Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1075515
22 W I N T E R 2 0 1 9 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y How did you end up landing your early production sound gigs then? During this time, I was putting together my sound package, steadily adding pieces while renting the rest, offering services and gear to fill in the résumé. I know I wasn't nailing all the jobs I was getting then, it was definitely a case of "earn while you learn." I credit the years in film school and generous knowledge shared by professionals I'd met at and through the rental house in helping me make the most of those opportunities when they'd come. This led me to finding work doing industrials, some commercials and eventually, more documentaries than anything else. Who were some of those early professionals that helped get you going in the industry? There have been many people who've extended kindness to me, and I'm forever grateful for their generosity. While studying at NYU, I became fascinated with the process of building a soundtrack. My sound editing instructor, Robert M. Reitano, was a fabulous teacher who'd recently completed Serpico and was transitioning into picture editing. For the final, he had us bring our cartons of mag and cue sheets over to Sound One for the mix. Bob graciously offered me a chance to shadow. Jeri Sopanen, a Finnish cameraman I'd often worked together with on documentaries, recommended me for a feature he'd be shooting that Frank Gilroy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter and father to both John and Dan, was directing. Many times over, I was fortunate that someone chose to go out of their way and put in a positive word because they had faith and trusted my abilities. It made all the difference in the world. Mentoring helped me develop the path, one based on tangible experience rather than operating in a vacuum. It's why we at the CAS do what we can to make that an important aspect of our mission. And, I assume, one of the reasons why you volunteer your time as a member of our Board of Directors. Now, looking at your IMDb credit list, your first credit as a sound mixer was for the Coen brothers' first commercial film, Blood Simple. Do you remember the circumstances surrounding your involvement in the project? Joel Coen and I had been fellow undergrad film students at NYU. On the advice of Sam Raimi, he made a two-minute trailer to raise money for the film. In a relatively short amount of time, Joel and his brother Ethan had raised $750,000 to go into production. Barry Sonnenfeld, who'd gone to NYU Grad Film School in the East Village, shot the trailer and would DP it. Barry and a fellow former undergrad, Robert Chappell, who I'd been working with since we'd graduated, had partnered in buying a camera. It was through that relationship that I'd met Barry, who subsequently recommended me to the Coen brothers. Incidentally, when we shot Blood Simple in Austin, Texas, Peter Kurland picked up his first credit as my boom operator. A decades-long friend, Peter continued to boom all subsequent Coen brothers' films until he transitioned to mixing for them, as well as on Barry Sonnenfeld's films. A half-dozen years after Blood Simple, you were working on James Cameron's The Abyss; assumably, the largest budget and most intense project you'd been involved with up to that point. How did you get on the radar to work on that film? I'd been working on a series of HBO international location- based TV movies being made by renowned Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt. He introduced me to his friend, the brilliant technologist/inventor and later head of Walt Disney Imagineering, Bran Ferren. Bran and I worked together on an installation film for the Corning Museum utilizing Ken Farrar's Calrec Soundfield. Around this time, I did some sound recording training with his staff for a film he was directing. Bran had intended to be working on The Abyss with James Cameron in the areas of engineering/visual effects, although he bowed out due to scheduling conflicts with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. At some point during their discussions, the myriad sound challenges related to underwater filming came up and Bran mentioned me. This resulted in a nearly hour-long call between James and myself. I didn't hear back after the phone call, so I took a job shooting a film in Indonesia. Months later while on location there I received a harried phone call from the UPM, Charles Skouras. He said systems were already in place and I'd be needed ASAP for extensive pre-production testing getting underway at the abandoned nuclear power plant site in South Carolina. I guess I'd gotten the job! What a start to your work on a film that would lead to your first Oscar nomination. Do you recall hearing that announcement? [T]here was no better way than I've found here to learn that you can't control everything. Documentary days