Movie screening followed by Discussion (a light dinner will be provided).
Location: Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
Feature documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound reveals the hidden power of sound in cinema, introduces us to the unsung heroes who create it, and features insights from legendary directors with whom they collaborate. Featuring the insights and stories of iconic directors such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, Barbra Streisand, Ang Lee, Sofia Coppola and Ryan Coogler, working with sound design pioneers–Walter Murch, Ben Burtt and Gary Rydstrom–and the many women and men who followed in their footsteps. Premiered in 2019 at Cannes, the Tribeca International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, and many festivals/art houses around the world, including Japan in 2020. Winner of the Cinema Audio Society, Outstanding Sound Mixing for Documentary, and the Audience Award at the Sedona International Film Festival, amongst many others.
This Master Class discussion will cover
- How the discovery and development of sound technology advanced and dramatically enhanced immersive cinematic storytelling from the 1920s to present day – driven in particular by the visionary directors and their creative collaborator sound designers.
- The circle of sound engineering talent that goes into the creation of the soundtrack that makes up a motion picture today.
- The actual feature documentary process: for this film, we will discuss the challenges of “opening the audience’s ears” to experience the emotional power of sound, and what sound does subliminally in the aural storytelling experience.
- The on-going potential for sound technology to impact other fields of research – from brain research to environmental research (known as bio-acoustics/ecoustics)
For more information: www.makingwavesmovie.com
Bobette Buster is the Writer/Producer of the feature documentary, Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound, with Karen Johnson and Midge Costin (Director), premiers 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival, Cannes Classics, and BFI London Film Festival, amongst many festivals worldwide. Her TEDx lecture, The Radical Act of Storytelling has 115K views, (https://youtu.be/gE18wH9_e6U). She is the author of DO STORY: How to Tell Your Story So the World Listens (Do Book Co.UK, 2013; Chronicle Books (US)), now in its 10th printing (translated into six languages), and DO LISTEN: Understand What’s Really Being Said, Find A New Way Forwards, Do Book Co (UK) 2018; Chronicle Books (US) (translated into three languages). Bobette is the Professor of the Practice of Digital Storytelling, Northeastern University, and serves of the Visiting Faculty of Pixar Studios, Disney Animation, Catholic University of Milan, and many film, business programs worldwide, including Google and the BBC. Bobette’s passion for storytelling led to gathering the oral history of her Kentucky family’s Revolutionary War Land Grant farms heritage, now in the Kentucky Museum Archives. She graduated with a BS in Speech from Northwestern University (Performance Arts, Film History), earned her MFA from the University of Southern California’s Peter Stark Producing Program, and worked as a creative executive for Tony Scott, Ray Stark and Larry Gelbart, while also creating the first MFA course for Feature Film and Television Development at USC, as an Adj. Professor 1992 – 2015. She is now writing her third book, REVOLUTIONARY CHOICES (Broadleaf Press, 2022).
Through her company GoodMovies Entertainment, Karen Johnson is a creative independent film producer with 20+ years of hands-on experience specializing in identifying and producing emerging female writers and directors. Karen has produced award-winning documentary and narrative features that have premiered at the prestigious Toronto, Sundance, Cannes, and Tribeca Film Festivals and have been distributed worldwide. She has a proven track record of elevating women’s stories and women storytellers in entertainment. She is also a lawyer. Recent credits include the feature documentaries Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019/Gravitas Venures & Dogwoof, Ltd.) and Kusama: Infinity (2018/Magnolia Pictures & Dogwoof Ltd.).