Film & Digital Media Visiting Artist Series – Film Theory and Praxis
Visiting Artist Dan Olmsted
The Film & Digital Media Visiting Artist Series is sponsored by Porter College.
Thoughtful filmmakers choose the sounds added during film editing carefully. Although music is often used to help define the emotion of a scene or story, even seemingly natural sound may be designed with a musical quality. For example, in a nighttime scene, do the crickets outside sound soothing and calm, or edgy and nervous? When characters are in an unfamiliar place do their voices sound hollow and roomy, or intimate and close? Choices like these speak to the craft of sound design. A film achieves greater depth when the sound adds meaning to the film frame, when we can go beyond what is directly indicated onscreen. Olmsted’s talk will address the practices and sensibilities needed to successfully develop and integrate sound with a film’s mood and intent.
Dan Olmsted is a Berkeley-based sound mixer and designer with extensive and varied credits in the field. An alumnus of SF State's Film Production program, Dan honed much of his craft at Berkeley's Saul Zaentz Film Center, where he served as a re-recording mixer for many years. Olmsted has worked with filmmakers Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco, Jeff Feuerzeig, Lynn Hershman, John Waters, Joan Chen, Cade Bursell, and Lynn Sachs.
This event is free and open to the public.