Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/908245
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y F A L L 2 0 1 7 19 b y D e v e n d r a C l e a r y C A S I was really excited to take on this assignment and speak to Shawn Holden. To do a bio on a heavy-hitting production sound mixer like her is an immense privilege. She is someone I've known for a long time and have a great deal of respect for. We first met when she hired me to boom a short film called In the Morning, in 2005. And for how long I've known Shawn and the fact that we interface often, attend the same industry functions, serve on the Board of Directors of Local 695 together, I was embarrassed by how little I really knew about her and her amazing history in this business. I sat down with her at Tart in West Hollywood for a couple hours. If it wasn't for the fact that her next appointment for that day was to go buy a SECOND (!) Aaton Cantar X3 (no big deal), I could have chatted her up for several hours more. Tell me about your roots and early history—before you entered "the biz." For the most part, I grew up in Oklahoma. My dad, with his job, we moved around until about the summer before fourth grade. And we landed in a small town of 25,000 people. Then I went to University of Oklahoma. There were lots and lots of friends, we always had a band, we all played musical instruments. There was a lake nearby. You know, lots of time on the water. And I used to take a lot of pictures. And that's what I went to school for. I was going to be a set still photographer. You had that specificity of an occupation in your head already? I did and I knew I wanted to work [as a still photographer] in the movies or TV. I didn't know what or how but I was really into photography. When I was older, I had a darkroom in my house. And that's what I wanted to do. There were a couple of movies that came through our hometown and I'd go and hang out and just watch. On one movie, I drove up to the gate and told them I was with the caterer. It was way out in the country and they were doing this big stunt. So I just hung around and ended up chatting up the really cute stunt guys. They told me how to do different things, [like] using the parking brake to do 180s and all the car stuff. I was already riding horses, riding motorcycles, riding unicycles, water skiing, snow skiing, you know, all the things that I was already doing, they needed. So they said, "Yeah, you gotta come to LA!" But in reality, I knew that was never going to happen. I went to University of Oklahoma with a motion picture major to be a set still photographer. About halfway through the curriculum, there was an opportunity to either go radio-TV-film or stay in motion picture. The University of Oklahoma—motion picture major? Yeah, not really well-known for its film school. But it's become a good journalism school. What I did end up doing—I took a lot of classes in photography, the journalism department, as well as the art school. I went ahead and changed to radio-TV-film because I knew the opportunities were smarter. So I was doing an internship in Oklahoma City at a TV station. And there was a TV show called PM Magazine. It was like one of the first newsmagazine shows. You get a reel (from San Francisco, which I think was the base) and you had to fill the rest of the time with your local standup people or local stories that you produce. So by the time I left there, I was writing, shooting, producing, editing, and doing sound. It was [just] one of the many things I was doing there. The head news photographer knew me at the station. They hired me after my internship and I worked about a year-and-a-half and then got laid off with about 10 other people. I decided to move to Dallas because they Shawn Holden CAS Shawn Holden CAS An Interview With