Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/830490
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 49 asked him what it was like and why he still loved America after what they had put him through. His answer was short and simple. His father loved America, and he had been taught to love the country without question, even though they had been mistreated. What I did not know at the time is that Ken also served in the armed forces within a few years of being released, where he was stationed in Japan. I did not know this because Ken is not a man who brags. In Japan, he worked with a photography unit. After Korea, he went to USC Film School (which must have been dif- ficult at a time when there were almost no Asian-American students in the program) and, after graduating, became fac- ulty. In all, Ken was employed at the university for almost 50 years, retiring officially in 2006. He now spends his time with his two daughters and their children in Torrance, California. Because I worked in the sound department as a teach- ing assistant, Ken's mentorship to me was not the typical student-teacher relationship. I saw him more as manager and administrator than a teacher. One of the great things about working in the department was that we had the keys to the facilities. This was before you could edit and mix your film on a laptop; we were editing 16mm mag. Seven-time Oscar winner and CAS Career Achievement Award recipient Gary Rydstrom recounts a story familiar to all sound department employees. Student films had strict time limits on their access to the dubbing theaters. "We thought we were pulling a fast one by coming in late at night and doing 'Midnight Mixes' on films that needed a little more help. We knew that Ken would touch the dubbers in the morning to see if they were still warm from a midnight mix, so we would wrap a few hours before he got in. What we didn't know was that Ken had installed a counter on the recorder and it was clear to him when people were working at night, but he never called out the students. He was aware that he was helping us by looking the other way." Interestingly, when I was a student employee, Ken did make it clear that student mixes had to end on time, which made me much better at allocating my own time in the studio in later years. Yet at the same time, he knew that students who were willing to mix all night probably deserved support as well. Ken mentored many famous USC alumni, including George Lucas, Walter Murch CAS, Ben Burtt MPSE, and Gary Rydstrom. Tom Johnson CAS was a teaching assistant at the time that Gary was a student. I knew that Ben Burtt had used a recording of Ken as the voice of ET in one scene where ET drinks some beer and appears to be drunk, so I asked Ben (four-time Oscar winner) about his relationship with Ken: "Ken was absolutely a pivotal force in my life. He recog- nized my passion for movie sound, which was not a common trait among film students in 1971-1975. He demonstrated a calmness under fire, a patience, and a work focus which set the example for me as to what perspective a sound person Clockwise, from left to right: A recording session for Gary's student film The Committee. The group shot is as follows left to right: Dick Harber (editing instructor), Mel Sloane (directing), Dave Johnson (production), Ken Robinson (editing), Gene Coe (animation), Ken Miura (sound), unidentified. Gary is sitting back to us in the light blue shirt; Gary Rydstrom CAS directing faculty voices for his film The Committee; artwork from Gary Rydstrom's animated short The Committee. Back row: Ken Robinson, Ken Miura, Dan Wiegand, Dick Harber. Front row: Gene Coe, Mel Sloan, Dave Johnson.