When working on a project that features horses on screen, the sound design can be broken up into 3 main categories: Their hooves, Saddle/Bridle, and their Vocalizations and Breathing. None of these are easy to design the sound for. Luckily we have some of the most talented people working in audio post-production chiming in, to tell us how they appr…

Have you ever been watching a stand-up comedy special and felt like you were in the room the day it was recorded? A lot of that energy relies on the sound of the crowd as they laugh and react to what the performer is doing on stage. Vinny Alfano has worked on the audio post-production on stand-up specials from Mike Birbiglia, Sarah Silverman, Iliza…

This show hits hard! Invincible may be an animated series, but it is definitely not for young kids. There are real consequences here, characters die, battles leave marks. The sound design has to be big and impactful to match the powers of the super heroes going toe to toe on screen. Punches are huge, explosions really go BOOM. Blood rains down. Sup…

How do you use sound to amplify feelings of awkwardness and discomfort? In The Curse the sound design is tasked with making the viewers skin crawl in a very unusual way. The series is not horror, but there are times you feel you have to look away. Long silences (that are never actually silent!) lead to unexpected emotions in both the characters on …

How much Fun would it be to have the opportunity to record one of the few working B17 "Flying Fortress" planes that are still operational? The sound team from AppleTV's "Masters Of The Air" got to do just that. They were able put 60 microphones all over the B17, to record every part of it that made a noise. Then they took those sounds back to the s…

Today marks the opening weekend for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel for the character first introduced in MadMax: Fury Road. So it seemed like a perfect time to reach into our archives and go back to May of 2015, when we did an episode with Oliver Machin about his work on Fury Road. Hear his amazing story of how the sounds of the vehicles used i…

How do you tackle sound design for a massive car chase scene, that has a fist fight happening on top of the vehicles? For director David Leitch's new film, The Fall Guy, the sound editorial team had their hands (ears?) full to make the movie sound as good as it looked. In this conversation they go down the road, on how to make a car crash sound imp…

For many people that work in sound design, their dream job would be to work on a western. There are the guns, the horses, the creaky floors, and most of all the dusty wide open spaces. They all provide a great playground to create compelling sound, to support the stories of lawmen and the outlaws they seek to bring to justice. So we got the sound t…

In the new film Música (on Prime) we go into the musical mind of Rudy Mancuso. We learn how everyday sounds are re-contextualized into rhythms and music in his brain while he goes about his day. Because the POV of the film changes from what is real to what Rudy is hearing internally, the sound design and mix are extremely important to sell what is …

Are you nervous about starting a new project? Don’t worry; so is everyone else, including your sound design hero, Randy Thom. Spotting sessions are a chance to talk through the edit, scene by scene. These gatherings give the director, the composer and the rest of the editorial team a chance to sort out out technical issues and determine the directi…

Laurence Anslow, who recently recorded and mixed the score for the recent Percy Jackson series and also worked on Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, joins us this week. He is at the top of the game, and yet his workflows as a score recordist and mixer, are a complete mystery to many in audio post. So I asked him to come on the show and talk us through wh…

Magic is always a massive challenge to do sound design for and we can alway use advice on how to tackle it. So we brought in the experts from the team behind the impressive new sound library Conjure, from Echo Collective. Rene Coronado and Brad Dale discuss their approach to magic sound design, recording new material and props, the tools they use i…

The sound work of the recent Netflix series "Avatar The Last Airbender" was a massive challenge on both the sound design and the dialog side of things. We talk with Re-Recording Mixers Joe Barnett & Adam Jenkins as well as Supervising Sound Editors Tim Kimmel & Luke Gibleon about how they made massive battle sounds for powers based on fire, water/i…

We talk with Norway's own Tormod Ringnes, about his excellent sound work on director Margreth Olin's new documentary, Songs Of Earth. As the film's title implies, the sound of the film is extremely important. We follow the director's 83 year old father as he hikes the rugged and beautiful nature of Norway in every season of the year. From intense i…

Tonebenders ran episodes with members of the sound teams of all five nominees in the "Best Achievement In Sound" category at this year's Oscars. So here are some of our favourite clips from each interview. Plus a few un-aired minutes from the Oppenheimer interview that we saved for this episode. Starting with James Mather talking about the epic Fia…

Richard King joins the podcast to talk about his amazing last couple of films, Oppenheimer and Maestro. He explains how his approaches varied between the two films, before spending the majority of the talk digging deep into some of the most arresting sound design scenes in Oppenheimer.LA based listeners, don't forget about The Los Angeles Tonebende…

Dane Davis will be getting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Motion Picture Sound Editor’s Golden Reel Awards. So I asked him walk down memory lane and talk about many of the amazing films he has worked on over the years. In part 1, episode 250, you can hear him talk about his long and successful collaboration with The Wachowskis. In part 2, we…

