The Sound Wagon

"Less" is more—however— "less" can also be difficult to achieve. With sound, I always find films with subtle soundtracks to be more enjoyable than films that have hundreds of sound effects all popping on at the same time. As we get closer to the Academy Awards, I'm interested in analyzing two of this year's nominees for Best Sound Editing: Roma directed by Alfonso Cuarón and A Quiet Place  directed by John Krasinski These two films really speak to me sonically because of the elegance in their simplicity. I personally take pride in achieving realness with foley—human elements. To me, it's harder to make a human sound, well, human. The concrete steps, the movement of the pants hitting the leather boots every time this person does as much as taking a full step forward are always crafted perfectly to match the character on-screen. When there's no music, when there's nothing more than digital silence, our ears go straight to the loudest sound that...

As we reach mid-July, I slowly start to think about how I've been freelancing for exactly 2 years. This is something that I didn't plan on doing after graduating with my Recording Arts bachelor's degree. I guess it's safe to say that I got into freelancing in order to not "lose myself" while I finished my second bachelor's in Screen Studies. I had countless people tell me that doing a second degree was the worst possible thing I could do and how "freelancing in audio postproduction is not a thing". This statement, which actually came from a professional, really drove me insane to the point where I second-guessed my decision to come to a place like New York City. Still, I packed my iLok, a pair of Sony headphones, a drive with a bank that held a myriad of sound effects, and quietly crafted my own way. Three months after having landed in the Big Apple I got my first paid gig as a sound person. I got to wear all of the hats in the audio po...

Last month I was lucky enough to attend an event iZotope and the Motion Picture Sound Editors Association hosted at Warner Bros. NY Sound. The event's purpose was to showcase some of the new tools that are now available in iZotope's latest version of their audio repair program, RX. While I was clueless about RX 6, I've been using iZotope RX 4 for a while and I wanted to know if the new 6 was worth the upgrade. I first started using RX when my alma mater Full Sail University hosted a promotion event for said company and the release of their latest product (RX 4 at the time). My Audio Postproduction instructor mentioned the event during one of our lectures and encouraged us to go and learn about iZotope. I was, surprisingly, the only person from the class that showed up. As my interest in audio post-production grew, I wanted to get my hands on every piece of software that was being used by industry professionals in the field. I wasn't familiar with any other audio r...

After going to see Wonder Woman (Dir. Patty Jenkins) during the opening weekend, I was hit with the idea of writing a piece about women in sound. I was so hyped when I read that Jenkin's film broke box office record, which basically saved DC from another disastrous film released post-Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008) . And while I would love to talk about how much Patty Jenkins was underestimated and how Gal Gadot's performance is on another level, I feel like Wonder Woman and everything it has accomplished and represents deserves an entry of its own.  It's no secret that the film industry is male dominated. The so-called "Hollywood Gender Gap" has been a popular topic amongst cast and crew--it has been analyzed and studied over the years and of course, achieving equality in such industry is still an ongoing battle. In an article by The Guardian it's mentioned how: Women made up a majority only in costume and wardrobe departments and casting...

Over the course of this year, I've tried to make The Sound Wagon as diverse as possible when it comes to audio postproduction and other aspects of sound. This has been somewhat accomplished by incorporating reviews, award opinions, festival experiences, and even theoretical sound analysis from a sound professional standpoint. I currently stand in a place that's very different from where I was standing in the beginnings of this blog. I've come to realize that I haven't really introduced myself as a writer and as a professional in the field. When I started this blog in early 2016, my primary goal was to write sound for film and television, a topic that tends to go through life as "invisible". I catered to sound pros and nerds as well as people who were interested in sound but didn't necessarily work with it for a living. Furthermore, I tried to never go off-topic with my entries. Although that's the path that I took, I feel like most of what I'v...

If there's anything that pleased me more (apart from Moonlight winning Best Picture) as I watched the 89th Academy Awards was seeing Hacksaw Ridge win Best Sound Mixing.  Last year, I wrote about the technicalities of Mad Max: Fury Road, which won both awards in the Sound category of the Oscars . Going back, I realized that I never offered critical commentary or wrote about my own personal opinion--about how I, as a sound editor and designer thought of such work. That being said, I would like to do something different and guide you through my personal experience with the film. I remember going to the movie theater last November, meticulously choosing my seat to study the sound mix in the best possible way I could. There was something about this war film set in the 1940s that really made me curious about the sound team's approach given the fact that you can't actually recreate such sounds, and only the wonders of magic are able to preserve clean production d...