Veteran motion picture and television sound executive Paul Rodriguez has joined Roundabout Entertainment as VP of audio services and development. Rodriguez will lead audio postproduction operations and seek to build relationships with studios; theatrical, broadcast television and streaming producers; animation studios and the wider industry. Rodriguez’s background includes seven years as VP/director of feature sales at Todd-AO/Soundelux.
Roundabout has recently been growing its audio services and gaining new business, particularly in episodic television and animation. The facility has added two mix stages for broadcast work and plans to add a fifth stage with Dolby Atmos capabilities for theatrical projects. Current work includes the Warner Bros. series Person of Interest, now completing its fifth season, NBC/Universal’s Faceoff and the Netflix original comedy Flaked. Audio work for the new HBO sci-fi series Westworld is slated to begin soon.
“Our audio operations have been performing extremely well, driven by the rise in television production and the quality of our talent,” says CEO Craig Clark. “Paul is the perfect choice to help continue our momentum. He brings experience, deep knowledge, great relationships and enthusiasm.”
Rodriguez’s career in sound spans more than 20 years. At Todd-AO/Soundelux, he helped lead sales for divisions that included some of the top sound editors and re-recording mixers in the industry. He connected studios and sound talent for scores of tent-pole movie releases. His background also includes nine years as sr. VP of Wilshire Stages, two years as director of sound services at 4MC and eight years as president of EFX Systems.
He was co-owner of the Eagle Eye Film Company, a supplier of picture editing systems, and served as its managing general partner for seven years. Well connected throughout the sound community, he currently is an executive board member and treasurer of the trade organization Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE). He also produces the MPSE’s annual Golden Reel Awards ceremony.
Rodriguez is energized by the challenge of building Roundabout’s sound department. “We see a lot of opportunities in television and streaming,” he said. “We’ve got first class facilities, great people and plan to be at the top of the class in all areas of sound.”
Roundabout’s audio services include sound design, sound editorial, ADR, Foley, restoration and mixing. It has four mix stages with Digidesign Icon consoles and Christie digital projectors, a Dolby Atmos-certified finishing stage, five ADR stages and a Foley stage. The company provides facilities for several independent sound companies including Atomic Sound Post, which handles sound editorial for Person of Interest. Audio services complement a slate of picture services that include editorial finishing, color correction and restoration.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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