CULVER CITY, CA — Father and son re-recording mixers Michael and Christian Minkler have joined the sound team at Sony Pictures Post Production Services (www.sonypictures.com). The Minklers, who mixed the current Columbia Pictures release Concussion in Sony Pictures’ Burt Lancaster Theatre, have been working at the studio since last year, but are now formally a part of the team. Most recently, the pair collaborated on Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming film,
The Hateful Eight.
“The name Minkler is synonymous with excellence in sound,” says Sony Pictures Post Production Services’ Tom McCarthy. “We are thrilled to welcome these two exceptional artists to the Sony Pictures family and look forward to working with them on many memorable and inspiring projects.”
“Sony has a wonderful stable of talent, great mix stages upgraded with the latest technology, and excellent engineering,” says Michael Minkler. “We are on the cusp of a major shift in movie sound. The integration of picture and sound nearly complete and that will allow us to do some magical things. Sony understands that and is ready to make the move.”
Michael Minkler is a three-time Academy Award-winner (11 nominations) with more than 250 motion pictures to his credit. He was awarded Oscars for his work on Black Hawk Down, Chicago and Dreamgirls. He has worked alongside directors that include Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
Christian Minkler began his career with Skywalker Sound and got his big break as a mixer on Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. Other notable credits include Independence Day, The Alamo, August: Osage County, Ride Along and the television series Bloodline. He received a BAFTA nomination for Babel.
On Concussion, Michael and Christian collaborated with writer/director Peter Landesman, editor William Goldenberg, composer James Newton Howard, supervising sound editor Dave McMoyler and sound designer David Esparza in crafting a soundtrack for the film. “It’s a beautiful piece of work,” says Michael Minkler, “the right subject matter, the right words, the right style, and fabulous acting. We were in it the moment we read the script; it was a joy to work on.”
The movie has a complex soundtrack, according to Christian Minkler. “Along with narrative scenes and football action sequences, it features broadcast footage from televised games. “A lot of creative work was done on the stage,” he recalls. “When the music came in and we blended it with the rich dialogue and effects tracks, the soundtrack gelled with the themes of the film.”
Concussion marked the first time that Michael and Christian collaborated on a project in nearly 20 years since Alfonso Cuarón’s Great Expectations in 1998.