Cecelia Hall

Cece Hall is an Academy Award winning sound designer and teacher who has been an advocate for visionary filmmakers for more than twenty years. She was the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing for Top Gun and she went on to win the Oscar for The Hunt for Red October, a film for which she also received a British BAFTA nomination. Hall has been nominated for numerous Motion Picture Sound Editor Golden Reel Awards, winning for both Something So Right and Top Gun. Hall began her career as an independent editor before landing at Paramount Pictures, where she was the first woman to be hired in the sound-editing department. After successfully Supervising many feature films, she was promoted to Senior Vice-President of Post Production Sound, where she oversaw numerous projects including The Hours, Stop-Loss, The Italian Job, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and the EB White classic Charolotte's Web. Additionally, she worked with Paramount's subsidiary companies, Vantage, MTV and Nickelodeon shepherding the sound design for films such as Nacho Libre, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', Black Snake Moan, and Academy Award winner Hustle & Flow. Her collaborative and creative approach to sound has spawned lasting creative relationships with many of today's most respected filmmakers, including Scott Rudin, Peter Weir, Jerry Bruckheimer, Tony Scott and Tim Burton. In 1995, Hall was invited to teach at the UCLA Graduate School of Theatre, Film and Television/Media and she is still the only professor teaching sound design. In addition to teaching at UCLA, Hall has taken residencies at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and California State University, Monterey as well as numerous panels and seminars on sound design. She describes her work in the classroom as the natural extension of her work as a Sound Designer, finding it more creative and inspiring. Along with teaching, Hall now works independently as a sound consultant. Her work varies from creative counseling, to handpicking and supervising sound teams for independent features. Hall recently completed work on the HBO film A Small Act, which garnered an Emmy nomination and the Humanitas Prize. Hall has been the subject of numerous interviews and articles on Sound Design and women working in Hollywood. She is profiled in: Sound Design for Film, Working in Hollywood, The Women Who Run Hollywood and, most recently, The Editors Guild Magazine. When not working in Los Angeles, she loves to travel and tries to spend at least one month a year in Italy sampling the local delicacies and tasting wine.