Supervising Sound Editor and Designer Lon Bender Joins Formosa Group

Oscar winning supervising sound editor and sound designer Lon Bender has boarded Formosa Group.

Bender was one of the founders of Soundelux (now Todd-Soundelux), where he worked for more than 30 years. He admitted, “it was a difficult decision to leave the company… and the friends working there,” but added that he felt the Formosa community was a good fit due to “the creative people and the support people.”

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The sound pro actually reteams with some of his former colleagues at Formosa Group, which opened in 2013. The team includes Odin Benitez, Scott M. Gershin, Per Hallberg, Greg Hedgepath, Andy Koyama, Karen Baker Landers, Mark Mangini, Julian Slater, Mark Stoeckinger, Todd Toon, and Martyn Zub.

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Bender won an Oscar, a BAFTA and two Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards for the sound effects editing for Braveheart (shared with Hallberg). He also won Golden Reel Awards for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas.

Additionally, Bender earned additional Oscar nominations for Drive and Blood Diamond, and BAFTAs for Shrek and The Last of the Mohicans. He won a Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the Advanced Data Encoding System.

Next, Bender plans to work on Ed Zwick’s Pawn Sacrifice; Eliza Graves, based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe and directed by Brad Anderson; and the currently titled How To Catch A Monster, helmed by Ryan Gosling.

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Separately, Formosa Group recently formed a Formosa Music Group unit to provide music editorial services for feature films and television. The effort is led by music editors Bill Abbott (Oz the Great and Powerful) and Kenneth Karman (The Lone Ranger). Leigh Kotkin is director of music editorial services. Current projects include Transformers: Age of Extinction, Godzilla and Mr. Peabody & Sherman.

Formosa Group is headquartered at The Lot in West Hollywood, and additionally maintains a second West Hollywood facility, Formosa 66; a westside facility, Formosa West; and a Formosa Music Group base at the Pacific Design Center.

E-mail: Carolyn.Giardina@THR.com

Twitter: @CGinLA