Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/778398
28 W I N T E R 2 0 1 7 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y rience, but how did this position come about? It was an HBO movie directed by William H. Macy that had a pretty low budget. So, those of us who could do other things were engaged to do so. The plot was based around a TV newscaster, and there were scenes where all this footage that was on 50-60 screens in the background needed to be the same. Well, I used to do 24-frame playback, so I set all that up. There were also a lot of video clips that they needed shot and put together, so I did that, too. Having all of this extra background experience allowed me to help. So they gave me the second unit director credit and, oddly enough, the DGA called to see if I wanted to join! You received your first peer sound group award nomination in 1993—an Emmy nom for the TV movie Citizen Cohn. Do you remember receiving the news of your nomination? It was very exciting and I was able to attend it, which was great. One thing I remember, relating to that project, was that Richard Portman, who was one of the re-recording mixers on it, called me up and asked me to come by the mix. I was thinking, "Oh man, what did I do wrong?" Well, he said he'd never heard wireless work this well before—which was such a compliment. On that show, we were mixing wireless and boom and there were courtroom scenes where we'd try to make it sound as natural as possible. That approach was something I learned from the first guy I ever worked with because they didn't have a lot of options—you just mixed. Did you feel nostalgia for your recording studio days when you worked on That Thing You Do!? Totally! [Laughs.] It was exactly like that! It reminded me of too many things I was familiar with and was a great experience, in addition to being Tom Hanks' directorial debut. We had the best time, it was so much fun. I love that film. You worked with Tom Hanks again as an actor on Road to Perdition—which gar- nered you an Oscar nomination and a CAS Award in 2003. This was followed with Oscar and CAS Award nominations for Memoirs of a Geisha and a BAFTA nom for There Will Be Blood. These are just a few of the period pieces you've had success with. Do you approach period pieces dif- ferently than, say, your superhero action movies like The Amazing Spider-Man and The Green Hornet? With period pieces, there's usually a lot more dialogue and usually less action. You need to make sure the performances are intact. With action movies, there are more scenes that you're not really involved in—big actions scenes and those that need CG. It's not that I take period pieces more seriously, it's just that they're often more demanding because they're often going to use what you record in the final. Do they require more preplanning? Sometimes. For instance, when we did Road to Perdition, we had to consider Tom Hanks' voice. At that point, he was known more as a comedic actor and had a higher pitched voice. For Perdition, we needed to capture a much more serious performance and his voice was in a lower register—which resulted in him being quieter. So we decided in preplanning to tight mic him—which we did for the whole project. Any scripted projects come to mind where preplanning didn't fully prepare you? Well, sure. Geisha comes to mind immediately. On that, there was an absolutely amazing crew and the director would allow scenes to evolve. We'd start the morning with two cameras and be up to five or six by the end of the day—but none of that was preplanned. This sometimes led to me mixing one camera in my left ear and another in my right—which was definitely not preplanned. You've just wrapped the new Jumanji movie, but recently, you've been working on more episodic programming, like Fresh Off the Boat and The Leftovers. Was this a conscious shift? I live in Austin and am hired out of LA, but not as many movies are being made in LA. TV is, but a lot of the work has moved to Atlanta. The [tax] incentives that are being offered in Georgia have really affected the industry in other states, including Texas. But I worked on a couple of pilots and worked on The Leftovers. The cast, directors, and script were great—and it was shot