Documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, as well as sound supervisor and re-recording mixer Paul Hsu, join us to discuss their new HBO documentary limited-series, “Ren Faire.” The show details the Succession-like power struggle atop the Texas Renaissance Festival, amid its founder’s impending retirement. It was filmed in an appropriately over-the-top theatrical style, and features some incredible sonic world-building, which — in true Lance Oppenheim style — very cleverly mixes real and fantastical elements... often leaving the line between the two quite grey.“I've always been obsessed with Abbas Kiarostami's movies and ‘Close-Up,’ which is very formally different than this, but the idea with that film was embracing reenactments, embracing performance, as a form of truth. And to me, with this project, everything you're seeing on the screen is real. But I wanted to also acknowledge that the moment you drop a camera anywhere, you violate the reality. So it's absurd. All of it's absurd. Documentary filmmaking is absurd. Nonfiction storytelling is absurd. So if we can acknowledge that, can we push past it and find something new?”—Lance Oppenheim, Director, Writer, and Executive Producer, “Ren Faire”This conversation was recorded in-person, in front of a live audience at Dolby’s screening room in mid-town Manhattan, as part of our ongoing collaboration with the Artist Academy and Film at Lincoln Center.Be sure to check out “Ren Faire,” with all three episodes now streaming on Max.Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Academy Award®-nominated director (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) — and Dolby Institute Fellowship winner — Carlos López Estrada brings together another panel of working filmmakers and creatives, this time to discuss the hot button issue of AI in Filmmaking.Joining the discussion are:- Jorge R. Gutierrez (Filmmaker - “The Book of Life,” “Maya and the Three”)- Isa Mazzei (Filmmaker - “Cam,” “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”)- Paul Trillo (Filmmaker, Visual Artist - “The Hardest Part” music video for Washed Out)- Dave A. Liu (Producer/Financier - “Dìdi (弟弟),” “Sasquatch Sunset”)- Dave Clark (Filmmaker, Futurist, Educator)- Joe Penna (Filmmaker - “Stowaway”)“I see all of it as inevitable. And lot of things that are being put out there are frankly, I find, just not that provocative or interesting. And I think AI is being used in a very lazy way, which is totally fine. But, if you have the discipline and if you have the experience, you can take that experience use this tool as a way… to discover these ideas that you probably wouldn’t have made otherwise.”—Paul Trillo, Filmmaker and Director of “The Hardest Part” music videoBe sure to check out Paul Trillo’s controversial Sora-generated music video for Washed Out, “The Hardest Part.”This is another amazing conversation which is part of our ongoing “Satellite Sessions” series, which we’re bringing to you in partnership with Antigravity Academy and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. Follow @antigravityacademy and @capeusa for more information on even more upcoming panels.Antigravity AcademyCAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and Tom Hardy are just a few of the celebrity voice actors in the new Audible Original adaptation of “George Orwell’s 1984.” But this adaptation is unique in that it is audio-only — not unlike a radio play. In doing so, writer Joe White had to translate the novel, which was written from a third-person perspective, and put the audience completely into Winston’s POV. And the creative team needed to rely purely on audio to do all the world-building, without the advantages of visuals or an omniscient narrator. But, as it turns out, the experience came quite naturally for director Destiny Ekaragha.“It wasn't as different as I thought it was going to be, actually… It is pure directing, in a way. Because when you're directing on set, you have to consider everything. The color of the curtains, the clouds, and the sky. Everything. Which is great and amazing. But here, it was just pure, one-on-one with the actor, which is my favorite part of my job. Directing actors. So I was like, wait, this is nice. I really like this. I'm not thinking about anything else. I really love that.”—Destiny Ekaragha, Director, “George Orwell’s 1984”You can experience “George Orwell’s 1984” on Audible in Dolby Atmos®, which fully immerses the listener into this chilling, dystopian world. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Blockbuster film composer Tom Holkenborg — aka Junkie XL — returns to George Miller’s post-apocalyptic dystopian world with his latest installment, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” Regular guest host Jon Burlingame joins the podcast to discuss Holkenborg’s hands-on approach to crafting the music for this film, which included an unusual addition to his typical job of composer.