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Monkeyland 2017 Year In Review

January 1, 2018

Monkeyland Audio 2017 Year in Review


31 December 2017


Hello once again Clients, Colleagues and Friends,


It’s hard to believe our 24th year has come to a close! As is our tradition, here’s a look back at some of the past year’s highlights shared with you all.


In our line of work, the beginning of each year means awards season and gearing up for Sundance! We were proud to see the CNN feature documentary “Legion of Brothers” get it’s premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. This was our 6th feature documentary we have posted with Primetime Emmy Award Winning Director Greg Barker and his team.


The Monkeyland team was proud to be nominated this year for three Motion Picture Sound Editors' Golden Reel Awards for Best Sound Editing for their work on the feature films “Rattle The Cage” and “The Thinning”, as well as the feature documentary “Passage To Mars”. We were also thrilled to have been nominated for a Best Sound Ariel Award (Mexico’s equivalent to the Academy Award) for our work on the feature film “Me Estás Matando Susana” starring Gael Garcia Bernal.


2017 marked the completion of Monkeyland’s newest mixing stages including our purpose built dual operator, Avid S6 equipped Dolby Atmos™ Stage Anejo and the newly updated Stage Reposado. In July, our friends at Pro Sound News featured us in the article: “Monkeyland Audio Grows In Stages.”


Some of the feature films we completed mixing this past year include: Columbia Picture’s “All Saints”, Universal’s animated Christmas feature “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, Sony’s “Devil’s Whisper” and “Cover Versions”, director Harold Cronk’s “God Bless the Broken Road”, Perry King’s “The Divide”, Jeremy Ungar’s ride-share thriller “Ride”, off-road racing film “Dirt”, Collin Schiffli’s “All Creatures Here Below”, Jason DeVan’s horror/thriller “Tell Me your Name”, Jeffrey Johnson’s “Captain Black”, Clive Tonge’s Crime Horror Thriller “Mara”, Frederick Cipoletti’s “Desolate”, Thomas Konkle's noir thriller "Trouble Is My Business" and Jason Shirley’s family comedy “Elbow Grease”. This year we also finished mixing our 3rd feature collaborations with directors William Dickerson and Kyle Rankin on their latest films “No Alternative” and “The Witch Files”, respectively.


We’ve been quite busy this past year on the television side as well, with scripted and documentary programming alike. We had great fun posting the creepy new Amazon original series “Lore”, the 3-part Netflix original doc special “Five Came Back” as well as the hilarious Hulu original documentaries “Becoming Bond” and “Too Funny To Fail: The Life and Death of the Dana Carvey Show.” Other series we completed this year include the first season of the new comedy “Liberty Crossing”, new CNN series “Unmasking A Killer”, the Rhonda Rousey exec produced sports docu series “Why We Fight” and Blackpills’ new original series “Urban Nightmares”. We are also currently posting seasons 2-3 of the Verizon Go90 series “Play By Play”, as well as a few other new high tech and throwback series which we will share more information with you soon.



In addition, we’ve also enjoyed sharing our mixing, ADR and Foley stages with our friends and colleagues on such shows as the new Duplass Brothers HBO Series “Room 104” (Ear Candy Post), BET’s “The Quad” (Artistry In Sound), Disney Junior’s series “The Lion Guard” (Disney) and the 2018 Sundance Bound feature “Catcher Was A Spy” (King Soundworks).



Some of the other feature documentaries we completed this year include Tiller Russell’s “Operation Odessa”, the East L.A. high school football doc “The Classic”, Dennis Hopper doc “Along for the Ride”, Isaac Artenstein's “Challah Rising”, as well as “Line of Descent”, our 13th Warren Miller produced high octane sports doc mixed here at Monkeyland by Mark Rozett.


We were also extremely busy on the Television Movie front this year thanks to our friends at Cartel, MarVista and ACI. In the past year our team completed full sound editorial and mixing on 16 Lifetime and Hallmark tele pics including: “Love at the Shore”, “Switched for Christmas”, “The Wrong Nanny”, “Runaway Romance”, “Ex-Patriot”, “An Uncommon Grace”, “Christmas Connection” “Sun, Sand & Romance” and “Ex-Wife Killer”.


Other cool projects this year included custom Foley recording for Epic Games’ “Fortnight”, our first virtual reality project “Agent Emerson” for director Ilya Rozhkov, some cool short films, commercials and trailers and we cannot forget Kevin Hart’s new short format interview series “Cold As Balls."


