Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1279181
34 I M PS E . O R G SL: So you took Ken Miura's general sound class. RLA: Yes ... a lot of it was tech stuff. Signal-to-noise ratio. Harmonic distortion. All that kind of stuff that people who wanted to write or direct, their eyes are glazed over! That's where Richard met future Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt. Ben and Richard became friends, working as projectionists at the school and sharing their love of swashbuckler 'Hollywood' movies, like Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Along with another friend and fellow film student at USC, Rick Mitchell, they made the parody shorts "The Scarlet Blade" and "Rod Flash Conquers Infinity!" For his first o•cial job in the business, Richard was hired by James Hong, an actor/producer who is best known for countless character roles in films including Blade Runner and Big Trouble in Little China. RLA: He produced little no-budget stuff on the side. He had seen a student USC film we'd done, which was shot MOS, where we cheated the dialog, which I hand cut to fit. So Richard went to work on the English version of a kung fu movie. RLA: I worked for $3 an hour. Which was more money in those days—but it was $3 an hour, whether it was your first hour, or your 50th hour! So the only way I made any money at all was the fact that we worked long hours. But I was okay, I was working on a movie that was going to be shown in theaters! I guess what they would later call grindhouse theaters, but still, it was exciting to me, it was going to play St. Louis! That was my first professional credit. I mean, I didn't get credit (on the film), but it was a job I could say I did. I worked on a real movie, 35mm, that played in theaters! His next job was on a 16mm educational film as a picture assistant editor. RLA: So I did the more traditional assistant picture editor stuff. Syncing dailies, filing trims, and all that kind of stuff. But then, basically after they had locked the film—and I know that's a foreign concept now —they locked the film, and then they hired this guy, Dick Brummer, to come in, and he was going to do the sound, moonlighting. He worked somewhere else during the daytime. So, since they weren't cutting the picture anymore, they really didn't need an assistant editor, but they were nice—they kept me on. They said, "Why don't you help the sound editor." Because he was working at night and weekends, my main job initially was to prepare everything for him during the day—get the transfers done, this-and-that. And we get along fine. Dick said, "You know, I do these moonlighting projects all the time. Why don't you work for me and you can do all the prep work, that way I can come in at 7 p.m. and just cut. I don't have to pull sound effects, get transfers made, and all that grunt work. I can just cut!" So I thought, this is great! I always figured I would eventually get back into picture editing, but it's nice to be able to pay your rent and eat! After the educational film, we mainly did trailers. Dick would cut the trailer, He would watch the movie, and we pulled the clips, I'd get everything ready, and he'd come in at night and cut. It was interesting to watch him cut. And he would show me. That's the way it works in Hollywood, right? So we were doing these trailers, and gradually, he said, "Why don't you cut the stuff! And then I'll just come in and I'll check it out!" I remember there was some Alaska movie, and there was a bunch of sled dogs. So I found a group of barking dogs sound effect. And I just kind of laid it in. And he came in and said, "No, no, you have to watch the scene. Now here's a little dog here, so we have to put a bark there! You have to really pay attention to these things. You don't just put in a bunch of dogs barking." Anyway, he taught me more about cutting sounds, and we'd go to the mix. And then, at that point, we were working at a company, and they had a recording studio where they made records, back when there were records, before CDs or whatever they have now. They decided that they weren't making enough money with the film thing, so they decided to shut the film unit down. At the time, we were doing trailers for Roger Corman. New World Pictures. We did others, but we did some for New World Pictures. By then, I was doing kind of the whole project. New World said, "Well, do YOU want to do 'em?" I said, "Okay!" In those days, they paid a certain fee to do sound on the theatrical trailer, which was three to four minutes long, and then you would get so much more for the TV spots. And you didn't really make any money during the theatrical trailers, but you could use the mix—use pieces of that and cut it down— L to R: Richard Anderson with Steve Lee at Weddington Productions, 1995. Photo courtesy the collection of The Hollywood Sound Museum