A CEDAR DNS1000 dialogue noise suppressor cleans Tom Hanks' dialogue in Castaway
21 January 2001
Skywalker Sound is a state of the art audio post-production company located in Marin County, California. World famous for many award-winning productions including the original Star Wars Trilogy and the more recent Star Wars Episode 1, the studio has already used CEDAR dehissers to remove tape hiss and background noise from soundtracks.
But when, in September 2000, it was faced with problems on the new Tom Hanks movie, Castaway, it needed something different to remove the sounds of sea-breezes, surf and other background noises that were 'chopped up' when the movie was edited. Fortunately, the sound engineers at Skywalker Sound had heard and tested the pre-production prototype of the CEDAR DNS1000 when Clive Osborn (CEDAR's Sales Director) and Fraser Jones (President of CEDAR Audio USA) had demonstrated it to them some weeks before. The engineers were sure that the DNS1000 was exactly what was needed to clean the dialogue so, when CEDAR launched the product at the 109th AES Convention in Los Angeles, it became a race to supply the first unit in time.
With a scheduled shipping date of 10 October 2000, the DNS1000 was going to be a few days too late for the start of posting, so the DNS1000's chief designer, Dr Christopher Hicks, hand-built the first unit and shipped it to Leo's Professional Audio in San Francisco for immediate onward delivery to Skywalker Sound in Marin County. As a result, it arrived in time, and Castaway became the world's first movie to be cleaned by a CEDAR dialogue noise suppressor.
For further information:
CEDAR Audio Limited, 20 Home End, Fulbourn, Cambridge, CB21 5BS, United Kingdom.
t: +44 1223 881771
f: +44 1223 881778
e: info@cedaraudio.com
CEDAR Audio USA, 43 Deerfield Road, Portland, Maine, ME04101-1805, USA.
t: +1 207 828 0024
f: +1 207 773 2422
e: cedarusa@cedaraudio.com