Show Notes
Writer, director, and producer Bradley Cooper joins us to discuss the sound of his latest film, “Is This Thing On?” Audio became a primary storytelling tool in shaping the film’s deeply subjective point of view. In conversation with the film’s sound team, the director breaks down how perspective, texture, and restraint were used to place audiences directly inside the emotional experience of a man discovering stand-up comedy as his marriage unravels. For Cooper, that approach ultimately comes back to how films are meant to be experienced in theaters. “It’s really about the theatergoing experience — how you best tell the story in these rooms, in this theatrical space. And to me, I haven’t seen a better version than those two elements: Dolby Vision and Atmos. When Stefan [Sonnenfeld] and I colored the Dolby Vision, it was like, ‘Oh — there’s the movie.’ And when you do it in Atmos, in terms of mixing sound… the immersive experience — it’s just a whole different experience than a 5.1 mix. It’s not even in the same universe… And once you go there, you can never go back. I watched a movie the other night that wasn’t in Atmos, and I couldn’t stop imagining what it could be.” —Bradley Cooper, Writer, Director, Producer, “Is This Thing On?” Joining today’s conversation: - Bradley Cooper, Director, Producer - Dane A. Davis, Supervising Sound Editor - Tom Ozanich, Re-recording Mixer - Dean A. Zupancic, Re-recording Mixer Be sure to check out “Is This Thing On?,” now in theaters. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the video for this episode on YouTube. Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
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Legendary editor, sound designer, writer, director, and seminal author Walter Murch returns to the show to discuss his latest book, “Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design.” The three-time Academy Award® winner reflects on a remarkable career that includes film classics like “The Godfather” series, “The Conversation,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The English Patient,” and “American Graffiti,” while exploring the hidden languages of cinema, the relationship between sound and image, and how creative choices in sound can be among the most powerful tools for immersing an audience into a character’s subjective experience. “The job of the film editor [is] translator of the text of the screenplay into another language, which is the language of pictures and sound. And as much as a picture is worth a thousand words, a word is worth a thousand pictures... We can solve a problem with audio/visual, but if an actor says a single word, everyone understands [where] we're going. We don't need those pictures or those complicated sound designs. Just tell me the word. On the other hand, pictures and sound can get at stuff for which we have no words yet.” —Walter Murch, Author, “Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design” Be sure to check out “Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design,” available wherever books are sold. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts, now available as a video podcast on YouTube and Spotify. Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Two-time Academy Award®-winning composer Alexandre Desplat returns to the show to discuss his score for Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning.” In this conversation, Desplat breaks down one of the most innovative scores of his career: An electronic-heavy soundscape designed to complement Sorkin’s famously rapid-fire dialogue and sharp, rhythmic language. “Words are used by Aaron in a very musical way. When he writes them, there's a musicality, there's a rhythm, there's an energy, there's a flow. So that's very musical. For me, I just have to listen to it and try to dance with his words.” —Alexandre Desplat, Composer, “The Social Reckoning” Be sure to check out “The Social Reckoning,” now playing in theaters and Dolby Cinemas® in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®. Listen to The Social Reckoning Soundtrack here. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts, now available as a video podcast on YouTube and Spotify. Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Lance Oppenheim returns to the show to discuss his first-ever narrative feature film, “Primetime,” starring Robert Pattinson as “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen. He is joined by members of his longtime creative team to break down the film’s audacious juxtaposition of truth and fiction: Everything from shooting with (literally) dozens of cameras and recording formats, filming much of it like an actual documentary, at its deliberate use of “fever-dream” editing, music, and sound design, resulting in an astonishing film that begs the question, “what is real?” “I want everyone [here]… to do something that [they] would never do with another filmmaker. I want to give them the same freedom, really, that also I was giving Rob [Pattinson] as a performer… it's my job to perfume my excitement about the subject and the approach, and see how it takes shape with other people. That's the most beautiful part of making films, the collaborative dimension of it.” —Lance Oppenheim, Director, “Primetime” Joining this conversation: - Lance Oppenheim – Director - Paul Hsu – Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer - Chris Welcker – Production Sound Mixer - David Bolen – Director of Photography - Daniel Garber – Editor - Ari Balouzian – Composer Be sure to check out “Primetime,” now playing in theaters in Dolby Atmos®. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts, now available as a video podcast on YouTube and Spotify. Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Winner of the Dolby Creator Lab Grant, “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” also earned director Josef Kubota Wladyka the Directing Award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Wladyka joins supervising sound editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer David Forshee and composer Nathan Halpern to discuss how they used music, sound design, and an inventive Dolby Atmos® mix to bring the film’s exuberant ballroom dancing, magical realism, grief, romance, and irrepressible sense of joy to life. “Our whole thing that we always reminded each other is where to find the joy, how to keep it fun.” —Josef Kubota Wladyka, Director and Co-Writer, “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” Be sure to check out “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!,” now in theaters, in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the video for this episode on YouTube. Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
The sound team behind “Cairn” joins guest host Alistair Hirst to discuss the immersive sound design and mix of this survival-climbing game from acclaimed French indie studio The Game Bakers. Built around the tension, focus, and physicality of climbing a massive mountain, the game uses detailed Foley, breathing, wind, environmental soundscapes, and a sparse musical score to make every handhold, footstep, and moment of silence feel essential… and perilous. “The core gameplay is climbing. So that was all about the small Foley sounds, differentiating between different [holds]… There’s [also] a whole breathing system, which is the primary stamina feedback. It was really nice for the developers to say, ‘Hey, we want audio to be the primary feedback to the player on the stamina,’ rather than having stamina bars.” —Martin Stig Andersen, Audio Director, Sound Designer, and Composer, “Cairn” Joining the conversation: - Martin Stig Andersen – Audio Director, Sound Designer, and Composer - Lukas Julian Lentz – Lead Sound Designer Be sure to check out “Cairn,” available now in Dolby Atmos, on supported systems. Dolby Atmos is just as impactful for indie developers as it is for major AAA games! Game developers interested in bringing Dolby Atmos to their own projects can learn more here. Please subscribe to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts, now available as a video podcast on YouTube and Spotify. Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.