Working at Zoetrope with Ear Wax for Stanford Hospital

Standing at the microphone at the historic Zoetrope Studios.

       In the middle of San Francisco’s North Beach district is a rather unique building. Besides it having been built right smack in the middle of the 1906 earthquake and being one of the narrowest office buildings you might ever see, this 7 or 8 story building belongs to Francis Ford Coppola and is the home of a most unique recording/ post studio, which is where you will now find Jim McKee and his company Earwax.

The studio is through an unmarked door in this restaurant kitchen.

You actually get to the studio by walking through the kitchen of a restaurant. In what may have been a speakeasy at one time, with it’s dark walnut walls and saloon overtones, we find what was once known as Zoetrope Studios. According to Jim, despite it still being used for a lot of Coppola’s projects, the studio doesn’t really have a name anymore. They just call it the studio. It is here that much of the ADR, dubbing, Foley and v.o. sessions for movies like the Godfather and Apocalypse Now took place. In fact, the day before my session, Martin Sheen was there recording a little dialog for some sort of sound sweetening to the original soundtrack. The day I was there, the actual film masters for Apocalypse Now were sitting right behind me as we recorded. Cables and other gear lay about in empty Sophia wine boxes, the wine from Coppola’s Napa winery.

This photograph in the lobby shows the construction in 1906.

      Working with Producer, Christopher St. John, we put together 8 radio scripts for client Stanford Hospital as part of a co-promotion they are conducting with the San Francisco 49ers.

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