Culver City, CA (October 6, 2022)—More than 450 attendees passed through the Culver Motor Gate at Sony Pictures Studios on September 24, making their way into the packed Cary Grant Theater for a special “Keynote Conversation: Sound Changes,” which opened the ninth annual Mix Sound for Film & Television. Since its debut in 2014, the event has always been an intimate, expert-driven, all-day exhibition and conference spotlighting the technologies, techniques and talent behind sound for picture, from production to playback. The boom in television and streaming services, not to mention the restrictions put in place during the pandemic, led to changes in post-production workflows and the incorporation of remote collaboration, creating new models for how content is produced—and industry experts addressed that and many other topics throughout the day, exploring where we are now and what’s on the horizon.
After a brief set of Opening Remarks, Will Files, Craig Henighan and Julian Slater—a trio of top supervising sound editors-sound designers-re-recording mixers—sat down with Mix co-Editor Tom Kenny to discuss the manner in which technology and creativity have influenced the rapid, and relatively recent, changes in workflow and collaboration, including the nature of today’s re-recording stage, the rise of streaming services, new technologies and formats, and the evolving role of the sound designer/mixer. The session closed with a few fun insider stories from 2022, including Will Files wandering the pandemic-empty WB Studios lot during to record a few sounds for The Batman.
The Keynote Conversation followed a short series of Opening Remarks, led off with Kenny welcoming the in-person crowd back after two years of hosting the event virtually, before turning the mic over to Rich Nevens, representing longtime sponsor Avid; Jay Wyatt, who thanked the crowd on behalf of Meyer Sound, which was showing off a new 7-1.4 monitoring system in Stage 17; and Dave Rieley of Focusrite Pro, a sponsor of the event since its debut in 2014.
The Opening Remarks closed with an industry-wide thank you to Tommy McCarthy, an Oscar-winning sound editor and the EVP of Sony Pictures Studios Post-Production Facilities, who announced his retirement at the end of 2022. McCarthy was also the main force behind opening up the studio lot and facilities each September. The event would have never gotten past the planning stages without him. McCarthy then thanked his entire team, the audience and the entire film sound community for his unprecedented run, before asking his successor, Kimberly Jimenez, to stand up and take a bow.
Stay tuned in the coming days for more video and audio recordings from Mix Presents Sound for Film & Television, including the Mix Panel Series on Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Sound Technology, and the popular Composers Lounge Series, hosted by music journalist Lily Moayeri.
