Calling this episode a discussion about sound is really an understatement. Because, although Dean Hurley has been David Lynch’s official “sound guy” for many years, it’s clear that you’re getting way more with this guy than a conversation about audio. We won’t spoil things, so just listen and enjoy the ride. ———————————— Dean is a sound designer, re-recording mixer, and composer best known for his collaboration with film director David Lynch. Hurley operated Lynch’s Asymmetrical Studio...

It might be difficult to conjure up exciting images when someone brings up the library. Quietness, stacks of books, and card catalogs likely come to mind. But the Library of Congress? Well, that’s different. It’s the American people’s library after all. And it’s the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. The Audio-Visual Conservation at the LOC in Culpeper, Virginia is home to more than 1.1 million film, television, and video items. With a collection ranging from...

Joe Gawler is the senior colorist and partner at The Harbor Picture Company in New York City. Joe and Lee go back a very long time. When Lee first started mastering movies in New York City, there weren’t a lot of colorists who could work on feature films outside Hollywood. Most colorists in the city were only doing commercials or music videos and the emphasis was on the 30 second spot or the 3 minute MTV special. Joe could do these of course, but Lee quickly learned that Joe could handle...

A few months ago, Lee was speaking with filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld. They were catching up on a few things related to one of the Coen brothers films, and he started to tell me why he didn’t like HDR and why he has a problem with 4k. Intrigued, I continued the conversation. But, while he was ranting I asked him if he would come on the Dead Pixel Podcast and discuss it in detail. He agreed, and we had a very funny and frank discussion about both of those subjects. But that’s not all - we...

The discussion of film scanning doesn’t come up too often. A lab has a scanner of their choosing for various reasons, and we simply send our film to them for the scanning work asking little questions. But there are plenty of questions to ask with the biggest one being “is this the right scanner for this job?” Maybe it it is, maybe it isn’t. We spoke to Manuel Götz after seeing him teach Southeast Asian film archives students on how ARRI’s famous scanner works. With a huge range of options...

We wanted to know what it’s like working for just one filmmaker, albeit an incredibly diverse and prolific one as Francis Ford Coppola. What we learned after talking to James Mockoski is that it’s always kept interesting because the filmmaker is continually interested in the past as much as the present and the future. Keeping classics like Apocalypse Now and The Godfather alive in new mediums for multiple generations is a busy job, and James (just like his boss) knows how to surround...

John Polito is the founder and chief engineer of Audio Mechanics in Burbank, California. Founded in 1991, Audio Mechanics is one of the most sought-after, respected, award winning audio service providers for film studios, music labels, content owners, collections and archives, with a reputation for aesthetic integrity and unparalleled technical proficiency. Speaking audio engineer to audio engineer, Ryan and John trade war stories and anecdotes while discussing many years of working in the...

Davide Pozzi has been working at Cineteca di Bologna since 2001, and in 2006 he became the director of L’Immagine Ritrovata film restoration laboratory. Under his management, the laboratory has established itself as one of the most highly specialized facilities in the field of film restoration worldwide. L’Immagine Ritrovata is exclusively specialized in film restoration and is equipped to cover every workflow, from 4K to photochemical. The equipment with which the laboratory is furnished is...

Archiving thousands of film and digital assets for a giant studio like Paramount Pictures seems like a daunting task. But Andrea makes it seem both fascinating and exciting. We spoke to her about life at the big studio, her former work at the British Film Institute, UCLA and Dreamworks. And we get into the nitty gritty of War of the Worlds, the world of The Godfather and many other titles. The discussion about creating a great workplace for your team is especially inspiring.

Michael Pogorzelski is the Director of the Academy Film Archive, whose collection now includes nearly 100,000 titles representing 214,000 items. Over 1,100 films have been preserved at the Academy Film Archive including features, documentaries, animated films, avant-garde and experimental films and home movies. Pogorzelski has preserved and restored over 50 films and recently co-supervised the digital restoration of Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy, Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour(1945), Philip Kaufman’s...

A passion for fidelity and years of experience in audio postproduction for film, television, and music led Ryan Hullings to the Criterion Collection, where he began as an audio restoration engineer in 2007 and is now manager of the audio department. His work involves not just conducting digital film audio restoration but also keeping pace with cutting-edge restoration technology and evaluating the sound quality of film elements, all with the mission of upholding the company's lofty technical...