Tonebenders Podcast

In this episode René talks about his methodology and philosophy for budgeting for personal gear, and then does some shootout tests with an MXL 440 microphone he modded with a capacitor upgrade.

In this episode Timothy checks in with Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn to congratulate them on their Oscar Nomination in Sound Editing for "A Quiet Place".  They also talk about their amazing a year of work in 2018.  In addition to "A Quiet Place", they Sound Supervised "Christopher Robin", "Bumblebee" and "The Meg", four completely different films in every way.

In this episode we talk with Andrew Stirk about the sound work he did as the Sound Supervisor and re-recording engineer,  on the recent film "A Private War".  We discuss the films gritty, almost documentary-like approach to sound and the times when they threw the realism out the window to create impactful moments in the story.

In this episode we have 3 different interviews with members of the sound team for Mary Poppins Returns. First up is the film's dialog and music re-recording mixer Mike Prestwood Smith,  followed by the Supervising-Sound Editor Reneé Tondelli and then effects and foley  re-recording mixer Michael Keller.  They all have fascinating stories on how the film's sound evolved into the impressive final mix.

Mildred Iatrou Morgan & Ai-Ling Lee sit in with us for this episode. They were the co-supervising sound editors on Damien Chazelle's recent film First Man.   They talk about the epic challenge of bringing this film to life, knowing so much of the plot uniquely depends on sound to tell the story of the first moon landing.

Host Timothy goes for a frozen, snowy walk in the woods while recalling some of DesigningSound.org's best content, why the site was/is so important to the audio community and how much it will be missed. Go to http://tonebenderspodcast.com/088-thoughts-on-designingsoundorg/ to find links to a bunch of Timothy's favourite articles from DS over the years. Huge Thanks to Miguel, Jack and Shaun (& everyone else) for all the hard work they have done on DS!

What does it take to make a career in sound post-production? In this episode we listen in on a panel discussion hosted by Soundgirls.org, with 5 talented audio-post pros: Onnalee Blank (Re-Recording: Mixer Game of Thrones, If Beale Street Could Talk), Karol Urban (Re-Recording Mixer: Grey’s Anatomy, New Girl), Kate Finan (Supervising sound editor: Future-Worm!, Muppet Babies) and April Tucker (Re-recording Mixer: The Bachelor, Alt-Right: Age of Rage) and moderator Anne-Marie Slack (Executive of Organization Services for MPSE). They each tell how they got started, and share stories and advice on how to keep moving forward in film and TV post-production.

Richard King is a 4 time Oscar Winner for Sound Editing (actually nominated 6 times!) and a giant in the film sound world.  He sits down with Timothy to talk about his work on Dunkirk, what it is like to work with Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer and many of the other amazing films he has been a part of.  Great talk!

In this episode Timothy and René sit down with the sound team behind the new Emmy nominated documentary “Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas”. The film tells the story of how Jewish songwriters are responsible for so many of the best-loved Christmas tunes. Set in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day, the tale unfolds using a combination of musical performance, interviews and archival footage. Joining us for the interview are the film’s producer Liam Romalis, re-recording engineer Richard Spence-Thomas, location recordist Gary Vaughan and Music Supervisor Aaron Davis.

In mid 2018 sound recordist Bret Johns decided to launch a kickstarter that would send him to Thailand on a mission to record a variety of elephants that would turn into a pretty spectacular library launch.  We enthusiastically backed it, and when the time was right we caught up with Bret to hear the sounds and talk about the adventure. Elephants In The Room Sound Effects Library https://elephantvoices.org/ also huge thanks for editorial help from Sebastian Dressel.  check out his work below http://www.sebastiandressel.com/

Teresa and Timothy visit Montreal to sit down in person with the sound team behind the ground breaking and award winning film Arrival from director Denis Villeneuve.  Re-Recording Mixer Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Supervising Sound Editor Sylvain Bellemare tell us about the way they brought the soundtrack of the film to new heights.  This is a great talk about a fascinating film.

We talk with Joseph Fraioli about his work on the new science fiction film "Kin" by directors Jonathan and Josh Baker.  Joseph tells us about how he created an alien language and the sounds of the mysterious gun at the heart of the film.  He also discusses how he uses modular synths in his sound design and how he worked with a sound team spread out between New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Scotland.

In this episode Timothy goes to Foley One's studios for an in person interview with Steve Baine (foley artist), Peter Persaud (mixer), Gina Wark (editor) and Rocky (studio dog) to talk about their work on the recent hit  film A Quiet Place.  We also talk about other films they have worked lately on including The Shape of Water and Mother!  Fun talk with great people about top notch work.

Timothy René and Teresa open up the mailbag and answer some questions from listeners. We tackle how directors can find a good match with a sound designer, how to find the sonic voice of an animated project, and how edits done in a home studio can best translate to mix stages.

Timothy and Teresa were recently in Montreal and gathered some of the city's top SFX recordists and curators to sit down and talk with us. We discuss every aspect of the process of releasing a SFX library for sale, from initially recording the sounds all the way to metadata and distribution strategies.  If you were ever thinking about putting out your own SFX library this is a goldmine of information.