Dolby Creator Talks

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164 - Creative Sound Design at Aspen Shortsfest 2023 Sep 26, 2023

Show notes

What goes into building a soundtrack for a short film? And collaborating with a sound team when you’re dealing with a short time frame? And an even more limited budget?

To help us answer those questions and more, Glenn moderates a panel discussion with some of the filmmakers from this year’s Aspen Shortsfest — which is, without question, one of the best film festivals in the world for short films and short filmmakers:

- Madli Lääne, Director of “Dear Passengers”

- Nikita Diakur, Director of “Backflip”

- Luis Fernando Puente, Director of “I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry”

This is a great discussion about the creative process of storytelling. And how that process translates into crafting a compelling soundtrack for a film… regardless of runtime!

Sound teams for the short films:

“Dear Passengers”

Sound Designer - Markus Andreas

Composer - Patrick McGinley

Foley Artist - Anna-Maria Jams

Foley Recordist - Joonas Taimla

Additional Sound Effects - Aleksandra Koel

“Backflip”

Sound Designer - David Kamp

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000008901281/backflip.html

“I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry”

Sound Designer - Erik Naumann

Composer - Jorge Murcia

Teaser: https://vimeo.com/718108679

Many thanks to the faculty and students of Colorado Film School, who filmed and recorded this panel discussion for us:

Sound Recordist - Diana Flood

Camera Operators - Tim Bulger, Wil Francis, Felicia Hettinga, Lucas Lacy

Editor - Quinton Kaine

Production Assistants - Skylar McKelvey, Geneva Schafer

Instructor, Post Supervisor - Matt Baxter

Instructor, Production Supervisor - Aaron Koehler

And extra special thanks to Aspen Shortsfest:

Susan Wrubel - Executive + Artistic Director

Jason Anderson - Shortsfest Program Director

Erin McVoy - Operations + Production Director

Regna Frank-Jones - Head of Education

Allie Wrubel - Program + Marketing Manager

Roger Ramos - Program + Education Coordinator

https://aspenfilm.org/our-festivals/shortsfest/

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163 - Academy Award® and Emmy-Winning Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir - A Haunting in Venice Sep 19, 2023

Show notes

“A Haunting in Venice,” the latest cinematic adaptation featuring novelist Agatha Christie’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot, starring and directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh, includes another unforgettable score by multiple award-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. But unlike most of her other groundbreaking work, this score features a more “classical” approach — a creative decision stemming all the way back to Hildur’s childhood!

“Having grown up reading Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes and all these classics, I had a really strong feeling for how I felt like this genre should be approached. And how I felt like it should not be approached. And [its] quite the opposite to most of my work, where I'm quite explorative of sounds and instrumentation and building instruments or building sample worlds or found sounds. I feel like the whodunit should really just be a classical form (laughs) that should not be tampered with.”

—Hildur Guðnadóttir, Composer, “A Haunting in Venice”

Our guest host, music journalist Jon Burlingame, returns to the Dolby Institute Podcast to speak with Hildur about her work on this film as well as her vast knowledge of music history from this period.

Be sure to check out A Haunting in Venice, now in theaters, in Dolby Atmos® where available.

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162 - The Miracle of Making a First Film, Hosted by Carlos López Estrada Sep 05, 2023

Show notes

Director Carlos López Estrada — Academy Award® nominee for “Raya and the Last Dragon” and winner of the Dolby Institute Fellowship — leads an all-star panel of independent filmmakers to discuss perhaps the biggest challenge of any director’s career:

“The making of a first feature is really nothing short of a miraculous feat. There’s just so many elements that need to perfectly align at the right time in order for an emerging filmmaker to get a shot at telling their story. And we’re hoping that by having these very earnest conversations about what it took, and what it felt, to make a first feature by these directors, we can shed a little bit of light into a process that is so, so, so mysterious to so many emerging filmmakers.”

—Carlos López Estrada, Director, "Blindspotting,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Summertime”

Joining Carlos are filmmakers:

Sian Heder (CODA)

Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard)

Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny)

Randall Park (Shortcomings)

This discussion was streamed live as part of Antigravity Academy’s new Satellite Sessions — “monthly conversations with incredibly exciting figures from the film and TV universe” — co-presented by CAPE USA (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment).

For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more:

Antigravity Academy

CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)

You can also check out the video for this episode.

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161 - The Sound of Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo Aug 29, 2023

Show notes

Director Neill Blomkamp joins us to discuss his thrilling new racing film and biopic, chronicling GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough’s rise into professional racing.

Joining the conversation are the film’s supervising sound editors, Kami Asgar and Erin Oakley, as well as re-recording mixer — and real-life race car driver — Beau Borders, who brought his personal experience from behind the wheel onto the mixing stage, to give audiences the most authentic experience possible.

“Obviously I'm gonna want [the sound] to be realistic. I wanna honor race car drivers. I want car fans to watch the movie and feel like they're not being pandered to. But at the same time, it can't just be totally accurate. It also has to be hyperreal… When I do these car races and I'm all strapped in and the adrenaline's going, I'm convinced that the thing that I'm going through is the most exciting, amazing, wild thing that any human being other than an astronaut has ever experienced… Because that's what happens in your brain.”

