Dolby Creator Talks

Multi-platinum mixer and engineer Richard Chycki joins us to dive deep into his work with legendary rock bands such as Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Dream Theater, Mick Jagger, and, of course, the iconic Rush. Richard has been at the forefront of immersive audio with his Dolby Atmos® mixes of Rush classics like “Moving Pictures” and “Signals,” building upon his original surround mixes. In this conversa...

Mix engineer Ryan Ulyate joins us to dive deep into his work with the late, great Tom Petty, including his Dolby Atmos® mixes of Petty's “Highway Companion” solo album, “Wildflowers & All The Rest” Deluxe Edition, “Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits,” and the iconic “Live at the Fillmore 1997.” Ryan has been a recording engineer and producer for over 40 years, with credits on over...

Bob Clearmountain and Rhett Davies, legends in the world of music recording, production, and engineering, join guest host Ben Givarz to delve into the process of transforming Roxy Music's iconic album "Avalon" and Bryan Ferry's platinum record "Boys and Girls" into Dolby Atmos®. They dive deep into the background of the recording and engineering processes they used on these and other legendary Rox...

Nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards®, “Ripley,” the new Netflix limited series from creator Steven Zaillian, is a masterclass in filmmaking and the art of sound. So it’s no wonder that two of those nominations are for Outstanding Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. And it’s clear why the sound team was given so much creative freedom to explore the sonic possibilities of the show, as many of those d...

How Hollywood studios work and operate can be mystifying, especially for emerging filmmakers. Luckily, Dolby Institute Fellowship winner Carlos Lopez Estrada returns for another of his excellent Satellite Sessions (this one from December), featuring executives from some of the biggest studios in the entertainment industry, all to help de-mystify how they, and the studios, find, develop, and produc...

Pulitzer Prize-winning and Emmy- and Grammy-nominated composer Michael Abels joins our guest host, music journalist Jon Burlingame, to discuss the music of “Star Wars: The Acolyte.” The music for the series was a massive undertaking, made even more formidable by the knowledge that every cue would be compared to the work of legendary composer John Williams. But as a longtime fan of “Star Wars,” Abe...

Academy Award®-nominated director (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) — and Dolby Institute Fellowship winner — Carlos López Estrada brings together another exciting panel of film professionals. As one of the producers, Carlos joins fellow Academy Award®-nominated director (“Nai Nai & Wài Pó”) Sean Wang, along with members of the cast and crew, to discuss the herculean task of bringing their independ...

Perhaps the top colorist in his field, Stefan Sonnefeld joins us for our 200th episode! If you aren’t aware of Stefan, you’ve almost certainly seen his work . Some of his recent projects include “Top Gun: Maverick,” “The White Lotus,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.” His credit list includes some of the biggest franchises in our business, including “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Jurassic Park,”...

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 so...

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...

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 W...

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...

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 d...

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 Freeman Sound Designer Paula Fairfield Supervising Sound Editor Tim Kimmel Editor Michael Ruscio The show is based on a series of bes...

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 wa...

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 fe...

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 not...

2-time Academy Award®-winning composer Hans Zimmer joins us on the podcast to discuss his work on “Dune: Part Two,” after winning an Oscar for his score to the first installment of the sci-fi franchise, directed by Denis Villeneuve. And like Denis, Hans had been dreaming about working on these films since he was a boy. And he also knew he wanted to take them in a less traditional direction, sonica...

Academy Award®-winning Director of Photography Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC, returns to the podcast to discuss his work on “Dune: Part Two.” The film is a stunning achievement, from both the technical and artistic standpoints, which benefitted greatly from being a continuation of his work from part one: “Whenever you do a movie, you've got to solve a series of problems... And a lot of the technical stuf...

Table of Contents: 01:28 - El Conde - Edward Lachman, ASC 12:53 - Killers of the Flower Moon - Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC 24:12 - Oppenheimer - Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC 33:29 - Poor Things - Robbie Ryan, BSC, ISC Welcome to our continuing coverage of this year's Academy Awards®. We have compiled interviews from the nominees in the Best Cinematography category. So, if you are an Oscar voter —...

Table of Contents: 01:30 - The Creator 12:26 - Maestro 23:13 - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One 33:55 - Oppenheimer 44:36 - The Zone of Interest Welcome to our continuing coverage of this year's Academy Awards®. We have compiled interviews from the nominees in the Best Sound category. So, if you are an Oscar voter — either as an Academy member or as a fan participating in your annual...

Table of Contents: 01:55 - American Fiction - Laura Karpman 13:45 - Oppenheimer - Ludwig Göransson 25:48 - Poor Things - Jerskin Fendrix Welcome to our continuing coverage of this year's Academy Awards®. We have compiled interviews from the nominees in the Best Original Score category. So, if you are an Oscar voter — either as an Academy member or as a fan participating in your annual office pool...

The Academy Award®-nominated VFX team joins our returning guest, director Gareth Edwards, to discuss how they created such a visually stunning, effects-heavy science-fiction film with a comparatively minuscule budget. Rather than utilizing extensive previz, green screen studios, and fully-rendered CGI environments, “The Creator” was filmed on-location in Asia, documentary-style, with a very small...

Continuing our coverage of the 2024 Academy Awards®, we have another all-star team of sound artists whose work on “Maestro” is nominated in the Best Sound category. Today’s panel includes: - Richard King, Sound Designer & Supervising Sound Editor. - Tom Ozanich, Re-recording Mixer. - Dean A. Zupancic, Re-recording Mixer. - Steven Morrow, Production Sound Mixer. “Maestro” is a highly stylized y...

Legendary cinematographer Edward Lachman, ASC, joins us to discuss his Academy Award®-nominated cinematography for “El Conde,” Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s satirical horror-comedy which reimagines Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year old vampire. The film features stunning black & white photography, which required the invention of a new kind of camera sensor in order to capture the unique look...