The Big Dog is playing at a cinema near you! Tickets available here https://www.2cpictures.com/films/thebigdog Dane McCusker is a director in Sydney, whose debut feature The Big Dog is about to start its theatrical release after sold-out sessions at Sydney Film Festival. The Big Dog is a dramedy about a married stockbroker with a penchant for the esoteric fetish "findom" - financial domination. When his secret dominatrix cleans out all of his bank accounts, he has one day to save his...

Garth Davis is a director from Melbourne whose credits include the 6-time Oscar nominated Lion (2016), Mary Magdalene (2018), episodes of Jane Campion's show Top Of The Lake, and most recently Foe (2023). This episode we chatted about his beginnings in directing commercials, his first documentary feature in 2000 (one of Greig Fraser's first projects as DOP), his long-standing collaboration with previous Sound Perspective guest Robert Mackenzie, and his newest film, Foe: a heady blend of...

Thomas M. Wright is an Australian director in Melbourne. He started as an actor and has since directed 2 features, the most recent being The Stranger, a Netflix original crime thriller starring Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris which premiered at Cannes 2022. He's incredibly intelligent and articulate. In this interview we chatted about everything from dreams, to his bizarre writing style, and how he likes to develop the tone of his films. Follow me on Instagram and Letterboxd...

Hlynur Pálmason is an Icelandic filmmaker and artist.films include Godland, A White White Day, and Winter Brothers. He's won awards at Cannes, Toronto, Locarno and more. I saw Godland at Sydney Film Festival last year and had an absurd out of body experience, he's very quickly become one of my favourite directors.

Happy awards season! Todays episode is with Frank Kruse and Lars Ginzel, sound supervisor and re-recording mixer of the new Netflix war film All Quiet on the Western Front, which recently won the BAFTA for Best Sound and is nominated for an Academy Award. Frank and Lars chat about their history in the German film industry, the extensive crowd recording done with hundreds of extras on set, and how they communicate with director Edward Berger. All Quiet on the Western Front is now available on...

Maya Newell is a documentary filmmaker in Sydney whose body of work is a beautiful testament to the power of documentary to engender empathy. Her first feature documentary, Gayby Baby, followed the experiences of children of same-sex parents, and her second, In My Blood It Runs, is a cinematic portrait of a young Indigenous boy in central Australia - it was selected for the Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab. Often working with her participants as credited collaborators, Maya's...

WARNING: In this episode, I repeatedly mispronounce Leo Grande. Sophie was really nice so she never corrected me and I didn’t realise till I uploaded. It’s not easy being this dumb but somehow I stumble through life. Sophie Hyde is a super talented Australian director from Adelaide whose first fiction feature, 52 Tuesdays, won directing awards at both Berlin and Sundance. Since then she’s been making a bunch of phenomenal work in features, doco and TV, most recently the film Good Luck To...

In this episode I chat to sound supervisor Wayne Pashley and composer/music producer Elliott Wheeler about their work on the new Elvis biopic directed by Baz Luhrmann. I joined Wayne at his studio Big Bang Sound Design, and Elliott Skyped in from the US. We chatted about their history working with Baz Luhrmann, the intense collaboration between sound design and music necessary for a soundtrack this dense, the contextual news recordings that Wayne used as “sonic glue” and the joy of bringing...

DONATE TO THE UNTETHERED ACF CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN HERE I haven't made a podcast episode in six months?! Crazy!!! In this episode I break the format a bit and am completely by myself, talking for 15 minutes or so about what's had me so busy - a coming-of-age horror short film I directed, Untethered, starring Nadia Zwecker and Helen Thomson, and with the post-production talent of previous podcast guests such as composer Tom Armstrong from Episode 26, and sound designer Stuart Melvey from...

Lauren Hadaway is a director based in Los Angeles and Paris whose debut feature, The Novice, premiered this year at Tribecca to great reviews and several awards; it's since been released theatrically and has been nominated for 5 Independent Spirit Awards. However even before this phenomenal film, she was achieving remarkable success in post-production sound, having worked in ADR and sound editing for directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Zach Snyder and Damien Chazelle. In this interview we...

In this episode I had a great interview with supervising sound editor Robert Mackenzie and sound designer Dave Whitehead about their work on Jane Campions psychological thriller Western, Power of the Dog. We chatted about their collaboration with Jane, finding the right sound of spurs, working with Johnny Greenwood's score, how Jane personally directed and oversaw the loop-group, and their thoughts on mixing for Netflix. Catch Power of the Dog now on Netflix! Follow me on Instagram or...

Ben Lawrence is an Australian director whose credits include Hearts and Bones, Ghosthunter, and most recently Ithaka, a feature documentary following John Shipton, Jullian Assanges father, in his fight for Julian’s freedom. It’s premiering at Sydney Film Festival this Sunday 7th November, with music by Brian Eno. In my first face-to-face podcast interview in over 18 months, me and Ben chatted about how he pitted Hugo Weaving against first-time actors in Hearts and Bones, how he unwillingly...

