Cutting Room’s Jun Mizumachi Gives Space A Sound
April 18, 2012 by Screenmag
What does space sound like? Cutting Room sound designer Jun Mizumachi gives his bold interpretation of cosmic soundscapes for the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium Earth Day show, “Spaceship Earth with Carter Emmart.”
In the April 19th show starting at 6:30pm, Director of Astrovisualization Carter Emmart will lead the audience on a tour of Earth through visualizations created from satellite data, accompanied by wildly creative ambient audio by Mizumachi. As Cutting Room’s sole in-house sound designer, Mizumachi’s sound designs have earned him numerous accolades in advertising and beyond, including Clios and Cannes Lions, for work on commercials for top clients including Lowe’s, Mercedes, Nike, IBM and AT&T.
Faced with the challenge of having no actual outer space audio from which to draw inspiration, Mizumachi relished in the creative challenge of designing an acoustic experience that encapsulates something so intangible.
“Since there is no sound in space, my sound designs are completely open-ended,” says Mizumachi. “I enjoy the creative freedom that this allows and it is fun to start from scratch for each unique show and create a unique soundscape from my imagination.”
With this month’s event featuring images of Earth, Mizumachi has been able to explore a more indigenous palette of sounds. He notes, “For this show, I wanted to make the sounds textural and vast, while also incorporating a bit of regional ‘flavor’ for each segment.”