Sound Recording
aka: location sound; sound mixing; sound for picture; recordist; sound recordist; soundie; audio recordist; sound engineer, audio engineer.
Sound is an invisible thread that weaves together the fabric of a film.
The following examples include selections from Fivel’s experience as a sound recordist for documentary, fiction, and commercial work.
Broadcast & Streaming
Untold: Hope Solo vs. U.S. Soccer
Sound mixer
“World Cup champion Hope Solo opens up about her turbulent rise to the top of women's soccer amid public scandals and tension with former teammates.”
Distribution: Netflix, 2024.
Untold: Carlsen vs. Niemann (in-progress)
Sound mixer
“…An explosive documentary on the drama and aftermath of the episode that shook the chess world in 2022.”
Distribution: Netflix, 2025 (not yet released)
Race for the Crown
Sound mixer
“This rousing documentary series tails jockeys, trainers and owners as they chase titles and triumph in the Triple Crown of thoroughbred horse racing.”
Distribution: Netflix, 2025.
Geese:
Alive &
In Person
Location sound mixer
Live album recording filmed at The Diamond Mine studio in Brooklyn.
"Perfect in every way. A masterpiece live album.” - Beneficial_Candle_10 Reddit user
Distribution: Tidal, 2023.
Sound mixer
“From Sha'Carri Richardson to Noah Lyles, for the very first time we will tell the full story of man and woman’s desire to be the fastest person on the planet. Witness the intense drama, motivation, and personalities behind the relentless pursuit of victory that is compressed into a few heart-stopping seconds.”
Distribution: Netflix, 2024
Sprint: The World’s Fastest Humans
The Latin Music Revolution
Location sound mixer
“Exploring the popularity, roots and evolution of Latin music and the young stars taking the industry by storm.”
Distribution: ABC & Hulu, 2024.
DOCUMENTARY
Sound mixer and producer
“LYD is a speculative documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd (now Lod) a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when the State of Israel was established in 1948.”
Directed by Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland, produced by Fivel Rothberg, Sawsan Asfari, executive produced by Roger Waters. Perinspire and Meerkat Media.
Distribution: Icarus Films & Watermelon Pictures
Lyd
Feature-length speculative documentary
2023
Select accolades:
Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary and FIPRESCI Award from the Film Critics Association, Amman International Film Festival 2023
Reel Palestine 2024
Hot Docs 2024
Vancouver International Film Festival 2024
Location sound mixer
“EMERGENT CITY chronicles a turbulent decade at the edge of a changing Brooklyn. As rents and sea levels rise, a new development fractures the community and forces it to confront the future of New York City’s last industrial waterfront.“
Directed by Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg
Produced by Kelly Anderson and Brenda Ávila-Hanna
Meerkat Media.
Distribution: POV, Summer 2025.
Emergent City
The Franchise
Location sound mixer
“The New York State prison system is a financial ecosystem that encompasses small rural towns and major forces of industry. The Franchise follows Alejo Rodriguez, a 56-year-old of Afro-Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who returns from prison after 32 years.”
Directed by Vee Bravo
Produced by Sabrina Schmidt Gordon
ITVS, in-production
Art21
Charles Gaines:
Systems & Structures
Location sound mixer
“Investigating the production of knowledge and culture, artist Charles Gaines uses rule-based systems to create paintings, drawings, musical compositions, and sculptures. Culminating in the completion of Moving Chains (2022), a 100-foot-long public sculpture, this film traces the connections Gaines makes between our lived experiences and the systems that shape them.”
Directed by Ian Forster and Sue Ding
Editor: Alexandra Brown
Camera: Sean Hanley, Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, Doug Potts
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2022
Hyeree Ro’s
Precise Ambiguity
Location sound mixer
“Pursuing the “precisely ambiguous,” Ro abstracts everyday objects, like paper packing trays or a dining table, from their original context and function to call attention to both their formal qualities as well as the emotional weight they can hold. This documentary short follows artist Hyeree Ro as she mines memories of road trips with her father and processes his recent passing through a new work, "Niro" (2024).
