Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/987065
48 S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge by Matt Foglia CAS HBO's Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge walks us through the origin of the magazine with archival interviews and footage (seems like a camera was rolling on most days), along with recent interviews of those who were involved and those who were influenced. Interspersed with performances relevant to the social and cultural changes being discussed, the doc opens with Jimi Hendrix doing a great version of "Like a Rolling Stone." The inspiring stories of the writers—such as the Cameron Crowe section—rekindles some of that initial passion for art— whatever art that may be. Our art is sound and, through our CAS Awards, we recognize the achievements of our peers. Here, we get to meet first-time winner Tom Tierney and speak again to multiple CAS Award- winning re-recording mixer Tom Fleischman CAS. (Production mixer David Hocs was, unfortunately, not available.) Tom Tierney: Production Mixer What's your background relative to audio? I got into recording audio through playing music in my hometown of Newton, MA, just outside Boston. I'm an electric guitar player, which sometime in high school inspired the elusive "Tone Quest." I got my hands on a cassette 4-track sometime in high school, and quickly that turned into an 8-track, and so on. I started recording my band and local bands and projects, and quickly got the bug. Did that lead you to study audio in college? I went to Sarah Lawrence College, where I studied music. I focused on recording and production outside of class and in independent studies. It was a very small school, and there weren't many other people who were recording, so most of the people I knew who wanted to make a record or a demo didn't have many options! It turned out that being in this tight-knit music department led directly to working a ton and gaining a client base of friends and peers—something that could otherwise have been difficult if I were in a program surrounded by other recordists. What did you do after college? I moved to Brooklyn in 2008 to start a recording studio with friend and fellow engineer, Alex Mead-Fox. That year, we founded our studio, Spaceman Sound, which was then located in Bushwick, and is now in Greenpoint. Quickly, word of mouth brought in a whole new community of local Brooklyn musicians. I spent years doing very little outside of hunching over our desk, recording, mixing, and mastering records of all kinds—rock, jazz, folk, metal, punk, classical, etc., and at this point, I'm lucky to have recorded some of my favorite New York artists. Sounds like you had some good times working with music. How did you get into the sound for picture side? Soon after opening Spaceman Sound, we branched out from music into recording VO, ADR, and sound design, which was my first foray into sound for picture. Then my wife Kara Elverson started producing her own films, and I began doing production sound on a few of her and her friends' shoots. Meanwhile, my friend and Spaceman Sound studio partner Patrick Southern had begun his career as a production mixer. He was very helpful in pointing me in the direction of the right gear to use, and proper booming and wiring techniques. Patrick started throwing me jobs that he wasn't available for, and I immediately loved the work and pursued it more and more. I had spent so much time thinking about mic placement, eyeballing acoustic reflections, and avoiding phase cancellation in the studio, so it was really fun to be able to actively manipulate the microphone in a way that you can't during a take in the studio. So you started out handling all aspects of production sound yourself? I started in a solo run and gun, boom and bag, scrappy indie kind of setting. I did a handful of jobs as a boom op for Patrick Southern a couple of years into working. Those shoots were fun because he and I had worked together for years in the studio, and could communicate quickly and efficiently. It was also fun MEET THE WINNERS