The next time you sit in a darkened theater watching a movie on the big screen, close your eyes for a few minutes and just listen.

You might be hearing music. You might be hearing dialogue. You might just be listening to the sound of a door closing or the rustle of a woman’s skirt.

All of those things are the magic of sound editing.

And Brian Chumney is one of the wizards.

The Franklin native is the supervising sound editor for West Side Story, nominated for seven Academy Awards, including sound. An adaption of the 1957 musical, it was directed by Steven Spielberg, who already has two Academy Awards (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) and seven nominations for Best Director and another six nominations and one win (Schindler’s List) for Best Picture.

A graduate of Williamson County’s Grassland elementary and middle schools, Franklin High School and Middle Tennessee State University, Chumney started to major in chemistry. And, in a way, that is exactly what he’s doing now at the prestigious Skywalker Sound in San Francisco.

Film is an equal partnership between what viewers see and what they hear. Sometimes it hits you in the face like the sound of an explosion. And sometimes it’s a whisper, the momentary silence. The weaving of those two extremes and everything in between propels the visual story forward.

Chumney

“I was always into music and movies, but I never thought it was going to be something I could do,” says Chumney, now 46. “I wanted to have a practical job opportunity, so I went into chemistry. I got about halfway through my junior year and I was getting burned out with all the labs.

“I was reading the program book, what can I do, and I found the description of one class in the recording industry program. It’s one of the best in the country. “Hard Disk-Based Audio Post Production” was the name of the class. It was the worst name, but it was exactly what I wanted to do.”

MTSU’s Department of Recording Industry, founded in 1973, is nationally regarded as one of the best programs of its kind in the country.

“We’re one of the oldest programs dealing with the recording industry,” says Matt Foglia, the audio production program coordinator. “People in the business see the quality of the students, which is something we’re very proud of. We have some solid graduates who are very well versed and have a good work ethic.”

After graduation, Chumney moved to San Francisco without a job because he had one singular goal, to work for Skywalker Sound, a division of Lucasfilm. The trio of professionals Chumney calls the Mount Rushmore of sound – Walter Murch, Gary Rydstrom and Randy Thom – all were affiliated with Skywalker.

“If you’re at Skywalker, you’re at the top of your game,” Foglia points out. “Any client knows their product is going to be attended to at the highest levels.”

After two months, Chumney found work at LucasArts, the gaming division of Lucasfilm. He wasn’t through the door of Skywalker, but at least he was under the bigger tent.

West Side Story also is nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best production design and best costumes.

-- Movie Still Courtesy Of 20Th Century Studios

“At the time they were the video game company,” Chumney says. “I did product testing and support. I was there for a year and two months and then I got an opportunity to go to Skywalker Sound as a digital audio technician. That’s how I got in.

“It was a great blending of skills I got in college and at LucasArts. It was working with all the people I admired. I was the guy who would come in and help them out when they had computer problems.”

He was offered a job as an assistant sound editor a year and a-half later. And Chumney was off to the races, complete with sound effects.

The final mix

Sound editing is a team sport. When a filmmaker contracts with Skywalker to produce the sound for a film, three crews are assembled, the first two being dialogue editors and the second sound effects editors.

The third is a category few average moviegoers have heard of – the Foley editors. Named after sound-effects editor Jack Foley, these editors produce everyday sounds such as a door closing or breaking glass.

Footsteps are a common sound and are produced in a very basic way. A Foley editor puts on a pair of shoes and matches the sound to the visuals on the screen.

“We were recreating New York in the 1950s,” Chumney says of his work on West Side Story.

-- Movie Still Courtesy Of 20Th Century Studios

“So if it’s Tony and Maria dancing, (the editor) will put on a man’s shoe and perform Tony and put on a different shoe and perform Maria’s stepping,” explains Chumney of the two main characters in West Side Story.

After all the sounds are added to the film, it goes to the post-production mixers and they make it play as one correct unit. In the pre-mix stage, Chumney says the mixers focus on the various sound components.

The final mix brings everything together.

“We work in chunks called reels,” Chumney says. “Your average film is five or six reels long. West Side Story was around nine reels. You work in 15- to 20-minute stretches.

“In the final mix, we’re working closely with the director. Some directors are there every minute. Some are just there for a day. By the end of the final mix, we’ve accomplished the director’s vision and it is blessed and it is done.”

Golden Reel wins

While an Oscar nomination is prestigious, another award is meaningful to sound editors – the Golden Reel Award presented by the Motion Picture Sound Editors. Chumney has had numerous nominations and wins – for Bridge of Spies in 2015 and Carne y Arena in 2017.

Chumney is nominated for an Oscar along with Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy for West Side Story, but he emphasizes that so many more were crucial to the editing of the movie.

“The Oscars seem so singular in that there are five of us nominated, but we have so many more people in our crew that the award is really for,” he says. “I wish everyone on our crew got their name recognized. We’re very fortunate to have such a great team of people.”

Thom, the veteran sound editor at Skywalker, says he sees sound as an artistic medium rather than a technical one.

“You know, when I got the Oscar for ‘The Incredibles,’ my little political speech was that these aren’t technical awards,” he told The Washington Post. “Technical awards are given to people who design equipment. The people who edit films and do visual effects and do sound for films are judged on their artistic judgment, not on how fast they can turn knobs or how well they use software.

“What I want to hear about is what sounds are in the film and how well they propel the story, and how well they’re integrated into the story.”

Chumney says the Oscar nomination is a recognition of the unique nature of the project. “I think the size, the scope and the importance of West Side Story is very special and the opportunities that the sound crew had were very unique.

“We were recreating New York in the 1950s. George Lucas said that sound is 50% of the motion picture experience, and the sound for West Side Story is half of what made that movie so special.”