Dolby Creator Talks

In Part Two of our conversation about "Nightmare Alley," we are joined by an impressive team of sound artists, who worked very closely with Guillermo del Toro in crafting this film: - Nathan Robitaille, Supervising Sound Editor - Jill Purdy, Supervising Sound Editor - Christian Cooke, Re-recording Mixer - Brad Zoern, Re-recording Mixer - Greg Chapman, Production Sound Mixer We've included some add...

We recently sat down with legendary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro ahead of the premiere of his latest film, the slick and stylish noir thriller, "Nightmare Alley." Our conversation was so inspiring that we decided to release this podcast in two parts. Today, enjoy this inspiring, one-on-one conversation for a unique glimpse into the creative process of one of the greatest directors working today.&n...

Director Jane Campion joins us today to discuss her harrowing new drama, "The Power of the Dog." It is a dark, psychological thriller made even more thrilling by the incredible sound work by Academy Award-winning supervising sound editor Robert Mackenzie, sound designer Dave Whitehead, and re-recording mixer Tara Webb, all of whom joined in our discussion. So many aspects of making this film were...

Today we are joined by director Sir Kenneth Branagh to discuss his deeply personal new film, "Belfast." The film tells the semi-autobiographical (fictionalized) story of "Buddy," a 9-year old boy living in the city during the "The Troubles" of 1969. It is an intimate portrait of a small family on a tiny city block surrounded by chaos and upheaval.  To help convey the overwhelming feeling of m...

For his feature film directorial debut, director Lin-Manuel Miranda chose to adapt the autobiographical stage musical "tick, tick... BOOM!" by Jonathan Larson — the Broadway phenom behind "Rent," who died so suddenly and tragically in 1996. This film is so clearly a labor of love for Miranda, who took on quite the challenge of adapting this small stage show (often performed by no more than three p...

We're turning back the clock to 1984 as we talk about "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" with Supervising Sound Editor & Re-Recording Mixer Will Files and Composer Rob Simonsen. Unlike many modern action-adventure films, this team, led by director Jason Reitman, tried to make everything sound as authentically '80s as possible, eschewing modern sound design and film score aesthetics, in order to give th...

The latest James Bond film, from director Cary Joji Fukunaga, is a veritable feast of emotion and tone. Along with the requisite jaw-dropping action sequences, the film is chock-full of emotional pathos and tender moments, appropriate for Daniel Craig's sendoff as the titular British super-spy. But also, perhaps surprisingly, some very humorous sequences, as well.  With a running time of over...

For our 100th episode, we are very pleased to welcome back to the podcast acclaimed director Edgar Wright, along with his frequent collaborators, composer Steven Price and sound designer Julian Slater. We discussed their latest mind-bender of a film, the psychological thriller – featuring ( as Stephen King put it ) "time travel with a twist" — "Last Night in Soho." As always, this team has crafted...

The incredible new adaptation of "Dune," from director Denis Villeneuve, has some astonishing sound work, fully embracing the immersive capabilities of Dolby Atmos®. Creating this soundtrack was a long and painstaking process, which began in pre-production, as Denis took a novel approach by bringing his sound team and composer on board very early in the process. This gave them extra time and creat...

We're taking a few weeks off of our regular posting schedule to put together some exciting new episodes for you. We will be back to our regular schedule at the end of October with our special coverage of "Dune." We recently sat down with director Denis Villeneuve and his all-star sound team, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, and Ron Bartlett, to discuss their approach to this unbelievably ambitious projec...

Today we're speaking with the creators of "Come From Away," the Tony Award-winning Broadway show, and the latest to get a streaming release, this time on Apple TV+. Joining us are the creators and writers of the book, music, and lyrics, David Hein and Irene Sankoff, and director Christopher Ashley. The show is set in the week following the September 11 attacks and tells the true story of what tran...

Dr. Michelle Fournet and Dr. Ellen Garland, the scientists featured in the new Apple TV+ documentary "Fathom," believe the songs of the humpback whales to be perhaps the oldest form of verbal communication between intelligent life on planet Earth. A language and culture which may predate humans' by millions of years.  You may think scientific curiosity then set out to decipher this language s...

