Audio Lover’s Guide to “Super 8”

Editor’s Note: Anna Behlmer (right) has 10 Oscar nominations for Best Sound. Beginning with 1995’s Braveheart, the list continues with Evita, L.A. Confidential, The Thin Red Line, Moulin Rouge!, The Last Samurai, Seabiscuit, War of the Worlds, and Blood Diamond before concluding (for now) with 2009’s reboot of Star Trek. Clearly, Behlmer knows a little something about movie sound.

She also knows something about Blu-ray sound. “I love 7.1,” she says. “The format is so fun.” One of her most recent projects is Super 8, for which she served as re-recording mixer. Behlmer and Dolby Laboratories were kind enough to provide us with the scene-by-scene, cue-by-cue, channel-by-channel details of her Top 8 sonic moments on the disc, as heard in Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (Zoom in to the PDF image of the Guide below to enlarge.) As Behlmer sums up, using a phrase that seems simple enough but is well worth remembering: “What is happening on the screen dictates what we do with the mix.”

— Ken Richardson

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