Zwick’s name may not be familiar, but his work will be. He and his partner Marshall Herskovitz created the TV series thirtysomething, then Zwick went on to write, direct, or produce a string of terrific movies including Shakespeare in Love, Glory, Legends of the Fall, and others.
I bring up these projects because Zwick and Bender worked together for years, and during a couple of brief visits to Soundesign they allowed me to look over their shoulders.
The first time, they were assembling the sound for Glory, the story of the first all-African American regiment in the Civil War. I watched, awestruck, as they added battlefield sound effects behind Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman.
The second time, they were working on a scene from Legends of the Fall with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, and Lon showed me an inside trick. During a filmed conversation between Pitt and Hopkins, Bender and Zwick agreed to add a “comment”—a humorous horse whinny to emphasize a joke. Sure enough, the joke was better, and I wondered how many other little details they had added in a similar way.
And, you may ask, what became of the children’s audio books? Nothing. But from the experience, I had an adventure along the edge of show biz.
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