A two-time Academy Award winner with over 15 Oscar nominations, Randy Thom is a film sound design giant whose career began on the set of Apocalypse Now, a project he calls the ”best film school he could have ever dreamed of”. Since then, he has spent over 45 years at Lucasfilm, crafting sonic landscapes for films ranging from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back to How to Train Your Dragon. In this fascinating conversation, Randy and Max explore the often-overlooked connection between sound design and subtitling. Randy takes us behind the scenes of his brilliant work: Why the ”silence” on the island in Cast Away was actually thousands of individually crafted wave sounds designed to have their own ”personalities”. How he worked on The Revenant with director Alejandro Iñárritu and what ”cacayanga” means. Why he prioritizes emotional truth over literal realism (and why he used a chalk squeak to simulate a rocket engine in The Right Stuff). How he feels about the future of AI in film, explaining its shortcomings. Whether you are a film translator, a sound geek, or just a movie lover, you won’t want to miss this deep dive with one of film sound design’s most creative minds. Presented by: Subtle, the International association of subtitlers: www.subtle-subtitlers.org.uk

Max and Bill from Subtle sit down with Scott McCarthy, VP at DreamWorks. We promised him no hot sauce, but Bill brought spicy memes instead. We dive into bringing Shrek to Māori audiences, the Subtitling vs. Dubbing wars, SDH, filmmakers' involvement, and the actual reality of AI in localization. Plus, Scott gives us the fascinating backstory on the EGA Awards controversy and how a "huge oversight" turned into a mission to get translators the credit they deserve.