Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512183
120 M PS E . O R G PETER ALBRECHTSEN: How did you get interested in sound? Was it something that was a part of your childhood or did it come to you later in life? RALPH TAE-YOUNG: I remember that my interest in sound came to me 35 years ago when I was in the middle of high school. I was immersed in British rock music from the '60s and '70s, and I got interested in recording when transferring albums to cassette tape. I listened to music anytime, anywhere, and I became interested in sound equipment and used an 8-channel mixer. This motivated me to play instruments myself, and I started playing the electric guitar and played in a high school rock band. Afterward, I played the euphonium and electric guitar in a military band. After being discharged from the military, I worked in the K-pop industry and outh Korean films and TV series are dominating the world's international movie productions and capturing the attention of worldwide audiences. With the advent of movie platforms, South Korean productions has become more and more accessible and the interest in Korean cinema increased in 2019 with the release of the movie Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Centered around wealth and disparity, Parasite made history by becoming the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The sound design in Korean movies is often really inventive, creative, and inspiring. One of the greatest Korean sound supervisors and mixers is Ralph Tae-Young who has had an incredible career and has worked with some of the most popular and prestigious Korean directors like Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook and Kim Jee-woon—he won a very well-deserved MPSE Golden Reel Award for sound editing on a foreign language feature film for Parasite. In this career-spanning interview, Ralph talks about his musical background, cinematic inspirations and his work throughout the years. He digs deep into his highly creative collaboration with Bong Joon-ho, having worked on all of his films, including Snowpiercer, Okja, and Bong's international breakthrough Memories of Murder. Ralph also touches upon the unique sound of Korean horror films which he helped develop with the brilliant A Tale of Two Sisters. S participated in various albums while working on MIDI sequencing and music arrangements. PA: When did you start making movies? Did you attend film school? RTY: I studied as an audio recording engineer at the Los Angeles Recording Workshop and UCLA Extension between 1994 and 1997. In 1997, I was a founding member of Live Tone Studio in Korea and worked on both film sound and music recording and mixing until 2000. Since 2000, I have only worked on film sound. At this time, I met director Bong Joon-ho, the assistant director of the film Motel Cactus (1997) and I did the sound for his debut film, Barking Dogs Never Bite in 1999. PA: Were there any specific movies where the sound inspired you? RTY: The Omaha Beach battle scene in Saving Private Ryan made me aware of how a character's emotional changes can be created through the sound design. In Punch-Drunk Love, I learned that the sound can be heard through the heart's ears. Apocalypse Now inspired me to think of how war movies can express brutality as an audio narrative. And the sound of playing a saw in the movie Delicatessen inspired the ghost sound design of a historical horror film that I worked on. Now, every sound of my daily life, including the movies I'm making, inspires me. Even my wife's annoying nagging. PA: I understand that Live Tone, your sound facility, started in 1997. How did that come about? RTY: It began in 1997 with one mixing stage, one sound recording and editing studio, and one large recording booth. The studio founder was a famous music mixing engineer