About David Macmillan
David is one of the most important sound department experts in the world, David won 3 Oscars for his work on The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, and Speed. Some of his other film credits include Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Flatliners, Point Break, The Firm, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Twilight, The Proposal, and many others. David has worked with, and done sound mixing for the best directors of our time, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Sydney Pollack, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Tony Scott, Lawrence Kasdan, Alan Parker, Joel Schumacher, Kathryn Bigelow, Nora Ephron, and many others. Born in Northern Ireland, David emigrated to Canada with his family, where he apprenticed at The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Then, as fate would have it, he met Francis Ford Coppola while working on a documentary in San Francisco, and was hired to wire Coppola’s studio. David worked there for 3 years and Coppola facilitated David getting both his Green Card and his Union Card.

Workshop Description
The road to recognition for filmmakers is in submitting their films to festivals/competitions etc. and the committee that reviews them will immediately cancel them out if the sound is bad.
David will start with a talk about his work, his recording philosophy and examples from previous films. He will explain how film recording has changed due to a number of factors, for example, multiple cameras, shooting wide and tight, lighting that would cover the different sized lenses and the methods we choose to create the proper sound perspective.
David will show how multi track recording enables mixers to isolate individual microphones and how they are always available to sound editors even when they’re not on the mixed master track.
Participants will look at the different types of recorders and mixers available for location recording.
David will give instructions on boom operating and how a boom operator works under difficult lighting conditions and what those conditions entail.
David will also evaluate and discuss the different types of microphones and when and where and how you would use them.
David will spend a few hours demonstrating how to wire actors, the methods used to hide transmitters and microphones and how to work around noisy clothing, skimpy women’s wear/or none, noisy atmosphere and many other challenges faced in getting good usable sound.
Participants will be given projects to see how they handle different situations themselves, and have it recorded so that we could review and critique afterwards. Students would take different roles so they would appreciate the necessity for communication with other crew members and how to get Camera, Electric, Grip and Costume departments to work together with the Sound Department.
David will stress the importance of acknowledging actors preparations for their roles and how important it is to anticipate problems and to have solutions thought out beforehand so one doesn’t have to fuss with actors and interrupt their focus.

Profile of Participant
The workshop designed for Directors, Sound Mixers, Sound Recordists, Boom Operators, Sound Editors, Film Students, or anyone interested in entering the Film Business on the area of Sound.