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.
The 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".
Monkeyland Audio Nominated for 3 MPSE Awards: After taking home an MPSE win and Primetime Emmy nomination last year for National Geographic's "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden", Monkeyland was again honored in 2014 with 3 additional MPSE nominations for Best Sound Editing in a Long Form TV Documentary, Direct To Video Live Action, and Short Form TV Documentary categories. (For "Manhunt", "Lord of Darkness" and "30 Days In May", respectively.)
2014’s slate of audio projects proved to be quite an eclectic assortment of mainly feature films, documentaries and television, along with a variety of promos, commercials, trailers and short format projects. On the feature film front, some of the year's highlights included Chris Evan's directorial debut "Before We Go", Anthony Hopkins, Sam Worthington starrer "Kidnapping Freddie Heineken", Adam Carolla's directorial debut Comedy "Road Hard", Indie Comedy/Drama "The Young Kieslowski"and Family Adventure sequel "The Adventures of Mickey Matson: Pirates Code". Our sound team also completed full editorial, design and mixing on Drama "A Sort of Homecoming", Period Drama "Victor", Steven Segal Action Crime Drama "The Mercenary: Absolution", Crime Thriller "7 Minutes", Spanish language Drama "Las Horas Contigo", Drama Horror "Things That Are To Die", Drama Romance "Old Fashioned" and Romanian indie "Limani". We are also currently finishing editorial and mixing on the Taryn Manning Drama "A Light Beneath Their Feet", Horror "Villisca", Drama Thriller "Inner Fear" Spanish language Drama "Ciudades Desiertas", starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Ashley Hinshaw. We also just finished mixing Romanian Period Comedy "Pioneer's Palace" which will premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Keep an eye out for all these films coming to theaters and/or home video soon.
On the Television front, we are very happy to welcome sound editorial company Atomic Post, who along with their talented team of mixers and editors are currently mixing the ABC primetime shows "Once Upon A Time" and "Resurrection" here at Monkeyland. Meanwhile, we have recently completed editorial and mixing on the second season of Lifetime's successful documentary series "Ghost Inside My Child", and after completing the first season of "Tornado Alley" for the Weather Channel earlier this year, we are gearing up for season two starting next month.
2014 also presented new working relationships while reuniting with filmmakers from our past. This year we began a new working partnership with MarVista Entertainment, providing complete sound editorial and mixing services for nine of the TV movies from their 2014 slate. We posted Lifetime Bio Pic "The Brittany Murphy Story" and Christmas Romance "Naughty & Nice" while reconnecting with Producer Carrie LeGrand.
We also had the pleasure of working again with Director Sam Irvin on Comedy "Mothers of the Bride" and "Naughty & Nice". It was great teaming up again with Director William Dickerson for Lifetime's "Don't Look Back" and "The Assault". Rounding out our 2014 MarVista slate were TV Movies "Meet My Valentine", "Bad Blood", "All She Wishes" and "12 Dog Days Till Christmas.
Other films which came in for additional editorial and mixing at Monkeyland throughout the year included: "Sabotage" (TV Version), "The Contest", "Drones", and "Refuge From The Storm". Some of the shows that visited our ADR and Foley stages included: "A Haunted House 2", "The Duff", "The 33", "Webcam", "Orphan Black", "Taxi Brooklyn", "The Guest", "The Signal", "Somnia", "All In Time", "Bad Teacher" "The Exorcism of Molly Hartley", "Nature Cat", "Cooties", "Stung","The Great Gilly Hopkins" and "Children's Hospital". Heck, we even had visits by cultural icons Weird Al and the Fonz, and a very special appearance by Buzz Aldrin, one of only 12 men to have walked on the moon!
We also had an opportunity to work on a wide variety of feature documentaries this year including: "Pencil's Down! The 100 Days of the Writers Guild Strike", Adventure Doc "Passage To Mars", Salvation Army Doc "Hard Corps", "Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey", Sports Doc "Game Face" and of course the latest Warren Miller high-octane Sports doc "No Turning Back", mixed by Mark Rozett. Other exciting 2014 projects for us included editorial and mixing for many commercials, trailers and promos fpr our friends at Dirty Robber, Coyote Post, Omelet LA, MRG Productions, The Uprising Creative, World War Seven, and Big Boss Creative.
Monkeyland is glad to continue to have the opportunity to meet and work with new up and coming talented filmmakers. We completed quite a few short format projects this year including "Family Escape", "Witch Girl Film", "Brown Bag", Sabre Dance", "Eleven", Celluloid Dreams", Sandboy", and "Nini". We anticipate many great things for the filmmakers involved in these projects. Outstanding work, folks!
Whew! What a year... and now onward to 2015... For more info you can check out the "What's New" section on our website. We’d also love for you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter where we regularly post interesting Monkey news, pictures and other fun project-related stuff.
The Monkey crew and I would like to wish you all a very safe, prosperous, and creative New Year. Happy Holidays and happy filmmaking! Until next time...
