Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/987065
on for how complicated this field can be. I ended up going to the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Arizona. Through my schooling there, I focused on post-production audio and fell in love with it. From there, I got an internship at Dubbing Brothers USA under Fred Taieb. Fred really taught me a lot and let me work and not just get coffee and empty the trash. After the internship, I was hired as an assistant and worked in the QC room and set up sessions for the engineers there. Eventually, I became the ADR mixer working on English dubs of foreign films and then sound designing for animated shows and ADR for features." He continued: "While working at Dubbing Brothers, I met Dan O'Connell, John Cucci, and Jim Ashwill of One Step Up, the Foley studio. I helped them out with minor group Foley cues and sat and watched Jimmy mix quite a bit over three years. It came time for them to move out of the building that we shared, and I said I was interested in working with them if they ever needed help. Two months later, they called me up and asked if I could mix Foley for them. I ended up working for them for about five years and learned a tremendous amount. What I learned from them paved the way for me to start my career at Skywalker Sound mixing for Dennie Thorpe and Jana Vance. We were asked to do the Foley for Coco. Those two have done just about every Pixar feature there is, and I was blessed to be their mixer." Blake spoke about the challenges for this film. "Bones were always a challenge. We didn't want everything just to sound hollow and clacky or the same as each other. Getting different bone sounds for different characters was a trick. Hector, in particular, had maybe 5-6 tracks himself. We had the heel of the foot separate from the toes. We also had sounds of his rib cage as they'd hit together and general bone movement tracks for him. The idea in the movie is that the more you're forgotten, the less put together you are in the afterlife, so Hector was pretty different than all the other characters with how many sounds he had going for him. He had to sound like he was going to be forgotten at any second." Asked about his mentors, he replied: "I've had quite a few mentors that I could not have succeeded in this industry without: Marti Humphrey, Mike Fox, Austin Creek, Ron Kimmel, Shayla Collins and Larry and Susan Collins. These people, along with my faith, influenced and taught me in every aspect of life and helped shape me to be the person I am today, and I am forever grateful to them." Dialogue and music re-recording mixer Michael Semanick CAS previously won the CAS Award for Finding Dory and Inside Out and has been nominated 14 times. He won the Oscar ® for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and King Kong, and has been nominated a total of 10 times. Michael went to the Berklee College of Music and, like Vince, majored in music production & engineering. He returned to the Bay Area and eventually was hired at Fantasy Studios doing tape copy. He then started assisting sessions and then engineering. He did all types of sessions from rap & rock to Foley and ADR. David Parker, Matt Berger, and Leslie Schatz were working at that time and were mentors to him. Later, Michael was offered a position in LA. Fantasy made a similar offer to let him mix film. He started with Foley. Joanie Rowe helped introduce him to re-recording mixers so he could study what they do. After talking to a mixer at Disney, Michael decided that he should stay at Fantasy. He and his wife had already packed the house up for the move, but he decided to stay with Saul Zaentz. He learned his craft by working on low- budget films. At Saul Zaentz, he met directors and worked with David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David Lynch. Later, he worked with Baz Luhrmann. Michael explained: "I had really good teachers [and] also learned to communicate with directors by watching. Coppola hired me for a few movies. I was on staff at Zaentz for 10 years, then I went to Zoetrope, then Lucasfilm." Michael's first film for Pixar was Ratatouille, which established his relationship with the people there, including Lee Unkrich, who directed Coco. "Lee Unkrich is a detail-oriented director." He explained, "Story is always first. What's happening and how can sound support it. Mixers need to watch the big screen; computer screens are a distraction." Michael Giacchino at the podium of the scoring session for Coco Vince Caro at the helm of his control room at Pixar Michael Giacchino on the last take at the scoring session for Coco