My Most Memorable Film

Dane A. Davis on ‘The Matrix’

When sound designer/supervising sound editor Dane A. Davis, MPSE, attended the audience preview for The Matrix (1999), he — as well as directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (then known as the Wachowski Brothers) — had no idea what to expect. […]

Book Reviews

Forget It, Jake

At a preview screening of the film Chinatown in summer 1974, an official from the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is reported to have remarked, […]

Columns

When Reality Loses Its Voice

Right, how do we want to do this? I know, let’s start gently with, ‘Welcome back to the show’ before the break…then we’ll go with the classic segue, ‘Someone else with high hopes is…’ Make sure you inflect at the end there. And we’ll finish with an epic, ‘Twenty nervous contestants…but only one…will change…his life…forever!!!’” […]

Columns

Sound Judgment

As the Motion Picture Editors Guild enters its 80th anniversary year, it’s important to recognize that 2017 also marks the 90th anniversary of the commercial ascendance of motion pictures with synchronized sound, which were called “talkies.” […]

Columns

12 Anti-Authoritarian Men

MGM’s The Dirty Dozen, directed by Robert Aldrich, had its world premiere at Loew’s Capitol Theatre on Broadway in New York City 50 years ago, on June 15, 1967. Based on the novel by E.M. Nathanson, it depicts 12 court-martialed American soldiers sentenced to death or long-term prison sentences. […]

Book Reviews

Planet Waves – Walter Murch and the Sounds of the Solar System

The title of Lawrence Weschler’s book, “Waves Passing in the Night: Walter Murch in the Land of the Astrophysicists,” is complex and slightly mysterious, fitting for an exploration into the mind of legendary picture editor, sound designer, sound editor, re-recording mixer, writer and director Walter Murch, ACE, CAS, MPSE. […]