June's Featured Sound Designer: Randy Thom

I created a “special category” called Featured. My idea is to make a special coverage of a sound designer and talk about it during each month. The objective is to learn more in depth about each major industry professionals.. For example, this month I decide to start with Randy Thom, and in the next days I’m gonna make some posts about him and talk about his work.

I decided to start with Randy Thom not only by his work as sound designer and recording mixer, but also for his excellent work as Director of Sound Design at the recognized Skywalker Sound.

Mini-Biography (vía IMDB)

Randy Thom started his career in radio and music recording before making the transition to film in 1975, when he was hired on Apocalypse Now (1979) as a sound effects recordist. Since then, Thom has worked in a wide variety of creative capacities within the sound department in over seventy five films. For example, in addition to being the music mixer on Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983), Thom was also the production sound mixer for all the footage shot in the US. Since 1983, Thom has been on staff as a sound designer and mixer at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound facility. He is part of a small group of sound designers that are following in Walter Murch and Ben Burtt‘s footsteps in the continuing work of turning motion picture sound into an art form and not simply a series of technical processes. His work on a film often begins before the film has started shooting, and becomes an integral part of the storytelling and emotional impact of the film. Randy Thom has been part of Robert Zemeckis‘ core creative team ever since Forrest Gump (1994). Through his career Thom has worked with such top Hollywood talents as Walter Murch, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Chris Columbus, Mel Brooks and the Farrelly Brothers.

Awards & Nominations

• Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound Mixing – Ratatouille
  Academy Award for Best Sound – The Right Stuff
  Academy Award for Best Sound Editing – The Incredibles
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound- The Polar Express, The Incredibles, Castaway, Contact, Forest Gump, Backdraft, Wild at heart, Return of the Jedi, Never Cry Wolf
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound Editing – The Polar Express, Forest Gump

Recent work

• How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
• Coraline (2009) – Sound designer and re-recording mixer
• Bolt (2008) – Sound re-recording mixer and supervising sound designer
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) – Sound designer
• Glago’s Guest (2008) – Sound designer
• Horton Hears a Who! (2008) – Sound designer, sound re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor
• Standard Operating Procedure (2008) – Sound designer
• Beowulf (2007) – Supervising sound designer and supervising sound mixer
• Bee Movie (2007) – Sound designer
• Enchanted (2007) – Supervising sound designer, supervising sound editor, and supervising sound mixer
• The Simpsons Movie (2007) – Sound designer
• Ratatouille (2007) – Sound designer and sound re-recording mixer

Randy Thom at IMDB
Skywalker Sound website