Tonebenders Podcast

During the time of global pandemic sound designer Al Sirkett created the Ambient Isolation project as something to do with his daughter. The project ballooned into a massive crowdsource, where recordists from around the world captured the sounds of a locked down world. In Part 1 of this episode we talk with Al about the story of the project and how it came to be.

Rene, Tim and Teresa talk about the BLM movement

Tim and René sat down with Tom Hammond at his Soundcrafter Studios in Austin to talk about his 25 years of collaborating with director Richard Linklater. Tom tells us about the 12 year post production process on Boyhood, his start editing foley and how he survives and thrives working outside of Hollywood.

In 2018 the film world took notice when Alfonoso Cuarón, director of Gravity, released a black and white, period film called Roma to wide acclaim. It was one of the first films to truly explore and innovate in the Atmos format, and the dense soundfield was an intense labor of love throughout. In this episode we spoke with sound editor Javier Quesada about his intense and meticulous work in this project.

137 - Data Management by 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.