Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1075515
It was just before nine in the morning on Valentine's Day when the nominees were announced. They got to our category and when I heard the news, a real sense of joy poured over me. I'd spent 8½ months on the most challenging production I'd ever attempted, and it had come to this very happy moment. I waited until all the nominations were announced, then I called my folks. I spent the rest of the day trying to shake off the happy feelings to no avail. It was a really wonderful gift. Shortly thereafter, you worked on another Cameron project, the action/sci-fi staple Terminator 2. During the 1990 awards season, I was in the Carolinas working on a production with Linda Hamilton when James Cameron flew out to visit. Given the knowledge Terminator 2 would be starting up before the end of the year, I made a decision that I'd move west right after it wrapped in the spring. For that film, you won the Oscar for Sound Mixing against an impressive group of other films (Backdraft, Beauty and the Beast, JFK, The Silence of the Lambs). What an achievement! Terminator 2 was an all-encompassing, epic undertaking. Lessons learned from it and the other James Cameron projects have served me very well since. In the end, to be recognized alongside such exemplary films that year and topping it off with a win was truly unforgettable. I was so excited to share the moment with such an amazingly talented group, who were also nominated that year for Backdraft. I just watched that acceptance speech on YouTube! You, Tom (Johnson), and Gary (Rydstrom) look so chill on stage as Gary Summers speaks. However, you—the film's production sound mixer—had your speech cut off by the telecast's sound mixer! Oh, the irony! The four of us had decided if we would be at the podium together that evening, Gary Summers would accept for the re-recording mixers and I would briefly close with some reference to the production. The only hitch was when the telecast's director noticed my first step toward the podium, he immediately cued the musical director to play me off. The mixer executed a seamless fade! You continued working on dozens of box-office action hits like Last Action Hero, True Lies, Heat, The Patriot, the Pirates of the Caribbean series—a list too long to fit in these pages. Not being typecast, you have biopics like Ali, Concussion, The Insider; comedies like The Hangover and The Odd Couple II; and even musicals like the Pitch Perfect series. Is there a cinematic genre that you have a preference for given the involvement of the production sound team? I've had the opportunity to work in a number of different genres, as you mentioned. All of them have helped me see how much they have in common, so there's not really a favorite. I enjoy the collaborative nature of our work and have been incredibly fortunate to have developed relationships with filmmakers who value it. The nature of our process, with all the many forms it takes, separates it from other work. One of the benefits of working on long-form projects comes from the ability to Sometimes when I just relaxed and had a little faith, some really amazing things have occurred. Ready for the armored truck heist on Heat On location for Geronimo: An American Legend Chiquita, the capuchin monkey, looking to QC playback on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.