Dolby Creator Talks

We continue our 2021 Oscars coverage with the nominees for Best Cinematography! We have once again invited every nominee to join us, and we were very pleased to sit down with three inspiring cinematographers: Sean Bobbitt, Erik Messerschmidt, and Phedon Papamichael. (Unfortunately, the other two nominees, Dariusz Wolski and Joshua James Richards, were unable to find time, as they are on location filming their next projects.)

Here's a table of contents, in case you'd like to jump around:

00:01:46 - JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH - Sean Bobbitt, B.S.C.

00:21:37 - MANK - Erik Messerschmidt, A.S.C.

00:35:23 - THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 - Phedon Papamichael, A.S.C.

Many thanks to Sean, Erik, and Phedon for joining us and congratulations to all of the nominees! Here they are, once again in alphabetical order:

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH - Sean Bobbitt, B.S.C.

MANK - Erik Messerschmidt, A.S.C.

NEWS OF THE WORLD - Dariusz Wolski, A.S.C.

NOMADLAND - Joshua James Richards, A.S.C.

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 - Phedon Papamichael, A.S.C.

We would also like to thank the folks at Warner Bros, Netflix, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for helping us pull these interviews together (in record time!) and for all the wonderful film clips. 

Don't miss these incredible films:

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

MANK

NEWS OF THE WORLD

NOMADLAND

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

We have one more episode just like this one — for Best Animated Feature — coming up. So if you haven't already, please subscribe to Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also check out the video for this episode.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for the Dolby Institute Podcast, we begin our 2021 Oscars coverage with the nominees for Best Sound! This is a very special episode for us because it is the first time we've interviewed all the nominees for a category and edited them together into a single podcast. Our hope is that if you are an Oscar voter — either as an Academy member or as a fan participating in your annual office pool — you'll have a much better idea of what to watch for and (more importantly) what to listen for as you get to the Best Sound category on your ballot. 

We had some amazing conversations with each of the teams and we hope you find them as entertaining and as enlightening as we did. Here's a table of contents, in case you'd like to jump around:

00:00:48 - GREYHOUND

00:14:53 - MANK

00:27:01 - NEWS OF THE WORLD

00:43:13 - SOUL

00:58:00 - SOUND OF METAL

Congratulations and many, many thanks to all of the nominees! Here they are, once again in alphabetical order:

GREYHOUND - Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders and David Wyman

MANK - Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance and Drew Kunin

NEWS OF THE WORLD - Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller and John Pritchett

SOUL - Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott and David Parker

SOUND OF METAL - Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michellee Couttolenc, Carlos Cortés and Phillip Bladh

We would also like to thank the folks at Apple, Netflix, Universal Pictures, Disney, Pixar, Amazon, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for helping us pull these interviews together (in record time!) and for all the wonderful film clips. 

Don't miss these incredible films:

GREYHOUND

MANK

NEWS OF THE WORLD

SOUL

SOUND OF METAL

For a deeper dive into "Mank" and "Soul," be sure to check out our recent episodes with the directors of those films. And because we got so much good stuff from each of these interviews, we hope to release some of those in their entirety as bonus episodes in the coming weeks.

We have two more episodes just like this one — for the Best Cinematography and Best Animated Feature categories — coming up. So if you haven't already, please subscribe to Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also check out the video for this episode.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

As if filling out an Oscar ballot wasn't challenging enough, 2021 has a ton of rule changes with regards to how the Academy will be voting. Most notably for us here at Dolby, the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories have been combined into one: Best Sound. 

Today Glenn sits down with Teri Dorman, Kevin Collier, and Scott Millan — the current Board of Governors of the Sound Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — to discuss the rule changes, the controversies these changes stirred up, and — perhaps most importantly — what criteria the Academy might use to vote on this new category. Complicating matters further is the fact that most audiences will be experiencing these films at home, not in a cinema with a state-of-the-art sound system. Whether you're an Oscar voter or an Oscar viewer who wants to do well in your annual office pool, this episode should make filling out your ballot just a little bit easier.

"I'd like to think that what we do has been treated in a way that the intent will come across, whether you're listening on a home system that's average or whether you're listening to it in the cinema. And I realize this is very 'pie-in-the-sky,' but I think there is an element that potentially can transcend what it's being played on and hopefully that'll come through. It's something that we all think about and probably toss and turn at night a little bit over because this is going to be a different year." — Kevin Collier, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Board of Governors, Sound Branch

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At Pixar, just about everyone's a critic. And that is one of the reasons why they continue to raise the creative bar with every film they release.

