Episode 116 - Julian Ellingworth
13/3/2020
"I remember the day clearly when Christopher Skase came down into the Atlab mixing theatre with his wife Pixie and looked at the projectors and dubbers and said 'what's all this shit? This has got nothing to do with television, get rid of it all'. (Skases' Quintex group had just purchased the 7 Network in 1987 and he was being shown over his new holdings).
As a kid Julian Ellingworth played with amplifiers and valves, built crystal sets and studied accountancy, but his true vocation was realised when he got a job lugging a sound recorder around the set of Michael Powell's They're A Weird Mob (1966). His name's not on the credits, but he was there and he has worked consistently from that day onwards. Artransa, Commonwealth Film Unit, Film Australia, Atlab,United Sound you name it - literally dozens of Australian feature film credits (and an AFI Award for Rebel), firstly as a sound recordist and then as a sound mixer.
Welcome to the world of frequency responses, guide tracks, noise reduction, post-sync dialogue and dynamic range. He talks about legendary sound designer Greg Bell, Cecil Holmes, Keith Gow, Roger Savage, Antony Ginnane, Donald Crombie, Ron Purvis, Phil Noyce and Peter Weir, (both moonlighting while at Film Australia on their own low budget feature projects, sneaking out equipment at the weekends), a trip to Robert Altman's post facility Lionsgate, and building his own home studio (Julessound).
