Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535806
22 S U M M E R 2 0 2 5 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 at the Cinema Audio Society Awards, the DreamWorks science fiction offering The Wild Robot won in the Motion Pictures – Animated category. It's the story of "Roz," short for ROZZUM 7134, a humanoid robot helper who finds itself shipwrecked on an island uninhabited by humans but awash in characters. That is to say all sorts of forest, water, and airborne critters abound. After a string of unfortunate events, an orphaned waterfowl becomes imprinted on Roz, making the bot a hapless protector and surrogate parent. Roz's prime directive becomes training the gosling to fly in time to migrate with his flock. Hilarity, peril, and heartfelt moments ensue. I chatted with original dialogue mixer Ken Gombos, Foley mixer Richard Duarte, scoring mixer Alan Meyerson CAS, and re-recording mixers Leff Lefferts and Gary A. Rizzo CAS about this win. Good morning, everyone! Could you run around the table and introduce yourselves to our readers? Leff Lefferts: My name is Leff Lefferts. I'm the co-supervising sound editor and one of the re-recording mixers on The Wild MOTION PICTURES – ANIMATED THE WILD ROBOT b y P a t r i c k S p a i n C A S Robot. I have spent the majority of my film sound career, the last 19 years, at Skywalker Sound, where I am very, very blessed to get to make a lot of movies with my cohort Gary Rizzo, who mixed the film with me, and I couldn't be prouder of the work we were able to achieve telling this story. Gary A. Rizzo CAS: I'm Gary Rizzo, re-recording mixer on The Wild Robot, as well as many other DreamWorks Animation films. I grew up in Northern New Jersey and attended Full Sail University. Alan Meyerson CAS: I'm Alan Meyerson. I'm a film score mixer, amongst other things, but that is my focus in life, and I started doing it in 1994. So, it's my 31st year now. Before that, I was in the record business. I'm actually in my 45th year of spending time in recording studios! I was fortunate to meet a young Hans Zimmer when he was just starting, and I was able to get my feet wet doing really great movies. Since then, I have been able to expand my career and work with many great composers. [I've worked on] something like 320 films now. Wow … that's an incredible achievement!