Burbank, CA—It was a true-life Marvel Team-Up when Marvel Studios and Make-A-Wish took a young, aspiring audio engineer behind the scenes, granting his wish to learn more about film sound editing as he spent a day with the audio post team on the Marvel hit, Black Widow.
Seth Wise lives with a blood disorder, but has long dreamed of working in the industry as a sound engineer. In February 2020, he and his family traveled from their hometown of Roswell, Georgia, to visit The Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California, in order to make that wish come true.
While the trip included a tour of the studio lot and a visit to Marvel Studios’ headquarters, the high-point was meeting the sound editing team. Wise participated in a mixing session of the film and sat with different sound teams to learn more about how each group contributes to the audio elements of a scene. “I learned how much work goes into bringing movies to life,” he said, adding, “I gained a lot of respect for the industry.”
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Like many engineers, Wise discovered audio mixing while in high school, tackling sound for stage performances, so his wish became an opportunity to see other ways his interest could be channeled. “Sound became something that I could control, and my wish gave me a chance to see the industry up close and personal,” he said.
While Black Widow’s opening was ultimately delayed over a year due to the pandemic, the aspiring engineer still caught the first showing at his local theater, ready to hear the finalized sound elements in the scenes he got to work on. In honor of his experience with the sound editing team during his wish day, Wise’s name has been included in the film’s end credits as the team’s sound intern.
Inspired by the experience, Wise is now studying audio production in college, and is additionally working at Cedar Point, an amusement park in Ohio, as an audio engineer for the summer as he prepares for a future in the sound industry.