—Beau Borders, Re-recording Mixer, “Gran Turismo”

Be sure to check out Gran Turismo, now playing in theaters.

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160 - The Emmy-Nominated Sound and Cinematography of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities Aug 22, 2023

Show notes

SPOILER ALERT: This podcast discusses important plot points from episode three, “The Autopsy.”

Executive Producer (and co-showrunner) J. Miles Dale joins us on the podcast to discuss the horror anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, which was recently nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards. Joining the conversation are nominees: Supervising Sound Editor Nelson Ferreira, MPSE, and Director of Photography Anastas Michos, ASC, GSC.

To avoid spoilers, be sure to watch “The Autopsy” before listening to this podcast! But be forewarned, it is extremely dark — both thematically and visually — which was entirely by design:

“The genre is squarely within a horror/sci-fi mode. It is about what we don't see in life. That's what makes shooting horror films or thrillers so interesting. That we allow the audience to only see what we want them to see, and tease the rest of it into the blacks [of the image].”

—Anastas Michos, ASC, GSC, Director of Photography, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is currently streaming on Netflix in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®.

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159 - The Making of Sundance Hit - The Pod Generation Aug 15, 2023

Show notes

Independent filmmaker Sophie Barthes joins us to discuss her breakout Sundance hit — and winner of this year’s Dolby Institute Fellowship Award — The Pod Generation. The film is a hilariously biting near-future sci-fi satire, starring Emilia Clark and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a young couple who turn to a corporate tech giant to help them carry their new baby — literally — to term.

“Living in America has triggered this passion for exploring the commodification of everything… The fact that we don't see human beings as an ‘end’ by themself, but as a ‘means.’ A means of consumption. A means of generating more money. I don't know why, but it really interests me. Like how capitalism has reduced human beings to just ‘function,’ instead of ‘being.’”

—Sophie Barthes, Writer and Director, “The Pod Generation”

The Pod Generation is currently in theaters, in Dolby Vison® and Dolby Atmos®, where available.

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158 - The Making of Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie Aug 08, 2023

Show notes

Academy Award winning sound supervisor and re-recording mixer Skip Lievsay returns to the podcast, along with Academy Award winning director Davis Guggenheim, to discuss their incredible new documentary, Still: A Michael J Fox Movie.

“I think in a much more traditional documentary, you can polish too much. The sound. You can make it too perfect. And that's sort of what we talk about [with] the off-camera voice. You want to make sure the audience feels like you haven't screwed with the original material.”

—Davis Guggenheim, Director and Producer, “Still: A Michael J Fox Movie”

Still: A Michael J Fox Movie is now streaming on Apple TV+ in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®.

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157 - The Music of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Aug 01, 2023

Show notes

Scottish composer Lorne Balfe joins us to discuss his incredible original score for the latest addition of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Guest host Jon Burlingame returns to delve into Lorne’s process — including some on-the-fly performances during his interview — and why he so badly wanted to record elements of the soundtrack in so many locations from around the world.

“You sometimes have these choirs [that] have to sing in different languages. And of course they can do it. But it's just not natural to them. So that was one idea that I had: Wouldn't it be amazing to have the musicians from that city or from that town be part of this soundtrack? The same way that the crew, and the extras, and the actors are from that environment? Let's try to incorporate that world into our world.”

—Lorne Balfe, Composer, “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One”

Be sure to check out the latest Mission: Impossible at a Dolby Cinema®, so you can enjoy the film in Dolby Vision® and Balfe’s score in stunning Dolby Atmos®.

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156 - The Music of Oppenheimer Jul 25, 2023

Show notes

Academy Award®-winning composer Ludwig Göransson returns to the Dolby Institute Podcast to discuss his 2024 Academy Award-nominated score for auteur filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s latest film, with guest host Jon Burlingame. They discuss the composer’s process which, on this film, was anything but traditional, including why he composed over three hours of music before principal photography even began.

“But then the real job begins when [Christopher Nolan] comes back and he goes into the edit bay and he sits there with [picture editor] Jennifer Lame and they start putting together the movie. And they put together the scenes. And they already put my music in those scenes, from what we’d already written. So when I see the first cut it already has all my music in it.”

—Ludwig Göransson, Composer, “Oppenheimer”

Be sure to check out Oppenheimer at a Dolby Cinema® so you can enjoy the film and Göransson’s score in stunning Dolby Atmos®.

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155 - The Sound of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Jul 20, 2023

Show notes

Fresh from their Academy Award®-winning work on “Top Gun: Maverick,” supervising sound editor James Mather and re-recording mixer Chris Burdon return to the Dolby Institute Podcast, along with picture editor Eddie Hamilton, to discuss the sound of the latest installment in the action-spy series — 2024 Academy Award-nominee in the Sound category, “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.”

If you haven’t already, be sure to see Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One in a Dolby Cinema®:

“What Dolby Atmos® allows us to do is make [the sound design] that much more immersive. I have that many more channels that I can be planting sounds in a way that just makes it completely immersive, you won’t hear any other way.”

—Christopher McQuarry, Director, “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One”

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