Pete Docter, the director of "Soul" and CCO of Pixar Animation Studios joins us along with the film's producer, Pixar veteran Dana Murray, to discuss the challenges of making such an incredible animated feature, including their exhaustive development process, which takes place simultaneously while the film is being animated and edited. And if that wasn't challenging enough, this film features one of the most difficult character designs they'd ever come up with. Thanks to our friends at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival, Glenn was able to sit down with Pete and Dana to answer this essential question: How does Pixar continue to meet these exceedingly high challenges they set for themselves?

"Every three months, we get it in front of as many people as we could fit in our theater, which is like 240 people or something. And we get a lot of notes, and we tear it all down, and we start the whole entire process over. And on this film, we had time to do that seven times."

- Dana Murray, producer of "Soul"

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We are always delighted when independent filmmakers get access to our technologies because they tend to use these tools in such fascinating and creative ways. Very often in ways, we'd never imagined. Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos® are often perceived as tools for big-budget, tentpole action movies, which is why we created the Dolby Institute Fellowship, in partnership with the Sundance Institute: To give access to these technologies to filmmakers working with indie budgets. This year's recipients, both of which just had their premieres at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, are "Passing," a haunting film about race in 1920's America by first-time director Rebecca Hall, and "Users," an elegiac documentary about the overwhelming prevalence of technology in the world around us by MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient Natalia Almada. These absolutely stunning films use high dynamic range video and immersive sound in such intimate, almost personal ways, Glenn was excited to sit down with the directors to discuss their processes.

"My film plays a lot with scale and kind of disorienting you. Are you underwater? Is it small? Is it big? And Dolby Atmos gives you the ability to do that sonically. So that small thing suddenly fills the space and envelops you." —Natalia Almada, Director of "Users"

Shortly after this conversation, there was some exciting breaking news! Natalia Almada won the Sundance jury prize for Best Direction: Feature Documentary for "Users." And Rebecca Hall's "Passing" was acquired in a very big deal — which is especially exciting for us because now viewers will be able to experience this incredible film in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos® on Netflix.

Check out additional highlights from the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Please subscribe to Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also check out the video for this episode.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

"Mank" has been a personal passion project for David Fincher for several decades now. His own father wrote the script, about the famously self-destructive writer of "Citizen Kane," and Fincher was determined to make the film feel as authentic as possible. Almost like it was an undiscovered artifact from Hollywood's "Golden Age," insisting for years to film it in black & white, 1:33, and in mono. He once again joined forces with his longtime collaborator, sound designer Ren Klyce, to do exactly that. But building this time capsule turned out to be a surprisingly challenging process. 

“It’s beyond production value. Sound is a portal into a stranger’s mind that is incredibly influential. And if we don’t avail ourselves of this access, um... then we’re stupid and we should die (laughs).”

– David Fincher, director of "Mank"

Check out "Mank" on Netflix.

Please subscribe to Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also check out the video for this episode.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Sundance Film Festival is entirely virtual. But what exactly does a virtual film festival look like? Glenn sits down with Keri Putnam, CEO of the Sundance Institute, Tabitha Jackson, the brand new director of the Sundance Film Festival, and Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Labs, to answer all these questions and more. It’s a fascinating conversation about not just the challenges of hosting the Sundance Film Festival in 2021, but also the new opportunities this situation may have uncovered. Indeed, this year could become the road map for the future of The Institute, The Labs, and The Sundance Film Festival itself.

“It was such a privilege to be trusted with this incredible thing that is the festival. And so I approached it like holding this precious metal. And I must not break it. I'm going to carry it with two hands. I must not break it. [Then] the pandemic hit. And it was clear that, oh, I've got to break it. I've got to break it into pieces so that we can rebuild something to meet the moment.”

- Tabitha Jackson, Sundance Film Festival director

Buy tickets to the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Please subscribe to Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also check out the video for this episode.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

You've found us! The Dolby Institute Podcast has moved! And we have a brand new title:

Sound + Image Lab: The Dolby Institute Podcast

Please subscribe to our new dedicated podcast feed right here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next episode will be our FINAL episode on the old Soundworks feed, so please subscribe to this new feed straight away, as we have many exciting improvements coming in 2021.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

Dolby recently co-presented a panel at the Television Academy Foundation with some of this year’s sound nominees. We’ve added some clips to the conversation.

Check out the video for this episode.

Subscribe to the Dolby Institute Podcast.

Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.

Join us as we dive deeper into the actual process and tips for HDR and WCG color grading as well as the full Dolby Vision metadata creation and trim pass.

Check out the video for this episode.

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Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Movie buff? Follow Dolby Cinema on Instagram.