The Mind Creative March 2014
The list of movies (and he has worked on over 200 movies) sounds
like the who’s who of blockbusters. He has engineered and mixed
the sound for movies such as The Big Chill, The Gremlins,
Spiderman, The Muppets, Terms of Endearment, Armageddon,
The Mask of Zorro and Transformers. Strangely enough, the
Cinema Audio Society has nominated him for the Outstanding
Achievement Award 12 times and he has not won that either!
With fellow sound engineer Greg Russell, his long-time partner
Sound mixing and engineering for films is a complex task and it
brings together the dialogues in the movie, the special effects and
the background music score. This needs exceptional skills and an
ear trained to find that fine balance between these three things.
As per film director Michael Bay, “a movie without sound or bad
sound changes its entire vibe.” O’Connell is a testimony to the fact
that this is often overlooked or given secondary consideration.
19