Eddie Martin is an Australian documentary director who shot to cult fame with his visceral 2005 documentary, Jisoe, about a Melbourne graffiti artist; some of his films since have included All This Mayhem, Have You Seen The Listers? and The Kids. The Kids revisits the cast of Larry Clarks cult 1995 film Kids, and is playing at Sydney Film Festival this year. In this Zoom chat me and Eddie discussed his background in the Melbourne skate scene and how he wanted to explore the alternative...

David France is a documentary filmmaker, writer and journalist in New York, whose directing credits include Oscar-Nominated How To Survive a Plague, The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson, and last year's Welcome to Chechnya, the horrific story of the genocide of queer people in the Russian state of Chechnya. In this Skype interview we discussed his transition from journalism to film, how he ensured the anonymity of his subjects through ground-breaking VFX and ADR, and his working...

Kate Simko is a composer in London who's worked across a wide variety of docos and fiction films as well as having had a long career as an EDM DJ. Her most recent work is on the documentary Underplayed, which explores the issue of the lack of female-identifying DJs and the history of women in electronic music. We chatted about the influence of her upbringing in the Chicago music scene, her career as a DJ, finding a sound palette that sat between the music styles of Underplayed's...

Aunty Donna are a 6-piece comedy group from Melbourne, Australia, who have worked across video, stage performance, and music. They are very, very, very funny people. In this episode I chatted to two of the members; filmmaker Max Miller and composer/sound designer Tom Armstrong, about their new Netflix original series, Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun. We talked about how Tom likes to get involved from the sketch writing phase, how Max converts live sketches to something cinematic, their...

Glendyn Ivin is an Australian director of features such as Last Ride and Penguin Bloom, which just premiered at TIFF, as well as amazing TV shows such as The Cry, The Beautiful Lie, and Puberty Blues. I managed to have a Skype interview with him while he was stuck in a two week quarantine in a hotel in Sydney, and we had a really amazing chat about a massive range of topics; his background in documentary, passion for music, love of shooting with small crews and editing of bird sounds in...

In this episode I chat with Natalie Erika James and Robert Mackenzie, the director and sound designer of the hit Australian horror film Relic. In this Skype interview, we talked about the collaborative process of having a sound team working in 3 different cities, creating an extensive sample library before the edit, and how they created a sense of organic decay through the soundtrack. Relic is currently available in Australia on Stan and overseas on rental platforms. Follow me on Facebook at...

Ron Bartlett is a re-recording mixer working at the Formosa Group in LA, with over 170 credits to his name, including Bladerunner 2049, Reservoir Dogs, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Us, and the upcoming Dune film by Denis Villeneuve. In this Skype interview we chatted about his intro to sound through drumming, the experience of working on both Bladerunner films, and his memories of Quentin Tarantino as a young up-and-comer in the indie LA scene. Follow me on...

Jed Kurzel is an Australian composer living in England. He is the brother of Australian director Justin Kurzel, and in addition to having scored all of his films (Snowtown, Assassins Creed and The True History of the Kelly Gang) he's composed for films such as Alien: Covenant, The Babadook and The Nightingale. In this Skype interview me and Jed talked about his upbringing with Justin, the difference between film composition and song-writing and what composers can do to add to a film. Follow...

Karen Baker Landers is a two-time Oscar-winning sound editor in LA, working for the Formosa Group. Her credits include The Bourne franchise, Skyfall, Spectre and Black Hawk Down. In this Skype interview we talked about her fascination with sound in storytelling since a young age, working with an audiences expectations of "movie" sound, and keeping the sound authentic in her most recent Netflix film Sergio. Follow me on Facebook at Sound Perspective Twitter @soundperspect Instagram...

Justin Kurzel is an Australian director working in London; his films include Snowtown, The True History of the Kelly Gang, Macbeth and Assassins Creed. In this Skype interview we talked about his origins in theatre design, his collaboration with his brother and regular composer Jed Kurzel, creating a social-realistic sound in Snowtown and the influence of his favourite book. Follow me on Facebook at Sound Perspective Twitter @soundperspect Instagram @alfiefabersound Got feedback? Email me...

For my first interview with a picture editor I was lucky enough to talk to the Oscar-nominee Douglas Crise! Douglas's credits have included Birdman, Babel, Spring Breakers and The Beach Bum. After seeing The Beach Bum I was absolutely compelled to chat to the person behind the edit. In this Facetime call we talked about how Doug likes to work with temp sound, the development of the iconic soundtrack of Spring Breakers, Harmonie Korines' 6 hour workdays(!) and the tricks of cheating a...

For this episode I did a cheeky little pod swap with the amazing sound design podcast Tonebenders. The Tonebenders hosts are incredibly talented with heaps of industry experience and they've been making awesome content for years so it was an absolute pleasure to hear from them and collaborate on this. In this ep you'll hear their interview with Brad Engleking, the sound designer of Terence Mallicks' most recent film A Hidden Life. As the only sound designer on a 3 hour film Brad really had...