Cindy Takehara is a Japanese sound designer who loves what she does. And she is good at what she does.

Takehara realized she could have a successful career in sound design working on the film Suciedad Ltda. The film develops in a retro-futuristic world ruled by the monotony of the industry, where there is only one purpose in life: to live to work. The characters have been immersed in the everyday dullness inside the factory, when they face an unexpected change caused by one of them breaking the work routine. Their fate changes dramatically, and leads them to re-discover something they had long forgotten, the best human qualities: rationality, art, and love.

Takehara’s job as the sound designer for the was to create every single sound from scratch, without using any sound effects library. She did Foley recording, music recording and music composition, and re-recording mixing in a 5.1 surround sound system.

“Both the director, Andres Tudela, and I agreed that in the film it was crucial for it to create its own sonic print, taking into account that we are creating a fictional world, and these sonic elements will bring the story to life,” said Takehara.

The film went to the Short Film Corner at Cannes Film Festival in 2012. It continued on to the Mostra Latino Americana de Animação A Caverna in Brazil of that same year, as well as the International Festival of the New Latin Cinema – Habana Film Festival in Cuba. The next year, it went to the Udigrudi World Animation Convention – Mostra MUMIA in Brazil, the Ibero-American Short Film Festival -FIBABC in Spain, and the Bogoshorts Film Festival in Bogota, Colombia.

“Cindy knows what she’s capable of, but always stays humble. She’s really good at listening and suggesting ideas without imposing it. She’s a real team player,” said Tudela. “She is a visionary sound designer who can bring any fantasy world come to life. She did a great job on creating the soundscape for Suciedad Ltda. Without her creativity and skills, we wouldn’t have been able to make the animation happen.”

Tudela and Takehara met while in college at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Tudela recognized her talent immediately and invited her to take part in the project.

“Andres was the writer, animator and director on this animation, and he had very clear what he wanted regarding sound, but also he was very open to our suggestions. With the collaboration of the talented musician, Daniel Casas, we were able to build this imaginary world of Suciedad Ltda.,” said Takehara.

Takehara says she liked working on the film because of the aesthetic of the animation, and its strong view criticizing and depicting the dehumanization during the industrial revolution and modern everyday life.

“This format of animation gave me a freedom to express artistically using sound and music. No narrator was included and very minimal dialogue in this animation. The story and emotion was told only via picture, sound effects and music,” she said.

During the production phase, Takehara visited many places looking for any sound that could be useful for the short film; collecting different sounds to make a unique sound library specifically recorded for this animation. To create an industrial environment sound, she did some field recording of few workshops located in Bogota city and was able to record a couple of cooling engines, drills and bandsaw, and then added some layers of metallic hits to recreate the sound of people working in a factory.

The music soundtrack was composed, arranged and performed by Takehara and another sound designer. They implemented extended techniques on instruments such as piano, glockenspiel, and cymbals. Later, those sounds were sampled and used in a music sequencer.

“For the editing process, we took advantage of digital audio processing to convert the recorded sound effects into a completely new sound. The mix was made looking to engage the audience to the story,” she described. “I learned as a young sound designer that the power of music and sound is an important factor of storytelling.”

This knowledge aided Takehara on her work on the more recent film Remnants, which tells the story of an elderly successful writer struggles to reveal his dark and troubled past while suffering from Alzheimer’s. The film premiered during Endless Mountains Film Festival in Pennsylvania last month.

Takehara jumped at the opportunity to work on the film alongside award-winning cinematographer and AFI alumni, Justin Hong.

“It was my first time working with this crew, and it had several challenging scenarios and locations. It was extremely cold, we shot in the Angeles National Forest during Winter,” she said. “But overall it was a great production with some talented young actors.”

The performances, which Takehara herself describes as outstanding, received recognition at the festival. They were nominated for best actor and supporting actor and actress.

“It is such great script written by Al Plancher, a true storyteller. He was a pleasure to work with. He had very clear his vision for this film, and never hesitated to ask me any inquiries regarding sound during the production. And being in the forest allowed such beautiful cinematography by Justin Hong, who I have worked with previously,” said Takehara. “The whole crew displayed extraordinary professionalism.”