“To find the right language for this film from a first-person perspective… I was able to be one of the re-recording mixers on this film, being responsible to mix the final results of the film that now people will hear in the theater, alongside [re-recording mixer] Rob Mackenzie. I don't know a film that has been mixed by a composer… at least in the years that I've been working in the film industry. To be able to take this on with George [Miller] and with Rob Mackenzie was just an amazing eight-week experience, to really get into the complete details. It's like, ‘how do you want the music to sound? How is it going to be spaced in an incredible Dolby Atmos theater? And how are you using all the speakers? How much do you push the music? And how do you create perfect handoffs with the sound design, working in conjunction together?’ It was such a fascinating experience.”—Tom Holkenborg, Composer and Re-recording Mixer, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”Be sure to check out “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” now playing in Dolby Cinemas®, in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®.Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

One of the reasons behind the immense popularity of this hit multiplayer roleplaying game is its incredible soundtrack. Today, we are joined by the Audio Director of Larian Studios — the makers of “Baldur’s Gate 3” — Stefan Randelshofer, along with our guest host, Dolby’s Senior Game Developer Relations Manager, Alistair Hirst, in a live discussion from this year’s Game Developers Conference, to discuss what went into creating the rich, sonic atmosphere of the video game.“There is a complete architecture for 3D audio that allows you to listen to 3D audio objects. You can make that work automatically and you can facilitate those 3D audio objects and that gives you so many chances to be more immersed in what you're doing. In a world like Baldur’s Gate, there's so much stuff going on. In the city, when people talk around you. You have a cool combat — if you have one of the spells fly by. So it really gives you the perspective of being there. Therefore, that was the reason for me to go into this Dolby setup”—Stefan Randelshofer, Audio Director, “Baldur’s Gate 3”Be sure to check out “Baldur’s Gate 3”, available on PC, Steam, and consoles.Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff — co-creators of “Game of Thrones” — and Alexander Woo (“True Blood”) join us to talk about their epic new science fiction series: “3 Body Problem” on Netflix. Rounding out the discussion are: Director of Photography Jonathan FreemanSound Designer Paula FairfieldSupervising Sound Editor Tim KimmelEditor Michael RuscioThe show is based on a series of bestselling books by Liu Cixin — which, famously, have been described as “unadaptable” to film & TV, due to the complexities of particle physics, which are at the heart of the premise of the story. “We're not physicists. So we needed to — first and foremost — put it in language that we understood. And luckily, we had a good amount of help doing this. Both the books themselves are written for people who are not scientists, and we had Matt Kenzie, our physics advisor, and Bobak Ferdowsi, our JPL space and rocketry advisor, who helped us translate. We listened to them answer our questions. We listened to them answer the cast’s questions. And the way they explain things to people like us gave us a template for the way we could explain things to the people watching. And one thing you do have is you have imagery which can really — even if you don't entirely understand all the explanation and scientific logic behind what you're seeing — give you a flavor for what it means and how it feeds into the story that you're seeing.”—D.B. Weiss, Co-Showrunner, Executive Producer, and Writer, “3 Body Problem”Be sure to check out “3 Body Problem,” in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, on Netflix.Please subscribe to The Dolby Creator Talks Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

The collaboration between director and cinematographer is arguably the most important dynamic on any film shoot. Here to discuss that are Director Kobi Libii and Director of Photography Doug Emmett, with their satirical comedy, “The American Society of Magical Negroes.” “To me, the best versions of most collaborative things are the things you get to and you're like, ‘wait, was that your idea or was that my idea? I can't remember.’ And there's a million like this… where I'm like, ‘oh, I really thought you pitched that to me.’ And he's like, ‘no, no, I thought you pitched that to me!’ Because it's not my idea or Doug's idea. Or my process or my vision or Doug's vision. It's a thing that gets made in the space between us, that is of the story, and of the characters, and of what this thing that we're building between us is.”—Kobi Libii, Director and Writer, “The American Society of Magical Negroes”This conversation was a live webinar as part of the Dolby Institute’s partnership with Sundance Collab, the digital platform from the Sundance Institute designed for filmmakers, with exclusive webinars, curated resources, and free educational videos.“The American Society of Magical Negroes” was a winner of the Dolby Institute Fellowship, which grants independent films with the funds to finish in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and we were very proud to finally watch the completed film when it premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival before it was released in theaters by Focus Features.Be sure to check out the film, now available to rent in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos on video streaming services.Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

