Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1533995
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 21 gave me a good sense of music, EQ, compression, space … just a lot of things that I've used to this day. At NPR, we also recorded a lot of classical music. We recorded the Vienna State Opera at the Kennedy Center and then we had to do post-production on that. So, on this night, there's a cymbal crash here and we're going to cut to the other night's recording. Will it work? And I would listen and go: "No, they won't cut together because the decay cuts o‡ here. So, you can't use that unless we find another crash to put on top of that." And we would do that, which is totally phony in the classical music world. But you know, that was years ago. I'm just revealing it now that we actually did stu‡ like that! But that helped when I was at Lucasfilm. "We were doing Cocoon, with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, where the alien spaceship ..." rises up and the score does this big swell. I just happened to be on the dub stage. I told them: "Yeah, you know, this movement here won't quite work. You need to pitch." And they listened. We figured out how to do it. I learned to visualize the sounds you want and just find the right sounds, and make it happen. That came from that early experience at NPR. But the question was, how did I get into the business? I was just thinking about how blessed, how fortunate I've been in life and in this business. There was a Saturday at NPR where I walked in the room, phone was ringing, I picked it up and a moment happened that would change my life forever. I picked up the phone and it was a friend of mine, Dawn Lukens, who I mentored at NPR. She had since moved to Lucasfilm because she knew Randy Thom. She was calling to talk to another guy about a job they had up The National Symphony Orchestra performed the score from Selma (2014) at the Kennedy Center. A discussion was o•ered following the performance with the Honorable John Lewis, Selma director Ava DuVernay, composer Jason Moran, Selma supervising sound editor Greg Hedgepath, and conductor Ryan Adams, moderated by Dwandalyn Reece, Curator of Music and Performing Arts, National Museum of African American History and Culture. Selma mix crew L-R: Mark Co•ey, Andy Koyama, Ezra Dweck, Tim Pedagana, Julie Pearce, David Oyelowo, Ava Duvernay, Greg Hedgepath, David Whittaker, Bobbi Banks, Spencer Avernick, Samuel Ejnes. Greg Hedgepath, supervising sound editor with Selma sound e•ects editor Paul Hackner.