MPSE Wavelength

20 M PS E . O R G Timothy Muirhead: People seem to like working with you. So, it doesn't surprise me that in addition to the great work that you've done, that people would want to give you this kind of achievement award. Congratulations! What did you think when you fi rst found out that you were going to be getting this? Greg Hedgepath: I was really shocked. I was pretty much overwhelmed. It got me thinking about my life and sound, and how fortunate I've been really to even be here. TM: So, you didn't see this coming? GH: No! You know how it is—you're in the trenches just trying to do a good job. You said something very nice about the way people feel about me, but I just believe in doing excellent work and I believe in treating people the way I would like to be treated. And people seem to appreciate that. You know, we're in a tough situation. It's a high-pressure business and the pressure is getting higher because the budgets are getting a little smaller and there's less time. I just fi nished working on a fi lm that was self-fi nanced by a director and we had very little time to edit all the action scenes and do sound design. Bobbi Banks and I were the two editors on this project, and it was days and nights, weekends—a high-pressure situation. You just have to try to keep it cool while you're in the thick of it, because those who can't … kind of get the ax, you know? When people ask me, "What's your favorite show that you worked on?"—quite often it's the last show I worked on because a) it's fresh in my mind, but b) I'm always trying to make something better. And even if I'm working on a show that's kind of hamstrung by budget … that's the challenge! Make that $10 million show feel like it's a $40 million, $60 million movie. That's what sound can do, and that's the challenge. I get a lot of joy out of doing that. When people go: "Wow, that really sounded good!" as opposed to: "Wow, that score was amazing," the [whole] sound of the movie, that's what's important. TM: Let's get to know you a bit better. How did you get into the industry? Where'd you grow up? Tell us about your early days. GH: I grew up in Washington, D.C. in a beautiful area called Shepherd Park. The thing about that area is that it was very multicultural. It was basically Black and Jewish. Growing up in that area, we never talked about color. Everybody was just treated the same, and as I've gone up through school and the industry, I've just seen myself as a fellow compatriot. How can I put it? I don't feel like I have a lot of things holding me back. Some people of color might have [gone into the industry with the assumption that] "Well, they (white people) don't want to work with me" or whatever. [But] I've believed in just doing a really, really good job. What got me into this business was, I guess, seeing Apocalypse Now (1979) and just being in that theater. It was one of the three or six theaters in the world that could play the 70mm 5.1 soundtrack. I'm sitting in this theater experiencing something I've never experienced before, which are sounds going around the room. The helicopters at the beginning with the Doors playing "The End." You see the napalm streak across the screen, and you hear the sound. You almost feel the heat. And I'm just like: "Oh my gosh, I gotta do this." I didn't want to do this. I had to do it. And so that kind of just propelled me forward. I ended up working for National Public Radio (NPR). I worked there six years as a recording engineer doing news broadcasts, but also a lot of live broadcasts. They had name-brand talent, kind of like what Tiny Desk does now. This was the precursor of it, a show called Jazz Alive. We would go out to clubs and record famous jazz musicians and then go back [to the studio] and post-produce it. So that really Above: Young Greg. Below: With friends.

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