photo by Stephanie Argy
L-R: Production mixer John Patrick Pritchett, re-recording mixers Scott Millan and Bob Beemer and supervising sound editor Scott Hecker answer questions from moderator Marti D. Humphrey (not pictured).

C.A.S. “Meet the Winners” Event Honors the Road to Perdition Sound Team
On July 17, the Cinema Audio Society hosted the first annual “Meet the Winners” event, reuniting the sound team behind Road to Perdition. Supervising sound editor (and Editors Guild board member) Scott Hecker joined production mixer John Patrick Pritchett and re-recording mixers Bob Beemer and Scott Millan, who shared this year’s C.A.S. award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Motion Picture.

An appreciative crowd viewed a 30-minute reel of excerpts from the film at the William Holden Stage at Sony, where Road to Perdition was mixed. C.A.S. Secretary Marti D. Humphrey then led a discussion about the movie, first asking each of the panelists about their experiences working on the film and then fielding questions from the audience.

photo by Francois Duhamel
Road to Perdition © 2002 DreamWorks L.L.C. and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

The four emphasized the need for better communication between production mixers and their colleagues in post, as well as the importance of bringing on the post sound team early, which was the case on Road to Perdition. Hecker, Beemer and Millan also discussed the minimalist approach that director Sam Mendes chose for the movie’s sound. Humphrey noted that it was definitely not a “see a dog, hear a dog” type of project, with many sequences left impressionistically bare.

www.cinemaaudiosociety.com

Editors Guild at Showbiz Expo
This year marked the 20th anniversary of ShowBiz Expo, held June 27 and 28, with a concurrent conference from June 26-29. Now under new management, this year’s Expo was combined with the L.A. Digital Video Show to form one large event dubbed Entertainment Technology World. The show featured vendor-sponsored workshops, five simultaneous tracks of keynotes and featured speakers and an Expo Hall with a diverse range of equipment encompassing every stage of the filmmaking process.

photo by Andrea Van Hook
Keynote Speaker, Tom Rolf at ShowBiz Expo ‘03.

The Editors Guild was a co-sponsor of the event and conducted a “Skills Beyond Tools” panel featuring members from the Law and Order: SVU post production team, including Doug Ibold and Dan Simmons. The Guild also held a special screening of the Invisible Art, Visible Artists seminar featuring the 2003 Academy Award nominees in picture editing.

A highlight was keynote speaker Tom Rolf, editor of such classics as The Right Stuff and Taxi Driver, discussing editing style and how digital technology has changed the cutting room.

Apple Introduces G5

Apple announced its long-awaited G5 desktop computer on June 23. The new PowerPC G5 processor, designed by Apple and IBM, provides 64-bit computing power, while also running 32-bit applications natively. Apple claims the system is faster than the speediest Pentiums currently on the market. The processors also allow as much as 8Gb of memory expansion and can virtually address up to 18 exabytes (18 billion billion bytes) of memory.

The G5 is priced at $1,999 for a single-processor 1.6-GHz computer, $2,399 for a single processor at 1.8 GHz, and $2,999 for the top-of-the-line dual-processor 2.0-GHz machine.

www.apple.com/powermac/

DisplayLA
The Hollywood Post Alliance presented displayLA on July 17 and 18 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The comprehensive program discussed monitors and other display technologies, with applications ranging from production to home theater.

The Editors Guild is a sponsor member of the Alliance, and Guild board member Patrick Gregston participated in a panel called “Displays in Post Production,” which was moderated by Phil Feiner of Pacific Title. The discussion made it clear that with so many file formats and methods of display, understanding how an image has been processed and viewed is an essential step in obtaining the best possible results, particularly when it comes to color representation.