Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1518296
44 M PS E . O R G BY VICTORIA ROSE SAMPSON MPSE Where Are the Women Sound Editors? S IN LIFE, SO IN FILM. Art imitates life? Or does life imitate art? There's a great Yiddish phrase, "MannTracht, Un Gott Lacht"(Man plans and God laughs). What I've learned in my 45-plus years of being a sound editor, a film editor, a writer, and director is that you can't plan for everything. This was brought home to me on a film I did years ago called Bad Company, directed by Joel Schumacher. I was the ADR supervisor on it. I spoke with Peter Devlin, the production mixer, and we both commiserated on the director's "bedside" manner. There is a scene that takes place on a right-side balcony that the bad guys run through. The mixer set up plant mics to capture the sound. Joel decided, after he watched the monitors, that he wanted them to run around on the left-side balcony. He told Peter and Peter said, "Okay, I'll need about 30 minutes to reset the mics." Joel answered, "You should have thought that I might want to change my mind! You should have had that ready!" Really!?!? Who can anticipate every single choice a director might make!? That would make anyone insane. (Besides taking up a whole lot of time for nothing.) All we can do is make the best- informed decision that we can. I had planned to write an article about editing the sound on a deaf film but it's still a work in progress, so I will plan to have it for the next issue. This is how it goes! We plan. God laughs. My usual "Dear Dialogue Detective" A column is on hold this issue but I wanted to write an op-ed piece to explore my observations about how the business of sound editing is changing and growing, especially in regards to gender parity in post-production sound. The Sound Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences includes production mixers, post supervisors, sound editors, re-recording mixers, and other sound department members, like engineers and department heads. Every year, the Sound Branch's members nominate 10 films for the "short list" for Oscar consideration. These 10 films and their sound teams show 10-minute segments from their film for what we affectionately call, The Bake-Off. The Bake-Off was held on January 14 at the AMPAS Theater in Los Angeles, as well as in San Francisco, London, and New York. There is also a filmed introduction by the sound teams responsible for each film, shown ahead of each 10-minute presentation. Those 10 films are then narrowed down to five for the sound nominations. Each branch nominates in its own category. All branches nominate films for best picture. Of all the 10 films in the running, there was only ONE film that had a woman supervising sound editor, Ai-Ling Lee, who was also the re-recording mixer, and one woman dialogue editor, Kate Bilinksi. That film was Barbie. Killers of the Flower Moon had one woman dialogue editor, Julia Stockton, and one woman ADR editor, Melissa Littlefield. (There were women ADR mixers but I'm focusing on women sound editors.) Maestro had one woman dialogue editor, Eliza Paley. Napoleon had one woman dialogue editor, Rachael Tate. Zone of Interest had two (or maybe three because I can't tell their gender based on their names) women Foley editors. Creator had no women sound editors. The Killer had no women sound editors. Oppenheimer had no women sound editors. Mission: Impossible had no women sound editors. Where are the women sound editors? When I was teaching at Cal State LA (2019 to 2022), there was maybe one or two women in my sound classes with about 10 men. When I taught at video symphony (1992 to 2007), the cohorts (classes that stayed together for the 15-month program) had only a few women. I'm wondering if and what we're doing to discourage women in post sound. One of my past video symphony students, a female, entered the program at age 57! At first, she thought she wanted to do something in music production but then fell in love with post sound! "If I had only known about this field when I was younger! Like in high school—for Career Day—it would have been great to know that this was even a possibility for women." This is an excellent observation and something that should be implemented in schools all over the country. To quote from Geena Davis' Institute on Gender in Media, "If she can see it, she can be it." https://www.seejane.org OpEd S O U N D O F F