From ‘Twister’ to ‘Twisters’: A Generation of Sound Art & Technology

When Twister premiered in May 1996, digital tools had become common in film and television production, but by no means everyday. Mag dubbers still filled machine rooms, though DAWs and hard drives had been moving in alongside. Neve introduced the DFC that year, and DVDs made their commercial debut. Netflix.com, which would deliver those DVDs by mail, was still two years from launch. By the time Twisters premiered in July 2024, re-energizing the thrill of going to a theater to see a summer blockbuster on the big screen, well…a lot had changed. In this special inaugural presentation of The Big Picture, moderator Tom Kenny sits down with two-time Oscar-winning supervising sound editor Stephen Flick and Dolby Atmos remix engineer Doug Mountain from Twister, and four-time (15 nominations) Oscar-winning re-recording mixer Christopher Boyes and Oscar-winning supervising sound editor/sound designer Al Nelson from Twisters, to talk about those generational advancements, while keeping in mind that though technologies may change, the art of sound storytelling remains the same.

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