iHeartRadio's "Here's The Thing" records at Dubway

Radio giant iHeartRadio brought their long-running interview show Here’s The Thing into Dubway recently, tracking voice-over and interview recordings with the show’s host Alec Baldwin and studio engineer Marc Frongillo.

The podcast, which has been running for a decade, gives intimate looks at the work and lives of notable cultural figures–musicians, politicians, artists, and performers of all stripes–largely through interviews and conversations between the episode’s subject and Baldwin. Previous guests have included Thom Yorke and Michael Stipe, David Letterman, Barbra Streisand, and Ira Glass.

You can find episodes of Here’s The Thing here, or on all major podcasting platforms.

Panopticon NYC's horror short "Still Together" gets in-person premiere at Brooklyn Horror Fest

Writer/director/producer/multi-hyphenate Chris Piazza and his production company Panopticon NYC’s most recent horror project, a short narrative piece titled Still Together, is being screened next month as part of New York’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. The film, which Dubway did the audio post-production for, has had several screenings over the pandemic, but this appearance will mark its first official in-person premiere.

Check out our previous post about the film here, and find tickets to the premiere here! The screening will be on October 16th at 2pm at Williamsburg Cinemas; each ticket gets you access to the festival’s full screening of the collection of short works, including pieces from eight other filmmakers.

"What Was The Harlem Renaissance?" tracks on the Main Floor

Our second Who Was / Who Is audiobook, the Harlem Renaissance entry titled What Was The Harlem Renaissance? by Sherri L Smith, recorded on our Main Floor studios this week. The sessions follow up recordings for another entry, Who Is Bono?, which wrapped up recording at the end of last week. Engineer Violette Furton recorded both books for publisher Penguin Random House, with this installment recording in our Sandbox recording suite within our Main Floor space.

What Was The Harlem Renaissance? was read by performer Tashi Thomas for the recording, a talented NYC-area actor and playwright who helped to bring the book’s historical survey to life. Thomas recorded locally in our studios with producer Nithya Rajendran, while director Allen Towbin reviewed takes and offered direction through a remote audio connection.

You can find our previous entry about the Who Is / Who Was? series here.

Kara Swisher's "Sway" podcast records in the Blue Room

Violette Furton and Kara Swisher (left to right) in the studio lobby.

Journalist and prolific podcaster Kara Swisher joined Dubway engineer Violette Furton in our Blue Room and Main Floor Studios sound booth this month to record for her Sway podcast. The show, which follows a loose interview-style format and focuses on power in Silicon Valley, is produced by The New York Times. Furton and Swisher made use of our remote recording capabilities to record a phone interview between Swisher, in-studio, and a guest in California, with production-quality audio fidelity on both ends of the call.

Swisher has written for many major publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, her own publication Recode (later picked up by Vox Media), and New York Magazine. Her podcasts have included shows like Recode Decode and Pivot.

You can find Sway on all major podcast platforms; new episodes come out weekly!

"Who Is Bono", by Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso, records at Dubway

Longtime young-readers series Who Was / Who Is is producing a set of audiobooks at Dubway, with the first installment voiced by actor Tatiana Grey, directed by Joe Ward, and produced by Nithya Rajendran. The book chronicles the life of Bono (the title, fittingly: Who Is Bono?) of U2, and is being recorded by studio engineer Violette Furton–pictured above in the studio lobby, with talent Tatiana Grey.

Who Is Bono? is part of a series with over 200 installments, detailing the lives of significant cultural and historical figures in digestible language for younger readers. Other recent editions include Who Was Ponce de Leon?, Who Is RuPaul?, and Who Was Charles Shultz?. The breadth of topics in the series is wide, and many authors have contributed installments; the Bono installment, like a number of recent editions, was written by authors Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso.

Once released, you’ll find Who Is Bono? available to download on all major audiobook platforms. Next to be recorded is Sherri L. Smith’s contribution to the series, What Was The Harlem Rennaissance? – check back for more next week!

#TBT: Ken Leung with Marc Frongillo

This Thursday, we’re excited to share a photo from this summer’s recording sessions with actor Ken Leung. Dubway engineer Marc Frongillo recorded the superstar actor’s dialogue for the recently released M. Night Shyamalan film OLD, which premiered in theaters in late July with #1 opening weekend sales at the box office.

Dubway has been proud to be one of a select few studios in New York with SAG-AFTRA-approved COVID-19 safety standards, which has allowed us to continue working with actors and productions who are represented by the union during the pandemic.

You can find a previous write-up of this session with a trailer for the film here, and a short blurb about the release here.

Poetry audiobook records with author Sislyn Peters

Poet and author Sislyn Peters is working at Dubway currently to produce an audiobook of one of her collections of original poetry, titled A Little Souvenir in Poetry. Peters has worked with studio engineer Keenan DuBois throughout the process of recording, with the pair using several sessions to capture performances of Peters reading her work. Sessions have taken place on Dubway’s Main Floor Studios, bouncing between different pairs of rooms for different sessions and making use of the modular, consistent nature of our various isolation booths and control rooms.

