Team Saul Zaentz Film Center/Fantasy Studios/Zoetrope
The creatives of the late Saul Zaentz Film Center and its late mixing division Fantasy Studios. They rooted from American Zoetrope (AKA Omini Zoetrope Studios or Zoetrope-Aubry Productions/ZAP) and went on to be part of Skywalker Sound. Such Skywalker Sound/Saul Zaentz creatives ended up also at Berkeley Sound Artists (AKA IMRSV Post Sound; currently where the Saul Zaentz Film Center was), Russian Hill Recording, Sound Recording Organization (S-R-O), Studio C, "Sound, San Francisco" and "The Sound Services".
List activity
591 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
- 226 people
- Producer
- Sound Department
- Additional Crew
Saul Zaentz learned gambling as a youth in Passaic, New Jersey, playing a card game called briscola. Later, in his twenties, he earned a full-time living as a gambler.
Saul settled in San Francisco after WWII, at first working for a local record distributor and eventually joining the jazz record label Fantasy Records. Working as a salesman and manager for years at Fantasy taught him the value of good relationships with vendors and distributors. This approach greatly affected his approach to the movie business.
Saul and a group of partners bought Fantasy Records in 1967. Fantasy was a successful independent record label, but Saul wanted to expand, to make films. He and his partners worked very hard to cultivate deals with film distribution houses all over the world. Many of these distributors invested in or helped secure funding for his films, in light of the success of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). As a result, Saul was able to remain independent of Hollywood, making the films he wanted to make.Founder of The Saul Zaentz Company / Saul Zaentz Film Center (obviously)- Sound Department
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Randy Thom started his career in radio and music recording before making the transition to film in 1978, when he was hired on Apocalypse Now (1979) as a sound effects recordist. Since then, Thom has worked in a wide variety of creative capacities within the sound department in over 175 films. For example, in addition to being the music mixer on Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), Thom was also the production sound mixer for all the footage shot in the US. Since 1983, Thom has been on staff as a sound designer and mixer at Lucasfilm's Skywalker Sound facility. He is part of a small group of sound designers that are following in Walter Murch and Ben Burtt's footsteps in the continuing work of turning motion picture sound into an art form and not simply a series of technical processes. His work on a film often begins before the film has started shooting, and becomes an integral part of the storytelling and emotional impact of the film. Randy Thom has been part of Robert Zemeckis' core creative team ever since Forrest Gump (1994). Through his career Thom has worked with such top Hollywood talents as Walter Murch, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Chris Columbus, Mel Brooks and the Farrelly Brothers. Thom has received two Academy Awards for sound, The Right Stuff (1983), and for sound editing, The Incredibles (2004). He has fifteen Oscar nominations.Sound Effects Recordist, Re-Recording Mixer; also a Skywalker Sound and Zoetrope veteran.- Sound Department
Mark Berger was born on 14 May 1943 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is known for The English Patient (1996), Amadeus (1984) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).Supervising Re-Recording Mixer; also a Skywalker Sound veteran- Sound Department
- Editor
- Editorial Department
Walter Murch has been editing sound in Hollywood since starting on Francis Ford Coppola's film The Rain People (1969). He edited sound on American Graffiti (1973) and The Godfather Part II (1974), won his first Academy Award nomination for The Conversation (1974), won his first Oscar for Apocalypse Now (1979), and won an unprecedented double Oscar for Best Sound and Best Film Editing for his work on The English Patient (1996). Most recently he helped reconstruct Touch of Evil (1958) to Orson Welles' original notes, and edited The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). Mr. Murch was, along with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, a founding member of northern California cinema. Mr. Murch has directed --Return to Oz (1985) -- and longs to do so again, but as an editor and sound man he is one of the few universally acknowledged masters in his field. For his work on the film "Apocalypse Now (1979)", Walter coined the term "sound designer", and along with colleagues such as Ben Burtt, helped to elevate the art and impact of film sound to a new level.Sound Designer, Re-Recording Mixer, Editor; involved with Skywalker Sound, Zoetrope and Saul Zaentz Film Center.- Sound Department
- Actor
- Producer
Gary A. Rizzo was born on 31 January 1972 in New Jersey, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Inception (2010), Dunkirk (2017) and Oppenheimer (2023).Re-Recording Mixer for "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" (mixed at SZC by him) & "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (additional, uncredited).- Composer
- Sound Department
- Music Department
Todd Boekelheide began his film career in 1974 as the projectionist at American Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppola's production company in San Francisco. Late in his tenure there, Walter Murch came in to mix "The Godfather: Part II," and Todd was his machine room tech. Two years later he was offered his first freelance job, as apprentice (and soon assistant) editor on "Star Wars." His next film was "The Black Stallion," on which he edited picture and sound. He became fascinated by the idea of scoring films, and decided to further his music education at Mills College in Oakland.
After a few years at Mills, he began to score short films, and produced Mark Isham's first score, for "Never Cry Wolf." As his scoring career began to get off the ground, he had a parallel career as a rerecording mixer, working on a number of high-profile films at the Saul Zaentz film center in Berkeley. He won an Oscar for mixing the music on "Amadeus" in 1984.
In 1999 he won an Emmy for his score for the documentary "Kids of Survival: The Life and Art of Tim Rollins and the KOS." In 2007 he was nominated for an Emmy for his score for "Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters," and in 2010 he was nominated for another Emmy, this time for the score for "Blessed is the Match." Recent scoring credits include "3½ Minutes, Ten Bullets" for director Marc Silver and Participant Media, and "Marmato" for director Mark Grieco.Re-Recording Mixer- Sound Department
- Composer
- Music Department
Steve Boeddeker is a 3 time Oscar Nominee and Emmy Award winning Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer based in San Francisco. He has worked all over the world including London, NYC, Vancouver, LA and the Bay Area.
Boeddeker started in movie sound design and music with his first feature film project, David Fincher's thriller SE7EN. Boeddeker studied computer engineering and electronic/computer music at University of California San Diego and University of California Santa Barbara, graduating in 1988. He has since worked with many directors including Ryan Coogler, Tim Burton, JC Chandor, Steven Spielberg, Chris Columbus, William Friedkin, Robert Redford and many more.
Past film projects include All Day and a Night, Triple Frontier, Black Panther, Creed, Bridge of Spies, Pixels, Chappie, A Most Violent Year, All is Lost, Lincoln, Beasts of the Southern Wild, TRON: Legacy, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fight Club, Se7en and many more.Assistant SFX Editor & uncredited assistant sound designer on "Se7en".- Actor
- Sound Department
- Director
Ernie Fosselius was born on 23 October 1945 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Hardware Wars (1978), Porklips Now (1980) and Spaceballs (1987).