This week we discuss the sound, music, and cinematography of “Masters of the Air,” the epic WWII limited series from Apple TV+. With so many films and shows about World War II over the past several decades, one of the biggest challenges of the series was keeping things fresh. So the creative teams took some ingenious approaches to give every episode and action sequence a unique look, sound, and feel.“Because there's so much time spent in the air with these planes, and so many different planes, we really wanted to sell the geography of each location within each plane and also each and every different plane. So one of the ways that we did that was that Mike [Minkler] and I had the different sequences cut by different people, with a fresh take. Or I did this particular sequence, and then I would hand it off to another editor. Or they would do that, and then pass it to me. And so we had a lot of interplaying around with each other's material, which I think keeps it really fresh, whilst not just copying and pasting material. When you have this much time in the air, you really need to keep the listener involved and their ear kind of excited at all times.”—Jack Whittaker, Supervising Sound Editor, “Masters of the Air”Joining our conversation:- Supervising Sound Editor Jack Whittaker - Re-recording Mixer Duncan McRae- Re-recording Mixer Michael Minkler- Composer Blake Neeley- Cinematographer Jac FitzgeraldBe sure to check out “Masters of the Air” on Apple TV+.Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks, wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Recorded live at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Academy Award®-nominated director (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) — and Dolby Institute Fellowship winner — Carlos López Estrada brings together another all-star panel of Hollywood talent, this time posing the question: Is “No Budget Filmmaking” even possible in this day and age? “There's just so much pressure on a film and on a filmmaker that has nothing to do with the film being good, or them arriving at their artistic voice. I've worked on zero-dollar budgets, I've worked recently on $150 million budgets. And the problems on both ends of the spectrum are exactly the same. Your energy and your attention goes to so many places that have nothing to do with the actual movie, have nothing to do with the art, because of the capitalistic requirements of us, as artists. And if we really care about art and we really care about cinema… We have to change the way we talk about cinema… We want to advance the medium and we want to have a discourse around film that is not just, ‘did you like it? Did you hate it? Did it make money?’”—Justin Simien, Film & Television Producer, Writer, and DirectorToday’s panel includes independent filmmakers:- Bao Nguyen (The Greatest Night in Pop, Be Water)- Rishi Rajani (The Chi, Being Mary Tyler Moore, A Thousand and One)- Justin Simien (Dear White People, Bad Hair, Hollywood Black)Once again, this discussion was part of Antigravity Academy’s Satellite Sessions — free monthly conversations with high-level individuals in film and tv, whose objective is to decentralize resources/information and make them available to as many up-and-coming filmmakers as possible — co-presented by CAPE USA (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment). Many thanks to the co-presenter of this panel, MACRO: “a multiplatform media company representing the voice and perspectives of Black people and persons of color.” Learn more about MACRO:https://www.staymacro.com/Learn more about Antigravity Academy:https://antigravityacademy.co/Learn more about CAPE — The Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment:https://www.capeusa.org/Be sure to follow @antigravityacademy and @capeusa for more information on even more upcoming panels.For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to Dolby Creator Talks, wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this and all our episodes on YouTube.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. #LoveMoreInDolby

Hans Zimmer discusses his unconventional approach to scoring 'Dune: Part Two' and his desire to break away from traditional sci-fi music norms. He shares his passion for the project and the challenges of creating a unique sonic experience. The episode dives into the evolution of the musical score, international collaboration, Dolby Atmos impact, and potential future projects.