This film is a narrative drama with a lot of dialogue involved between the characters. There were a lot of movements with the actors that Takehara had to manage by changing the microphone position in order to get less clothing noises.

“There was a chasing scene where it was hard to get the cleanest dialogue due to harsh running movement, so we recorded several wild lines, giving better options to choose for the editor during the post production process,” she explained. “We also recorded not only the dialogue, but also several ambiences of the location and other sound effects that was useful to record on set.”

The film’s tagline is “always remember your future” and it looks like with Takehara’s abilities, she has a bright one to look forward to.

Michaela Angelique is proud to be a geek. In fact, she has made a career out of it.

Angelique is a camera department specialist for film and television, and has always had a “nerdy” love for cameras that has paid off in her later life.

“Cameras are changing every year,” she said. “They always release new cameras each year, and I am not talking about still cameras, I am talking about motion pictures.”

Angelique, who is from Jakarta, Indonesia, has been having success in Hollywood behind the camera. She has worked with Snoop Dogg, Melissa McCarthy, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Hough, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, John Hawkes, Michael Kelly, Dick Van Dyke, Ioan Gruffudd, Vanessa Hudgens, and Mariah Carey, to name a few.

She recently worked on the film Kiss Kiss Fingerbang starring Buck Henry (The Graduate), Kate Lyn Sheil (House of Cards) and the late Anton Yelchin (Star Trek). The film was written and directed by Gillian Wallace Horvat. The film is about a young, sweet doctor discovers his dark side when he discovers his girlfriend’s hidden passion, which the title alludes to.  The film premiered at Beyond Fest at the Egyptian Theater last October, and has since been in many other film festivals and competitions.

“Working on Kiss Kiss Fingerbang was a lot of fun. There are not many movies that describe this kind of story. I found it very genuine and odd and sweet, funny, and quirky.” said Angelique. “What I really can remember is working with Anton. He was such a great actor. He was a true professional to work with.”

Angelique also worked closely with Olivia Kuan, the directory of photography on the film.

“We had fun amazing time together. Olivia is always great to work with,” said Angelique.

The two have worked together in the past, and it was Kuan who recruited her to work on Kiss Kiss Fingerbang after being impressed with her talent in the past.

“Michaela is always my first call when I have a film coming up. She is always eager to work with me to make the movie as good as it can be. Her demeanor is poised and confident when she is on set. She collaborates well with the actors, producers, and all other departments. To the other people in her department, she is a firm but fair leader. She keeps all the gears moving as she manages her crew without losing her cool. All her ideas are intuitive to story and the visual telling of it. When she offers them, she does so respectfully,” said Kuan. “Her technical knowledge is invaluable to me and I can trust her fully with caring for the equipment. But most importantly, she is an excellent focus puller. She is easily the best in my roster. A movie with out of focus shots risks failure, but this is not a risk I feel I have to take if Michaela is on board. She is a perfectionist. If anything feels even minutely wrong with the timing or look of a shot, she will speak up to ensure we can get it right.”

Pulling focus is a term all not may be familiar with, but it is one of Angelique’s specialties and contributes to her many achievements.

“People don’t know sometimes that when the shot has two actors where one actor looks soft and another one looks sharp, it’s actually the job of the first camera assistant. They pull the focus to anything and anyone that needs to be sharp,” she described. “The camera does not move itself. That’s my job.”

And it’s no easy job. Angelique has to change lenses, filters, and carry around the camera, which is no small feat, as a camera weighs between forty and sixty pounds. I always try to get a prep day from production so I know that what cameras and gears that can fit into it together.

“I am in charge of changing all the settings and all the gears on the camera and accessories that fits into specific situation,” she said.

Angelique enjoys every aspect of her job, which is everybody’s goal.

“I love my job,” she concluded. “It is always different, each set is different, and working with either the same people or new people is always awesome and interesting.”