For our 250th episode we got one of our all-time favourite guests, Dane Davis, to come back on Tonebenders. He is going to be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the MPSE Golden Reels this year, so we took the opportunity to have him walk us through his storied career. In this episode, part one, Dane talks mostly about his long collaboratio…

The Creator is the recent film by Director Gareth Edwards, that features a sound design philosophy of Retro Futurism. The world is going to war over Artificial Intelligence and the robots, or simulants, powered by AI. Oscar Nominees for their sound work on The Creator, Erik Aadahl & Ethan Van der Ryn, give sonic life to multiple generations of futu…

Alan Wake II was released in the fall of 2023 to great critical acclaim. In this episode we talk with the sound team about their work crafting sounds for Bright Falls, The Dark Place, radio shows, strange commercials, a late night talk show, and all the other oddities that make up Alan's terrifying world. Joining us for this discussion are Richard …

We dig into the ambitious sound work done on Director Bradley Cooper's latest film, Maestro. They recorded the London Symphony Orchestra live on set with out any pre-recorded tracks. I am not sure anything like this has been attempted before? In addition to the huge orchestra scenes, there are intensely quiet scenes, that required a whole different…

We are joined by 5 members of the sound team from The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. They walk us through their memories of working on this influential film, the sounds they created and the impact this experience had on their careers. Tim Nielsen (Sound Effects Editor), Katy Wood (Assistant Effects Editor, Foley Editor, Sound Effect…

Paul Hsu welcomes Tim and Teresa into his studio at C5 Sound in New York City, for this in-person interview. He talks about his epic collaboration with director Ari Aster on the film Beau Is Afraid. We dig into many specific moments and the over all approach to this mind bending work, where the sounds both help clear things up and further confuse t…

We talk about the challenge of creating the sound design for Marvel's newest super hero, Kahhori, introduced in the new season of the Disney Plus series, What If...? Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer Mac Smith and Re-Recording Mixer Jeff King take us through their design process, how the final mix came into focus and lots more.Show Notes: htt…

For the first time in a long time, all 4 Tonebenders hosts get together to hang out and do a draft of our favorite genres to do sound design for. Tim, René, Teresa and Mark take turns picking the types of movies we have always wanted to tackle in our own work. We each have to pick one genre from each of the following subsets:1 - Talkies:Mystery (Kn…

Crowds are so hard to make sound authentic & alive in sports films. So much work goes into designing large crowds that roar with emotion. In The Iron Claw, the wrestling scenes have crowds that sound fantastic and we have the audio team here to tell us how they created them. From capturing the extras on set and recording loop group, through sound d…

Picture Editor Hilda Rasula is joined by Supervising Sound Editor Mandell Winter and Supervising Dialog /ADR Editor Sang Jun Kim, to talk about their work on American Fiction. This film has excellent writing and acting, so it was up to the post production team to live up to those standards and carry it through to the end. They discuss the tight rop…

Michael Mann's new film "Ferrari", is a personal drama at heart, but we all know that it is the CARS that will draw people to see this one. Fortunately those cars sound amazing and we have the sound team with us, to talk about how they created and designed those sounds. Production sound mixer Lee Orloff, Supervising Sound Editors Tony Lamberti & Be…

Johnnie Burn joins in to talk about his work on the new Yorgos Lanthimos film, Poor Things. He discusses his working process with Yorgos, the sonic differences between the black and white portion and the full color parts of the film as well as how he figured out the vocals for the hybrid animals. We even briefly touch on his work on Zone Of Interes…

Friend of the podcast Mark Mangini invites us into his studio to talk about his work on the new documentary 32 Sounds. He tells us about his experience learning how to mix for headphones, what his personal "ghost sounds" are and lots more.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/238---32-sounds-with-mark-mangini/Podcast Homepage: https://tonebend…

Doing sound design for water is incredibly difficult, and this film involves a lot of water! We talk with Deborah Wallach & Grant Elder about their work on new Netflix film Nyad. They tell us about the challenges of making long cinematic swimming sequences sound dynamic and varied.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/237---nyad/Podcast Homepa…

Production Sound Mixer Nina Rice and Supervising Sound Editors Ai-Ling Lee & Dan Kenyon tell us about the rules of what sounds can exist in Barbie Land, how that contrasts with the Real World and lots more.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/236---barbie/Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.comTonebenders Host This Episode: Timothy M…

We dig into the sound of the sonically amazing race scenes in the Neill Blomkamp film, Gran Turismo. Re-recording Mixer Beau Borders and co-supervising sound editors Erin Oakley & Kami Asgar talk us through how they wanted the sound of the cars to feel like they are always from the POV of the drivers, so they felt hyper real. They also discuss how …

Let's talk about the criminally under-discussed topic of cutting ambiences for film and series. This important craft, often feels like it has become an after thought in post audio workflows. Our guests are here to praise the role backgrounds play in making movies feel and sound real. Tim Nielsen, Kayla Stewart, Mitchell Lestner and Michael O'Connor…