WandaVision was a breakout hit this past year, and it appropriately has a whopping 23 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, and more for Writing, Acting, Directing, and a couple of well-deserved nods in the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories. And if you've seen the series, it should be clear why — this show mixes stylistic formats in some truly bizarre, but al...

As we continue our coverage of the 2021 Emmy Awards, we recently sat down with the Emmy-nominated editor and sound team for the fantastic nature program / retrospective biography / urgent and dire warning for humanity, "David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet." The film pulled material from over 50 years of Sir David's career to create what many believed to be his final big documentary. And worki...

As we begin our coverage of the 2021 Emmy Awards, we're excited to sit down today with Sound Designer, and 3-time Emmy Winner, (and returning guest) Craig Henighan, and Supervising Sound Editor and Dialogue Editor, as well as 4-time Emmy Winner, Brad North — who are nominated again, this time for their incredible work on the Netflix animated anthology series, LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. They are nominate...

"Nine Days" is an unusual and remarkable film. A kind of supernatural fable about aspiring souls enduring a rigorous interview process in order to get chosen for life. It is an incredible debut from gifted filmmaker Edson Oda, and we are very proud to see this film finally get a theatrical release, as it was a recipient of the Dolby Institute Fellowship, which gives independent films funding to mi...

Netflix's "The Crown" picked up a whopping 24 Emmy nominations this year, including one for Best Drama Series — which is understandable, considering just how innovative, understated, and tragic the storytelling on that series is.  This week, we're speaking with two of the nominees responsible for some of that incredible storytelling, longtime collaborators Yan Miles ACE, the Editor, and Lee W...

This week we bring you a remarkable story about how Carlos López Estrada, the director of the Dolby Institute Fellowship winner "Blindspotting," attended a spoken word poetry performance and was so inspired by what he saw on stage, he decided to make a wild, low-budget indie feature capturing some of the magic he witnessed that evening. With the help of Executive Producer Kelly Marie Tran, he turn...

How do I break into the film business? That is the number one question we get asked, so we figured maybe it was time to finally answer it. For the past few months, we've asked some of the top professionals in the fields of cinematography, animation, sound, producing, and directing how they got their start and the answers were surprising even to us!  "The world has a way of opening doors and c...

Adapting stage musicals for the cinema is an often tricky process and "In the Heights," the latest adaption from Broadway phenom Lin Manuel Miranda, was no different. Director Jon Chu certainly did not shy away from the epic scale of the theatre production, if anything he made it even grander, which (as you might've guessed) had a number of unique challenges. Primarily, how did they manage to capt...

As games go, chess is maybe not the most exciting thing to watch as a spectator. Its complexities make it difficult for non-experts to truly appreciate. And yet, in Netflix's limited series, "The Queen's Gambit," the filmmakers somehow manage to not only make it exciting, but downright riveting. How did they pull that off? Well, we recently sat down with editor Michelle Tesoro, ACE, and sound desi...

We're joined today by prolific showrunner and creator Neil Cross and re-recording mixer / supervising sound editor Ron Bochar to discuss their new series "The Mosquito Coast." The show tells the story of a grueling journey of a family on the run and it turns out the production was just as challenging. We discuss some of those challenges (and how they overcame them) along with some insights into ho...

Besides "we'll fix it in post," perhaps the most common joke in film editing suites is, "the music will carry it." Meaning, a film almost always has the score to help with the emotional impact of any given moment. But what about films without a traditional score? That is the case with "The Killing of Two Lovers," a tense new indie drama from director Robert Machoian. But interestingly, the directo...

The cult classic "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" came out just a little over ten years ago, and to celebrate the anniversary, the filmmakers (and Universal Pictures) decided to remaster the film in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos for a theatrical and home video re-release this year. Dolby had the privilege of sitting down with the director, Edgar Wright, and the Sound Designer, Julian Slater, to talk a...

Short films don't get a lot of attention these days, but it is one of the best opportunities for filmmakers to experiment with new storytelling techniques. Recently, the Dolby Institute was invited to the Aspen Shortsfest, an Oscar-qualifying festival for short films, to run a workshop on sound design. Well, the submissions blew us away with their creativity and techniques, so we wanted to share t...