With recording wrapped, Peters will move into editing and mixing, before the audiobook is released to the public.

There’s no release date currently set, but check back for more in the future!

Topic Studio's new production "The Space Within" records at Dubway

Still from 100 Foot Wave, produced by Topic Studios (2021) for HBO Max.

First Look Media’s production house Topic Studios has been hard at work on a new series of podcasts for Audible, and Dubway has been excited to host recording for sections of one of them–The Space Within, a philosophical sci-fi drama podcast with an amazing cast and crew, hosted by psychology PhD Dr. Madeline Wyle. We can’t say much yet about the show, except that the team behind it also helped to create movies like Leave No Trace, The Report, The Climb, and The Mauritanian, so we have high expectations.

Recording involved a highly-COVID safe, SAG-safety-approved rotation of actors coming and going in order to complete lines separately, and to allow our staff to disinfect the equipment between actors. Dubway studio engineer Charley Shealy tracked the actors in our modular Main Floor Studio space, with production and directing teams connected remotely via audio-over-IP.

Check for The Space Within on Audible Plus coming soon!

Ramsay Burgess's musical "Heartbreak County" records in the Mezzanine

Writer and director Ramsay Burgess brought the cast of his musical Heartbreak County into our Mezzanine Studio space last month to track the cast album with Dubway engineer Marc Frongillo.  The session was a careful process of tracking both instruments and ensemble vocals, with some additional MIDI recording at the end to round out the project, and made judicious use of the Mezzanine’s airy live room and multiple isolation booths.

Take a look at some photos from the session below, and follow the show at their Instagram.

"Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography" tracks audiobook segments with Dubway

Bourdain has an expected release date of September, 28th. Photo credit: AFAR magazine.

Working with publisher Ecco and parent publisher HarperCollins, Dubway engineers have been sitting down with producers and friends of chef, writer, and cultural commentator Anthony Bourdain recently to record excerpts for the upcoming audiobook Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography. The work sets out to know Bourdain through those who knew him best, and most of those voices appear not only in print, but also in sound. All credit to the cast and production team for pulling off this feat of editing, compilation, and production management!

Staff engineers Keenan DuBois, Louis Fisher, and Zach Grappone have all sat behind the engineers desk for these recordings; producer/directors have included Cam Potts and Nathan Rosborough from HarperCollins. For specifics about guests and contributors, you’ll have to wait for the book’s release–not too long, fortunately, as the release date is currently scheduled for September 28th.

BTS from "The Sounds of the Chi" streamed concert, presented by SHOWTIME

Season 4 of the coming-of-age drama The Chi, is out now on SHOWTIME, and to honor the occasion the network pulled together an amazing lineup of Chicago talent to perform some of the show’s soundtrack. Dubway West was on-set to record audio for the project. Engineering was led by Lucas Webb, with Maja Sazdic assistant engineering and All Worthy People overseeing the production.

Check out the complete show in it’s finished state above, and a few pics from set below! The Chi’s season finale aired in early August, but you can stream this season, and previous seasons, at the link above (with a SHOWTIME subscription).

Gorgeous, lush set production for Jai’len Josey’s set, from production house All Worthy People.

Dubway records for Microsoft and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports partnership

Microsoft and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports are teaming up, and Dubway was happy to be involved as a post-production facility for the project. Studio engineer Louis Fisher recorded voice talent in our Main Floor Studios for the work, which will be an interactive map of Olympia, Greece, the original home of the Olympic Games.

The session was produced by Listen, a NYC-based producer of audio content worldwide, who we work with regularly and who always does an excellent job with their audio content. Listen have worked with a broad range of large clients on similar projects, such as Sephora, Microsoft, and the performing artist Björk.

“Fizzle” is named an Official Selection of the Bozeman International Film Festival

We are thrilled to learn that Fizzle, a film we worked on back in 2018, was just named an Official Selection of the Bozeman International Film Festival! Fizzle is the project of actor/writer Gilbert Girion, and was directed by Jeremiah Kipp. Dubway engineer Zac Suskevich recorded audio from set as a production mixer for this movie.

Fizzle is fresh from a number of other festivals–it’s had a great run since its release in 2020–with appearances (and wins) at Chain NYC Film Festival and the Independent Shorts Award, where it won for “Best Ensemble” and “Best Experimental Short Film”, as well as at the Vancouver Independent Film Festival and the Action on Film Festival.

Congratulations to the cast and crew, and if you’re in Bozeman or will be in early September, find tickets for Fizzle’s next in-theaters appearance here!

"Portrait of a Scotsman" audiobook produced at Dubway by Penguin Random House

Best-selling author Evie Dunmore’s newest novel, Portrait of a Scotsman, is out (and well-reviewed!), and will soon be joined by an audio edition, currently finishing production at Dubway. The book is a Victorian-era piece of romantic historical fiction, in line with much of the author’s other works.

