Great interview at Woody’s Sound Advice with supervising sound editor David Stone.
If you’ve seen any 70′s era Hanna Barbera cartoons or any major motion pictures over the last several decades you’ve heard the craftsmanship of David Stone. He has worked with some of the most creative and unique directors and producers in Hollywood and picked up an Academy Award along the way for his stunning work with Tom McCarthy on Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Now a full time educator at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), he is currently serving as Chair of Sound Design. Working along with other stellar professionals such as Peter Damski, those students are getting their money’s worth in Georgia.
Along with his sound career David was also the editor of the Movie Sound Newsletter. It was a chronicle of audio for film from the trenches of Hollywood. The Newsletter is long since out of print but David is bringing it back to life on the web. You can find online versions of the original Newsletter here. There were numerous notable contributors to the Newsletter including David’s brother, Richard Stone, a composer and multiple Emmy award winner who, among many other projects, composed the scores for Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain.
An accomplished visual artist as well as a consummate audio professional, David is truly a man of many gifts. Probably most key of all is his curiosity, sense of humor and temperament. David hosted me for a weekend series of workshops at SCAD in the Spring of 2011 and I found him to be an extremely personable, approachable and popular guy. In an industry filled with nervous and insecure individuals, David is a shining light. He kindly found time between classes to chat with me about his past, present and future plans.