Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1543098
44 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Spring 2026 but I just walked back up to the top deck and we did the scene. It worked out fine. The reason I tell the story is to this day we joke about it. Sometimes I just don't want to talk that much if I think I have it, which isn't necessarily the right approach, but for us it worked. Oddly enough, that first day began a twenty‑ plus‑year relationship of trusting each other on a movie set. I think what everyone knows about Lee is, he is truly a great Sound Mixer. He is a rare breed with technical knowledge and execution. He can rebuild a Sonosax on the set while mixing five channels of dialog. I'm exaggerating of course, but you get the idea. Lee had a knack. Lee could sniff out the most difficult movies that would be filmed in the most difficult conditions, working with folks that might be considered challenging to work with. No names of course. Lee didn't try to steer away from those projects, he went after them, wholeheartedly, and embraced the challenge. I think it's what made him feel alive. At the end of every day, I think he would reflect on the obstacles that we overcame. I have a photo of Lee that could not be more descriptive of how he approached every day. It's him sitting, at his station, with a hardhat on, eating a cup of noodles. That's the kind of guy he is. He brings his lunchpail to work every day, and just does the job. You would think that a guy that has seven Academy Award nominations, with one Oscar, six BAFTA nominations, and a Cinema Audio Society Career Achievement Award, might have a little arrogance about him. But not Lee. Not at all. I don't think I've ever heard him talk about any of that stuff in all the years that I've known him. Not once. That's one of the many things I appreciated about him. And I always respected his humility. We really did a lot of difficult movies together. Pirates of the Caribbean 2, 3, and 4, The Lone Ranger, Knight and Day, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and 3, Suicide Squad, Ferrari, Superman, and many others. Each offered their own unique challenges, and Lee always had a plan for everything. He was brilliant at looking at every situation in a unique way and figuring out a way to tackle things. Now that I am retired, the people that are around me are not in our business, and I often get asked a few questions. How did you get into the film business? I had just graduated high school, and I was working at Carl's Jr. I was probably adding the finishing touches on a superstar with cheese when the manager told me I had a phone call. It was my dad who is the head of the Transportation Department at CBS Studio Center. Even though I hadn't asked him for a job, he told me I would start the next day as a laborer, Local 724. My call was 6 AM, and the first set I ever worked on in the film business was the original Muppet Movie. I stood there proudly with a push broom, and a shovel, and helped anybody that needed it. As I alluded to, I didn't get anywhere without somebody I had met. In this case, one of our brothers of Local 695, Larry Ellena, hired me out of Local 724 and into 695 to work in sound transfer. Through a series of unfortunate events, caused by me, but out of the dust, I rose and got into production sound. Of course, I needed someone else for that as well. That was another brother in Local 695, and one of my best friends to this day, Tim Salmon. Did you go to school for sound? Not at all. Like many of us, it is the proverbial school of hard knocks. I learned by my failures, and did my best trying not to replicate them. I think it's worth sharing my first day ever in production sound. I was sitting at home when my phone rang and it was a utility person working on a show called Max Headroom, with Joe Kenworthy. It was an emergency call to replace someone on Joe's crew. I made my way down to MGM Studios and introduced myself. We were filming on a bus set, and I was asked to help set up a plant mic. I had no idea what they were talking about, I'm not exaggerating, I had no idea. I shouldn't have taken the call because my experience was only in a transfer room. We got through the day, well at least I did, and Jeff in action