Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1490686
24 I M PS E . O R G Becky Sullivan is a veteran of the sound community in Hollywood, with more than 30 years of experience. Becky spent much of her early days supervising ADR and dialogue where she worked with just about every big name talent of that time. After a lot of hard work and resilience, Becky broke through to supervising her own films and TV shows, where she picked up an Oscar nomination. Over time, Becky has won a BAFTA and two Golden Reel Awards. Anyone that's had the pleasure of spending time with Becky will likely say the same, "She's nowhere close to being done yet!" MIGUEL ARAUJO MPSE: Growing up in LA, you would have been surrounded by film and television hype. When did you decide this was the career for you? BECKY SULLIVAN MPSE: I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, but there was nobody in my life who was in the film business. I just loved it. I watched TV and I went to the movies as often as I could. My parents were not really big movie people. I saw everything I could and became a movie buff. I read books about different actors and anything else I could get my hands on. In high school, I was really into theater, where I directed a lot of productions. I also did some directing and acting in college. In my early 20s, I was looking for work. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, so I job-hopped a bit. Then I got a call from someone who knew a guy, who knew a guy, and they said, "Hey, there's this little company that needs someone to answer phones and do some light bookkeeping." I knew how to do bookkeeping and how to answer a phone, so I went down to Hollywood with my little Volkswagen. It turned out to be a sound editing company called WallaWorks. It later split into Sound Storm and Soundelux. I got this job and thought, "This is it." I would answer phones from nine to six. But at six o'clock, I would go into the sound editors rooms and ask, "What do you need done?" They all needed help, so I would stay into the night to help them. At that time, each editor made cue sheets by hand. I had good penmanship, so I offered to copy their cue sheets. It wasn't long before I was helping all of them. As I made cue sheets, I started to understand how things were laid out: sound effects, Foley, backgrounds, dialogue, ADR, group, etc. There was an ADR supervisor named Beth Bergeron who was willing to mentor me and also needed help. I ended up typing her ADR cue sheets, and preparing anything else she needed. About six months into this, the head of the company came to me and said I would be good at this. They allowed me to replace myself at the front desk and I become a driver. I was the first- and-only female driver they ever hired. I took out the front seat of my car so I could pile film reels in there and drove all around town to the studios. MA: Once you became the driver, were you still helping out in the evenings? BS: Absolutely! Beth allowed me to assist in more than her cue sheets so I would help build her tracks and really Becky Sullivan, Sony Studios 2019. Photo: Jessie Doyle