Continuing to grow its sound department, Sony Pictures Post Production Services has added award-winning re-recording mixers Steve Pederson and Daniel J. Leahy to its creative staff. Pederson and Leahy have worked as a team on a number of motion picture projects, including director Antoine Fuqua's The Equalizer, which, as independents, they mixed on Sony Pictures’ Cary Grant Stage last year. They are currently mixing Fuqua’s latest film, Southpaw, on the Sony lot. Upcoming projects include HBO’s True Detective and Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven.
Pederson and Leahy each has more than 100 feature films to his credit. Pederson’s career includes tenures at Universal Studios, Warner Bros. and Todd-AO. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound in 1996 for Apollo 13 (shared with Rick Dior, Scott Millan and David MacMillan), alongside one other Academy Award, three BAFTA and two Emmy Award nominations. His many credits include Rock of Ages, The Blind Side, Hall Pass and Schindler’s List.
Leahy’s career spans 30 years and includes work at Todd-AO, Warner Bros., and Universal Studios, and as an independent. He won Emmy Awards in 2010 and 1999 for The Pacific (shared with Michael Minkler and Andrew Ramage) and The Rat Pack (shared with Michael C. Casper and Felipe Borrero), respectively. Other notable credits include The Boy Next Door, Olympus Has Fallen, Training Day and The Fast and the Furious. One of his first credits as re-recording mixer came on Back to the Future.
Pederson and Leahy said they were drawn to Sony in large part by its talent, and the excellent relationship they both had developed with the people there, including Tom McCarthy, executive VP, Sony Pictures Post Production Services.
Pederson added that he and Leahy were impressed by how Sony has grown and modernized its sound facilities. “While the creative concepts of our craft haven’t changed through the years, the way we achieve those concepts has changed dramatically,” he explained. “Sony has embraced changing technology without losing sight of the basics that keep filmmakers confident they’re being taken care of. To work in a progressive department that sits on a historic movie studio lot in a great Westside location made it an easy choice.”
