About Us

WE WATCH FOR SOUND

As a group, we sometimes think we’re ears with bodies hanging down. We listen to street sounds; we record them; we listen to Foley artists – making a fire crackle, a distant plane hum, a dog howl, a city erupt in flames. We listen to music – our own, everybody’s. We listen to you. To our guts. We master excitement! Thrilling you with what we do is the greatest sound in the world.

AND EVERY OTHER DETAIL

“The Boss” is fond of describing us as a high speed/low drag team. Think well-lubed engine; raring to go engine; the kind that makes you feel like a million bucks as it purrs and does its thing. That’s us. We work until it’s right. We leave no stone, no sound, unturned. Our clients are Numero Uno. We’re committed to working for you and with you to your greatest satisfaction. You have our guarantee that we’ll pass the toughest Quality Control test. 100% - if not more.

CLIENT HAPPY

We want to make you happy; that’s why we attract the wonderful clients we do. You’ll find that we work seamlessly together, providing full attention to detail at every level of the process: from the Sound Supervision and Sound Design to the ADR and mix. Our bios are here to give you a sense of why and how we drive this engine on your behalf.

 

 

Christian Dwiggins

Sound Supervisor, Lead Re-Recording Mixer

aka “The Boss”

Sound As We See It

“The real test of how good our work is comes when we watch scenes with the picture off. This allows us to REALLY LISTEN; no meters, no picture, just sound. The greatest soundtrack in the world isn’t good if it isn’t telling the right story. We listen for the dramatic threads woven by sound; the emotions evoked.”

Making Sound Decisions

Christian is a big advocate of the Dolby concept of fidelity, of technology serving the content, not the other way around. “The point is not messing with the original intent of the  art.” It’s easy to let tech gimmickry take over. We never lose sight of what the project is intended to do, which guides us to create whatever sound, huge to hushed, it should have.

The Musician Meets The Marine

To meet Christian is to meet a fairly laid-back guy. It surprises people to learn that he was a U.S. Marine for eight years, becoming a Non-Commissioned Officer of the Tactical Satellite Communications Platoon. The experience provided him with remarkable discipline and a heightened awareness of making things happen. “The massive attention to detail we bring to every project is a direct result of my Marine Corps training.” Discipline, focus, never giving up: this is the Marine part of "The Boss".

Feeling The Sound

His audio background is what you’d like for the guy in charge of your sound: years of working in the music and video businesses; then on to Post. And, like his teammates at Engine Room, he’s a musician. He strongly believes that sound has to evoke a response. Whether it’s a bang! a whisper or a tidal wave approaching, “Emotions are powerful communicators.” he says.

Some Noteworthy Credits

Christian’s produced projects for Dave Navarro, DJ Scribble, Steve Aoki and Thrive Records, mastering the soundtracks for films like “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Flags of Our Fathers.” He’s also been Supervising Sound Editor and Lead Mixer for the feature films “Fix”, “Green Street Hooligans 2”, and "The Key Man", as well as Supervising Sound Editor for “The Killing Room.” The list goes on. Among his credits, he mixed eight of Billboard’s Top 50 Dance Club Play tracks, including cuts by Nellie Furtado and Hillary Duff.

R.D. White
Sound Supervisor/Sound Designer
aka “Resident Noisemaker”

Weird But True

R.D. is like a human sound machine. He’s in the studio all day and moonlights by producing music and DJ’ing. His ears are kept busy. “I had them checked recently,” he says with a big smile. The ear specialist told me I have far better than normal hearing. I hear everything.”

Hearing What Others Don’t

“I’m grateful for this gift. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s part of what enables me to bring a lot of dimension to what I’m working on. To be able to pick sound apart, to add greater dimension to it – that’s where I shine.”

What Are The Pictures Saying?

Remember the story about Michaelangelo pointing to a slab of marble and saying, “The statue is already in there”? R.D. and the team share this same artistic point of view: that it’s already there. It needs to be discerned, designed and created. “I listen for what the picture tells me. It’s already there if you’re tuned in.” And R.D. is one very tuned-in noisemaker.