As the year comes to a close, we are currently putting the finishing touches on the feature doc “Science Fair”, which will get it’s world premiere next month at the Sundance Film Festival and Yanfeng Zhang’s doc “Roth Triathlon”. Other films currently in post at Monkeyland include Cuba Gooding Jr’s directorial debut feature “Louisiana Caviar”, Micah Gallo’s horror/thriller “Itsy Bitsy”, Mika Boorem’s “Hollywood Hustle” and the Arabic language “On Borrowed Time”, our 3rd film with Abu Dhabi based production company Imagenation.


And now onward to 2018, our 25th year! For more info you can check out our website as well as keep up with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where we regularly post interesting Monkey news, pictures and other fun project-related stuff.

The entire Monkeyland crew would like to wish you all a very safe, prosperous and creative New Year. Happy Holidays and happy filmmaking! Until next time…

Monkeylands 2019 Year In Review

January 1, 2020
01 January 2020 Hello and Happy New Year Clients, Colleagues and Friends! Now that 2020 has arrived, we’d like to share some highlights of the past year. As always, we feel blessed and honored to be working with such wonderful and creative talents. We are fortunate to be able to be a part of your projects and to continue to do what we love for a living! 2019 began on a high note with Chinonye Chukwu’s CLEMENCY (starring Alfre Woodard) winning the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic) at the Sundance Film Festival. Now in limited theatrical release, it has been nominated for three 2020 Film Independent Spirt Awards and currently has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes . Another film that was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance was Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s THEM THAT FOLLOW which later received a theatrical run. We are proud and humbled to be a part of bringing their visions to life!  The start of 2019 also saw the debut of our second Dolby Atmos Stage, Plata, which we christened mixing season 1 of the new series TRINKETS and the original feature SECRET OBSESSION, both for Netflix. We look forward to working on season 2 of TRINKETS in the new year!

Monkeyland's 25th Anniversary: 2018 Year In Review

December 31, 2018
31 December 2018 Hello once again Clients, Colleagues and Friends! 2018 marked a milestone for Monkeyland as we've just wrapped up our silver anniversary celebrating our first 25 years! It’s been our pleasure and privilege to work with such creative talent which allows us to continue to do what we love so much. 2018 has been a fun, busy and rewarding year and as is our custom, we’d like to share some of the highlights from our corner of the audio world.  January means the Sundance Film Festival. We are proud to have two features we recently completed in competition next month: CLEMENCY by screenwriter and director Chinonye Chukwu and THEM THAT FOLLOW by screenwriters and directors, Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage. Also making its world premiere as an Official Selection this year is Gregg Araki’s new STARZ Original series NOW APOCALYPSE. We’re thrilled to continue our long standing creative partnership with Gregg and are grateful to be part of this groundbreaking series. In addition, Stuart Swezey’s music documentary DESOLATION CENTER has been nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival. We wish all of our talented filmmakers the best of luck! Another highlight at the beginning of each year is the annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards. This year, we were honored with a 2018 win for the HULU documentary BECOMING BOND (by Josh Greenbaum) as well as being nominated for the Netflix Original Feature IMPERIAL DREAMS (by Malik Vitthal) and the Netflix Original documentary series FIVE CAME BACK (by Laurent Bouzereau, produced by Amblin Television). Receiving the accolades from our fellow post sound colleagues is especially meaningful, and we are grateful to be in such wonderful company.

Monkeyland Audio 2016: The Year In Review

January 1, 2017
31 December 2016  Hello once again Clients, Colleagues and Friends, As our 23rd year comes to a close, we would like to look back at our whirlwind 2016 filled with great projects and wonderfully creative clients. We are extremely grateful that we can continue doing what we love to do with equally passionate filmmakers. As we look forward to another successful year, we would like to reflect back on some of the highlights from this year. Sundance 2016: The year got off to a great start with a few of our films headed to Park City. “First Girl I Loved,” our 2nd film for director Kerem Sanga premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award for the “Best of Next" category. Also making it’s premiere at Sundance was Stephen Kijack’s rock doc "We Are X," which follows the legendary Japanese rock band 'X Japan’. In February, the Monkeyland team was honored with two MPSE awards for Best Sound Editing, both in the Direct to Video- Live Action category when Michael Johnson’s “All the Wilderness” and Jay Martin’s “7 Minutes” tied for the win! In March, Director Anne Hamilton’s 1980’s Fairytale Thriller “American Fable” premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was subsequently picked up for distribution by IFC Films with plans for a February 2017 theatrical release.

Monkeyland Brings Home MPSE Award, Festival Season Recap

February 29, 2016
Congratulations to the entire Monkeyland Audio staff and creative sound team for the BEST SOUND EDITING: Direct To Video Live Action Feature Golden Reel Award they received this past weekend at the 63rd Annual Motion Picture Sound Editor's Awards.