In this episode we talk with the sound people behind some of our favorite scripted podcasts, to learn how they are put together. Guests Allison Grasso, Marcus Bagala, Jonathon Roberts, Jamie Coupar and Daniel Brunelle share their experiences working on great shows like Quiet Part Loud, Limetown, Case 63, Harley Quinn and Joker: Sound Mind, Shipworm…

Tonebenders host, Timothy Muirhead, tells tales of some of his favourite field recording (mis)adventures and invites all our listeners to send in their own stories of capturing interesting sounds in the wild. Tim shares stories of recording in unusual places, when strangers find microphones left to record on their own, his favourite sound he has ev…

In this episode we talk to members of the sound teams from some recent animated features, about the art of sound design for this tricky genre. Julian Slater (The Bad Guys/Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), Justin Davey (My Father's Dragon), Bill Dean & Jesse Pariseau (DC League of Super-Pets) and Jay Jennings (The Bad Guys/Puss in Boots: The Last Wish/…

In this episode we talk with the team behind the new amazing sound effects library Cataclysm. Mattia Cellotto, Kyle Fraser and Robbie Elias tell us about their adventures recording propane cannons in remote mountain locations as well as many other loud and explosive source sounds for the library.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/230---reco…

In this episode Doc Kane tells us about his illustrious career as the main voice and ADR recordist at Disney Studios in Burbank California. He also talks about how he runs a session, which microphones he likes and lots more.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/229---doc-kane/Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.comTonebenders Host Thi…

We are joined by re-recording mixers Lindsey Alvarez and Mathew Waters from the fictional rock and roll series Daisy Jones & The Six. They talk about how they worked to put the music in all the venues the band played in, from garages to stadiums. They also dig into how they created the sound of 20,000 fans singing along with the band, plus lots mor…

VR game Moss: Book II. Kristen Quinn (Audio Director), Stephen Hodde (Voice Director, Engineer) and Sun Kim (Senior Sound Designer) tell us about how the games soundscape came together. They discuss telling stories with sound in virtual reality, a clever approach to spatialization, and why one of their team members is a magical unicorn?!Show Notes:…

We are joined by Supervising Sound Editor Nicholas Renbeck, ADR Supervisor Angela Organ and Re-Recording Mixer Andy Kris from the HBO series Succession. They tell us about their work on the final season of the series, with a special focus on how the series handles dialog. We also dig deep into the game changing 3rd episode and how its incredible so…

James Mather joins in to talk about the amazing work he and his team did on Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Pt 1. He discusses, with depth, the sound design of the car chase scene in Rome, the sonic representation of "The Entity", the train sequence in the final act and lots more. Don't miss this one!Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/225…

Co-Supervising Sound Editors John Marquis and Nancy Nugent Title, join us for a talk about their sound work on The Flash. We discuss the various ways they tackled electricity sounds in the film, dealing with dialog recorded on an LED volume stage, and lots more.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/224---the-flash/Podcast Homepage: https://ton…

In this episode Kate Finan & Jeff Shiffman, from Boom Box Post in Burbank California, tell us about their experience of transforming a former auto body shop into a brand new multi-room audio post facility. From finding a building, hiring acousticians and architects, overseeing the actual build, and deciding on the gear to outfit the studios with, t…

The Bourne Trilogy changed the way action films sound, and raised the bar for everything that came after them. Supervising Sound Editor Per Hallberg takes us back through his work on all three films (Identity, Supremacy & Ultimatum). We dig into the sound design for the mesmerizing fight scenes, the intense car chases and even the tension built int…

Co-Sound Supervisors Bobbi Banks and Greg Hedgepath join us to talk about their wonderfully detailed sound work on the new film - Chevalier. They tells us about designing the period accurate crowd reactions, sword fights, riots and a bunch more. Lots of big laughs in this one.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/221---chevalier/Podcast Homepa…

Michael Benavente (Supervising Sound Editor) and Chris Battaglia (Sound Designer) tell us about the amazing sound work they did on the HBO series The Last of Us. We talk about the pressure to stay true to the sound work done on the original games, designing decrepit and terrifying soundscapes and lots more.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com…

We are joined by Steven Ticknor (Supervising Sound Editor) and Michael Babcock (Re-Recording Mixer) from the recent Sci-fi film “65”. The challenge of designing sound for dinosaurs and spaceships makes the soundscape especially unique. They tells us how to craft the sound of a jump scare, about the idea of “speaker real estate” and how to make he m…

We dig into the fantastic sound in Evil Dead Rise with the film's writer/director Lee Cronin as well as the Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Editor Peter Albrechtsen. We talk about their creative use of ATMOS, designing scenes where sound is doing the heavy lifting and lots more.Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/218---evil-dead-rise-wi…