WILLIE BURTON - Production Sound Mixer

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

Tv & Film, Filmlighting, Deakins, Movies, Filmmaking, Production, Film, Cinematography, Film Interviews

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SEASON 2 - EPISODE 101 - WILLIE BURTON - PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER

On this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, production sound mixer Willie Burton (OPPENHEIMER, LOVE & BASKETBALL, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) joins us to talk about his career and the world of audio. We learn how Willie’s love for all things audio began as a teenager in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and drove him to hitching a ride with a visiting minister out to California to pursue a higher education and deepen his knowledge in the field. After a string of odd-jobs and an engineering career in the sonar division of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Willie weathered years of rejection before gaining admittance into the sound union, becoming the first African-American in the local’s history, and finally began his long career in film and television. Throughout the episode, Willie remembers those who helped him advance in his career; among them fellow trailblazer Sidney Poitier, who gave Willie his first break sound mixing a feature on the Poitier-directed LET’S DO IT AGAIN. Willie later shares how he likes to prepare for a film, and we discuss some of the challenges Willie faced recording sound on OPPENHEIMER and TENET. Towards the end of our conversation, we ask Willie if he’s ready to hang it up, and we also learn about Willie’s involvement in a new educational program in Kansas City exposing young men and women to the world of filmmaking.

This episode is sponsored by Aputure

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to season two of the Team Deacons podcast, a collection of
0:08.8	informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest.
0:13.0	We never know where the conversation will take us,
0:16.0	so listen in and see where it goes.
0:19.0	This episode is sponsored by Aperture, a global company pioneering LED lighting technology for cinema with cutting edge hardware and Software Solutions.
0:33.0	Recently, Aperture expanded its lighting ecosystem
0:36.3	with the new Infinomat series of mat-lights.
0:39.6	They offer unmatched output, IP65 weatherproofing,
0:44.0	and full pixel control over DMX.
0:47.1	Discover more about the Infinomats
0:49.2	and Aperture's lighting ecosystem at Aperture.com.
0:55.0	Today we're speaking with an on-set sound mixer.
1:00.0	His credits are many.
1:01.0	A few are Oppenheimer, straight out of Compton,
1:04.4	Jarhead, and the Shawshank Redemption. We're pleased to welcome Willie Burton.
1:09.8	Willie, thank you for doing this.
1:11.8	Hello, I'm happy to be here and thank you for doing this. Hello, I'm happy to be here, and thank you for having me.
1:15.3	We'd like to start with our normal question,
1:17.2	which is, how did you get to where you are today?
1:20.9	Were you as a kid, were you sound sound sensitive or is this something you found later? What's your story?
1:26.2	Well I grew up in a small town in Alabama outside of Tuscaloosa, a town called Madhaway, Alabama.
1:35.0	And later, I mean, you know, I moved to the city, which was Tuscaloosa.
	...

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