Rules and Bending Them

“Rule books are not my favorite things,” he’ll say, laughing at himself. “I’m not good with cookie-cutter stuff. Or some formula that says, ‘It has to be this way, or that.’ Discipline is great. Paying extreme attention to sound is vital. But, to me, there’s no formula-fits-all.” Maybe this is why he designs sound that brings real individuality to your project: it’s yours, no one else’s.

A Musician’s Ear for Sound

In addition to his film and television credits through ERS, R.D. has an impressive music resume: a sample loop library for Sony Pictures, audio sculpting for the commercial music production group MusicKvergnugen and composing electronic beat structures for Hans Zimmer and Jay Rifkin’s film scoring company, Media Ventures. He also pumps his electronic sounds worldwide through distribution on several UK labels and his own music label, The Designed Disorder (exactly what a rule-breaker would name his label).

Mike Risha -
Dialog Editor/ADR/Mixer
aka “Tech Wiz”

It's The Tools

Mike is fascinated by how things work. He can take a sophisticated piece of equipment apart and put it back together again. Or build it from scratch. Which is how he works with sound.

Coming Clean

He’ll tell you, “Any dialog track has “debris” – pops and hisses or extraneous sound issues – that interfere with what you really want to hear.” You’ll find Mike’s a wiz at cleaning it up. He gets rid of all the nuisance noise – some obvious, some not – that would negatively affect your product. He has an ear for this stuff – literally; and works meticulously to get the track sounding as clean as it’s ever going to sound.

Making It Better Than Good

Our ‘tech wiz’ describes himself as a born troubleshooter. “I’ll keep at it until I find how to make it work better. My focus is adding a creative element to the dialog. For instance, it’s making the bad guys sound a bit darker and dirtier. I know how to do that.” For Mike and clients of Engine Room, picking up on all kinds of little nuances makes a big difference.

“My Life Is Sound. I Don’t Rest Until I Get It Right.”

He’s a sound nut. A musician. A research nut. It’s an unusual combination he brings to his work: Art advanced by Science. “I’m always searching for a better tool; the newest what’s-out-there. I’ll test tools to the extremes at both ends. I’m into technical research. I tend to see new, what’s-coming stuff before anybody.”

The Ears To Back It Up

Project highlights for Mike include mixing for “Lawrence of America” for the Travel Channel and dialog editing for Adult Swim’s “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job,” as well as additional dialog editing for feature films. Before ERS, Mike gained valuable experience assisting world-famous house music deejay, DJ Dan, and produced a few charted house tracks.

Stephanie Luciano-Smith,
Executive Producer/GM
aka “The Glue”

Super Glue In Fact

Passionista! That’s Stephanie. Passionate about keeping track of everything that’s going on; negotiating, coordinating, moving it all along. The minute you meet her, you’ll know you’re in great hands. She’s the point person whomakes your experience at Engine Room as enjoyable as it is worthwhile.

 

 

With Stephanie, Consider It Done

She’s the one clients come to for all matters involving booking, deadlines, keeping the project on track, on time – and arriving at a fee that’s music to your ears, as well as ours.

All By Way of Repping DJs & Hip-Hop Artists

When she was all of 23, this dynamo started her own booking agency – within 3 years she sold it to 3rd largest agency in North America and continued agenting for them, representing a host of DJ, Electronic Music and Hip Hop talent.

Talent Says It All

Stephanie loves talent; that’s what got her to Engine Room. She and Christian go way back to his days at Moonshine Records. They share an affinity for great sound and the talent to make it happen. She decided it wasn’t as big a leap as it might have seemed to turn her attention away from Agenting to Managing: a key part of her role at Engine Room.

Music, Music, Music

Stephanie's professional experience is matched only by her love for music. Music has always played a prevalent role in her life. Stephanie brings a raw passion to her work and, for that matter any project she takes on, that lifts up everyone that she comes in contact with.

Details & Dynamite

You’ll find she’s an unusual combination of a detail-oriented person helping to create dynamite results for you. Follow through? You got it. Question? She’ll answer it. Making business a pleasure? Ask our clients. The same ones who keep coming back for the service – as well as the earmaginative work that gets done here.