Tonebenders Podcast

In this episode we talk with Paul and Jessie about Trolls World Tour. The film is about how music can either drive us apart or bring us closer together, resulting in the sound design playing a major role in making the story work. We discuss how to make sound effects cut through in a loud musical, figuring out the sound of the Trolls' world, and how being noticed for working hard early in your career can pay off years down the line.

Are you nervous about starting a new project? Don’t worry; so is everyone else, including your sound design hero, Randy Thom… Talking through the edit, scene by scene gives the director, the composer and the rest of the editorial team the chance to sort out out technical issues and determine the direction and shape the soundtrack is going to take… Randy joins us to talk about about what kind of attitude, questions and objectives he brings to the spotting sessions for new movie projects.

We visit Game On in Montreal to get a tour of their massive Motion Capture stage and recording studios. Sam Giradin tells us about their audio workflow recording on the stage and in the booth when pushing through ten of thousands of dialog lines for AAA games.

In this episode, René and Tim talk with acclaimed voice actor Eric Vale about the process of setting up a home voice recording setup during the age of quarantine when studios are not available and work still needs to be done. We dispel some myths, we talk gear, we show off some mics, and we crack some jokes. If you know voice actors going through the process of setting up (or stepping up) a home recording rig, send them this episode.

What with one thing and another, John, Shelley and Scott are sheltering at home. We take advantage of this rare break in the schedule to bring them back together over Skype. They pull back the curtain (Zuzz, but just a hairball) on the unique space they've created to work in and share the irrepressible camaraderie that fuels their work at Skywalker Ranch. We also talk Foley for animation, including some thoughts on Pixar's newest, Onward.

In this episode we are "re-broadcasting" an interview from the Sound Perspective Podcast with legendary Australian film director Peter Weir (Witness/Master & Commander/Truman Show/Dead Poets Society). Peter talks with host Alfie Faber about working early in his career with legendary sound pro Alan Splet, and then with Richard King on his later films. This is one of the many great interviews available from the Sound Perspective Podcast.

René reminisces about his adventure recording the NHL winter classic way back when it was ok for 80,000 people to get together and watch a game.

A quick roundtable with Kate and Jeff from Boombox about the current coronavirus situation and how it affects the sound community.

Korey Pereira, Nicole Auringer, and Glenn Eanes share their experiences and lessons learned while working with ATMOS technology. Topics discussed include upgrading home studios for Atmos, designing and building rooms for Dolby certification, strategic mixing for lower budget projects, optical illusions in panning, speaker placement challenges, equipment needs, and session management complexities.

We talk with Stuart Wilson about his work as Production Mixer on the extremely challenging set of Sam Mendes' epic film 1917. The films long continuous shots presented new and unique obstacles (both physical and technical). He also worked on two other recent films in The Two Popes and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Since we recorded this interview Stuart Wilson has won the Best Sound Mixing Oscar for his work on 1917.