Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521562
30 S U M M E R 2 0 2 4 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y M E E T T H E W I N N E R S This year's winner in the Documentary category is a unique movie in many ways. The film is a documentary about sound. It is normally performed with live narration and live music. Much of the film uses binaural sound, and the main mix is for headphones, which were supplied to each audience member at the live show. Later, the sound team did a 7.1 and 5.1 mix for a theatrical presentation without the live aspect. I was lucky to speak with the winners, supervisor and re-recording mixer Mark Mangini MPSE, production sound mixer Laura Cunningham, Foley mixer Blake Collins CAS, scoring mixer Ben Greenberg, and ADR mixer Bobby Johanson CAS. Blake invited Foley artist Joanna Fang MPSE to join his interview. I also interviewed Lang Elliott, who provided some of the binaural ambiances used in the film, and Sam Green, the director. Sam, as the director, what prompted you to make a film about sound? SAM GREEN: The film I made before 32 Sounds was a documentary about the Chronos Quartet, whom I love and are just great. It made me think a lot about listening. It was a hard project to do because I had to try to get people to really listen. As opposed to passive listening. SG: In movies, it's a challenge, I think, getting people to engage with it. So that got me thinking a lot about sound and reading about sound. There are not that many great books about sound. It's hard to talk about. I was curious about sound. The pandemic happened, so I started reading my huge stack of books about sound and in one of them, I came across a reference to Annea Lockwood, whom I had never heard of before. She recorded the sound of rivers for 50 years. At a certain point, I just wrote her an email and said, "I'm interested in sound. Could I talk to you sometime?" And she said, "Oh, here's my number. Call me this afternoon." You can tell from the film that she's a delightful person, but also very smart about sound. She's been thinking hard about L-R: ADR mixer Bobby Johanson CAS, supervisor and re-recording mixer Mark Mangini MPSE, production sound mixer Laura Cunningham, and Foley mixer Blake Collins CAS MOTION PICTURES – DOCUMENTARY 32 SOUNDS b y D a v i d B o n d e l e v i t c h C A S M P S E Annea Lockwood