Monkeyland 2015 Year In Review

December 30, 2015
As has been our end of year tradition, we look back on another busy year filled with great projects and clients. Once again we find ourselves extremely blessed and grateful to continue to work and grow in this field we love so much. As we prepare to embark on our 23rd year in business, here's a quick look back at 2015.  2015 started out fast and furious as we were mixing two films headed off to Sundance: the Romanian film "Pioneer's Palace", and Director Bobcat Goldthwait's feature documentary "Call Me Lucky". In January, the Monkeyland team was also nominated for an MPSE award for their sound work on the 2014 release of the film "Wer". This year's nod marked Monkeyand's 13th MPSE nomination in the past 6 years, including 2 wins. March 1, 2015: Mix Stage #Reposado comes online at Flower Street:

Monkeyland Editors Nominated For MPSE Award For 6th Consecutive Year!

January 14, 2015
Monkeyland is proud and honored to once again be recognized by the Motion Picture Sound Editors with a nomination this year in the Direct To Video Live Action category for the film "WER". Today the MPSE released the nominations for the 62nd MPSE Golden Reel Awards, which honors the best feature film, television, animation and computer entertainment sound work of the year. After working with the filmmakers on Paramount's 2012 box office hit "The Devil Inside", Monkeyland once again teamed up with Writer/Director William Brent Bell and Producers Matthew Peterman and Morris Paulson on "Wer". Released in 2014 by FilmDistrict/Universal, the film stars A.J. Cook, a defense attorney who begins to suspect that her client, who is charged with the murders of a vacationing family in France, might me more than meets the eye. This year's nod marks Monkeyand's 13 nomination by the MPSE in the past 6 years. We couldn't be more grateful to our loyal clientele and colleagues who have enabled us to continuously work in this field that we love so much while also being recognized for our hard work and dedication to our craft by our peers. Previously, the Monkeyland Audio team won a Golden Reel in 2013 for their work on the TV Movie "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", and in 2012 for the Computer Episodic series "Aim High". Monkeyland was also nominated in 2013 for a Primetime Emmy award for outstanding sound editing for a miniseries, movie or special, also for "Seal Team Six".  Congratulations also to our extremely talented intern ShaSha Dong, who was nominated by the MPSE this year for the Verna Fields Award for Student Filmmakers, for the short film "Sin Frontera". A big congrats as well to all of the other extremely talented nominees in all categories. We are looking forward to celebrating with everyone at the MPSE awards ceremony on February 15. You can catch the entire list of nominees here.

Monkeyland Audio 2014: Year In Review

December 23, 2014
Hello Friends & Colleagues, Monkeyland's 21st year is quickly coming to a close which means it's time for our annual look back at some of the highlights and moments that made up our 2014. All of us at Monkeyland are extremely grateful we've been able to spend yet another year pursing our love of sound and expanding our craft while continuing to work with both our loyal longtime clientele and new clients alike. T  he year started off fast and furious. Three of our films were headed to the Sundance Film Festival with lot's of mixing still to be done! While Gregg Araki's "White Bird In A Blizzard" had finished mixing in December, we were still mixing "We Are The Giant", our fourth feature doc working with Director Greg Barker, and "Imperial Dreams", all headed to mid January premieres in Park City. Meanwhile, we had just started sound editorial and mixing for 6 episodes of a new ABC mini series "The Assets"

ABC Primetime Shows Mixing At Monkeyland, Premiere Sunday Night

September 27, 2014
Be sure to catch the season premieres of the hit series "Once Upon A Time", followed by "Resurrection" as they make their 2014 fall season debuts on ABC tomorrow night.

Another Busy Month At Monkeyland: August Recap

August 26, 2014
It's been another busy and exciting month at Monkeyland with a slew of new film and television projects wrapping up and headed for release... This week alone saw the completion of 2 indie features: "A Sort of Homecoming" mixed by Mark Rozett on Stage A, and "All She Wishes" mixed by Trip Brock on Stage F. Meanwhile, mixer Kelly Vandever was putting the finishing touches on the TV movie "The Brittany Murphy Story" which premieres on Lifetime Saturday, September 6. All sound design, supervision, foley and ADR were also handled by the talented Monkeyland staff...

Busy Month In Progress At Monkeyland!

July 18, 2014
It's been an incredibly busy month here at Monkeyland with no end in sight! Barely half way through the month and theres lots of exciting things happening... Re-Recording Mixer Kelly Vandever has been busy mixing Chris Evan's directorial debut "1:30 Train" on Stage 3 and also just finished mixing director Sam Irvin's holiday TV movie "Naughty & Nice"... P  ictured (L to R) below are Kelly Vandever, Producer Carrie LeGrand and Director Sam Irvin. Christmas in July!
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