Recording was lead by studio engineer Marc Frongillo, with Nithya Rajendran producing on behalf of the publisher (Penguin Random House), Cathy Thornburn directing the record, Elizabeth Jasicki performing the reading, and Darlene Sterling leading the project as executive producer.

Work on the audiobook is nearing completion, so expect to see it alongside hardcover offerings at online bookstores/retailers this fall!

Pro Tools Expert publishes a guide to Apple's Spatial Audio from Nathaniel Reichman

Lead Dubway engineer Nathaniel Reichman has been a vocal supporter of immersive formats for music for a long time, so it’s no surprise that when Pro Tools Expert needed an expert of their own for an article on Apple’s new Spatial Audio format/program, they turned to Reichman.

The article, which can be found here, describes in detail a set of best-practices and technical approaches for working in immersive music formats, specifically in mixing immersive music via Dolby Atmos and the Atmos renderer. Many of these practices have been honed and deployed on Reichman’s spatial music mixes for Dubway clients, including on a set of John Luther Adams albums, and on some of Pinna’s amazingly hi-fi children’s programming.

For anyone who’s ever been curious about the nuts-and-bolts of translating immersive mixing techniques to the varied playback environments and formats often associated with music consumption, this article is excellent. And if the technical stuff is too in-the-weeds, but you’re curious about hearing your music in an immersive format, give us a call–that’s what we’re here for!

HarperCollins produces audiobook of C.S. Pacat's "Dark Rise"

Best-selling young-adult fantasy author C.S. Pacat (The Captive Prince series) has a new novel on the way, Dark Rise, as well as an audiobook to accompany it. Dubway served as the post-production recording house for the book, hosting actor Christian Coulson (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) to perform the reading in our Main Floor Studios.

Actor Christian Coulson, who voices the audiobook.

Studio engineers Zach Grappone, Louis Fisher, and Keenan DuBois all contributed to sessions over the course of recording. HarperCollins executive producer Caitlyn Garing served as the constant between sessions, helping to guide the engineers on capturing Coulson’s performance to the publishing house’s specifications.

Recordings from the session will take a trip through post-production and editing at HarperCollins, and then release simultaneously with the physical book.

Dark Rise is slated to come out on September 28th, and can be pre-purchased through links at the author’s site, found here.

"Krazy Beautiful" gets a surround mix at Dubway

Yang and Fisher in the Blue Room.

So Young Yang’s film Krazy Beautiful is nearing completion, and recently the movie got one step closer, when Dubway engineer Louis Fisher completed a 5.1 surround dubbing of the movie with producer Josh Allen and Yang herself there to help direct.

Mixing was completed at Dubway in our Blue Room, which is setup as a 5.1 mix environment with Genelec monitoring.

You can find more clips, teasers, and trailers of Yang’s work on her Vimeo (including a trailer for Krazy Beautiful).

Dubway techs transfer police tapes for Blackfin Studios

Dubway engineer Charley Shealy took a trip uptown with a Blackfin Studios producer to transfer police audio tape for an upcoming investigative show from the famed production house. Because of the nature of the tape, the recording couldn’t leave the premises, so Shealy packed a reel to reel and additional sound units for processing the transfer on-location. This kind of specific audio problem is something our studio, with our many specialists and large collection of gear, is perfectly suited to handle.

You can find a list of Blackfin’s award-winning investigative (and other) programming–including Jerusalem, a CNN series that Dubway mixed in post-production–at this link.

"Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury" airs on CNN

Back in the winter, lead engineer Nathaniel Reichman and staff engineer Louis Fisher worked as re-recording mixer and dialogue editor (respectively) for a new original CNN docuseries entitled Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury. The series, based on historical conflicts in the titular city, has now officially made it to air!

Jerusalem was a co-production between CNN and our longtime collaborator Blackfin, who we’ve worked with extensively over the years. The show was produced as part of CNN’s slate of original shows for 2021, and is chock-full of the historical detail and fantastic re-enactments that you’d expect from a collaboration between these two production companies.

The show airs Sundays at 10pm ET–catch it tomorrow night on CNN, and weekly at the same time for the next month.

M. Night Shyamalan's "OLD" released!

Thriller-superstar director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest effort, the psychological thriller/horror film OLD, is officially in theaters today! The film follows a family vacation turned sour when the beach they had planned to relax on is gradually revealed, in classic Shyamalan fashion, to be more than what it seems.

Dubway was proud to serve as an ADR facility for post-production; studio engineer Marc Frongillo worked with producer Sean Zabik (Universal) and amazing talent Ken Leung on some of the film’s dialogue post-production recording. We’ve written about this session previously , which you can read here.

You can find OLD in select theaters worldwide, and streaming in a few weeks!