Stephen Curry: Underrated is a new documentary from A24 and Apple that focuses on the NBA great, who plays for the Golden State Warriors. Directed by Peter Nicks, the doc looks at the trajectory of his career, from childhood to NBA champion.
Jacob Bloomfield-Misrach, MPSE (www.IMRSVsound.com), worked on the sound design and mix for the project, which premiered recently at Sundance.
“My work as the supervising sound editor/mixer was to assemble a team that could rebuild the audio of his childhood basketball games,” says Bloomfield-Misrach. “It's an archival-heavy film, and the old footage of Curry playing in middle school and high school is visually very compelling, but a lot of the early handheld camcorders left a lot to be desired in terms of audio, so we had to recreate the excitement of those moments in the film, while still making it feel authentic and untampered with.”
Since Curry’s career took off like a rocket, the sound team decided to match the intensity of that path, starting initially more conservative in his early years and slowly building across the decades of the film. Ultimately, the soundtrack grows to that of a lion's roar from his worldwide fans upon winning his fourth championship and MVP award.
Bloomfield-Misrach and his team mixed the film in three of IMRSV Sound’s Berkeley, CA, studios, which are outfitted with a combination of Ex Machina and Meyer Sound speakers.
“Sonically, it's a pretty exciting film,” Bloomfield-Misrach concludes.