ CV lists the blockbusters Tron: Legacy, Avatar, The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean series, and King Kongamong many others; while Eulner’s resumé includes such films asHellboy, Saving Private Ryan, The Village, Blue Velvet, Backdraft andMars Attacks! For Cowboys & Aliens, sound designer Farmer worked exclusively on the alien side, creating creature vocalizations and some alien crafts and weapon sounds. He is particularly well-known for his imaginative creature voices, having worked on The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, Red Riding Hood and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, as well as videogames in the God of War series,BioShock 2 and many others.

Continue reading here.

After eight films over a 10-year span, the epic adventure of Harry Potter and his circle of wizard friends will close the last chapter of this celebrated series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

Director David Yates returns to direct his fourth Harry Potter film and returns with his talented sound team including Re-recording mixers Stuart Hilliker and Mike Dawson, Supervising Music Editor Gerard McCann, Supervising Sound Editor James Mather, and Sound Designer Dom Gibbs. Expecto Patronum!

SoundWorks Collection