Director & Producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Editor: Yeon Park. Cinematography: Jane Macedo Yang
Sound: Pasquin Mariani, Fivel Rothberg
Series Producer: Nick Ravich
Art21 “New York Close Up,” 2025
Howardena Pindell:
Inner Circle
Location sound mixer
“For nearly six decades, artist Howardena Pindell has explored and expanded the language of abstraction while struggling against a racist and misogynistic culture. Pindell reflects on formative childhood memories, her confrontations with systemic prejudice, and the joy in being an artist.“
Director & producer: César Martínez Barba
Executive producer: Tina Kukielski
Series producer: Ian Forster
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2024
Drake Carr’s
Favorite Thing
Location sound mixer
“Amidst the disco balls of a queer dive bar or on the white walls of a commercial art gallery, artist Drake Carr exhibits his glamorous and heartfelt portraits of friends, peers, and fictional characters inspired by a deep affection for ‘80s fashion illustration and the D.I.Y. aesthetics of queer erotica. This documentary short captures the artist as he celebrates his final days as a bartender at Happyfun Hideaway and transitions to becoming a full-time artist.“
Director: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Editor: Faisal Azam.
Cinematography: Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers
Sound: Ana Fernández, Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “New York Close Up,” 2024
Hannah Levy's Adaptive Structures
Location sound mixer
“Steel and glass populate artist Hannah Levy’s 2023 exhibition Crutch at Casey Kaplan Gallery in New York City, taking familiar materials, forms, and structures and making them strange, even threatening. Levy’s work contemplates the human body, our anxieties about its fleshy materiality, how it interacts with the world around us, and its vulnerability.”
Director & producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Series Producer: Nick Ravich
Editor & Animator: Kira Dane
Cinematography: César Martínez Barba, Jane Macedo Yang
Sound: Ana Fernández, Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “New York Close Up,” 2024
Sarah Sze:
Emotional Time
Location sound mixer
“Bleeding into the museum walls, Sarah Sze’s River of Images (2023) is one of many site-specific works that call attention to the Guggenheim Museum’s unique design in Sze’s 2023 exhibition, Timelapse. Throughout the exhibition, the artist emphasizes how both art and architecture impact one’s experience of the world.”
Director & series producer: Ian Forster
Editor: Thomas Niles
Camera: Jarred Alterman, Sean Hanley, Rafael Salazar Moreno.
Sound: Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “Extended Play” 2024
Shahzia Sikander:
Melting Boundaries
Location sound mixer
“Sikander’s new sculptures build on the powerful depictions of the feminine in her previous work while incorporating new elements specific to the particular site and context of the public works. Witness symbolically bursts through the stained glass ceiling of the courthouse, the glass mosaic detailing of her hoop skirt depicting the shattered glass, while the jabot worn prominently by both figures calls to Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s feminization of the traditional black robes worn by justices of the United States Supreme Court”
Director & Producer: Andrea Yu-Chieh Chung
Series Producer: Ian Forster
Editor: Jiale Hu
Camera: Sean Hanley, Jane Macedo Yang, Doug Potts
Sound: Jan Midelfort, Fivel Rothberg
Art21 “Extended Play” 2023
Richard Mosse:
What the Camera Cannot See
Location sound mixer
“This film follows Mosse and his collaborators Ben Frost and Trevor Tweeten as they travel across the world to film under-reported world events in zones of conflict, repurposing surveillance technologies and scientific tools to capture stories and scenes that evoke deeper understanding and motivate audiences to act.”
Director and series producer: Ian Forster
Editor: Riley Hooper
Camera: Sean Hanley, Andrew Kemp, Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2022
Abigail DeVille:
Light of Freedom
Location sound mixer
“Sculptor and installation artist Abigail DeVille reveals the ideas and inspirations behind the making of her public art commission, Light of Freedom (2020). The large sculpture of a scaffolded torch, with flames composed of dozens of blue mannequin arms, was motivated by the Black Lives Matter marches of summer 2020.”
Produced by Ian Forster
Editor: Stephanie Andreou
Camera: Sean Hanley
Art21 “Extended Play,” 2021
FICTION & COMMERCIAL
Sound mixer
“Featuring Tallie Medel (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Sathya Sridharan (The Whale, Ben and Suzanne: A Reunion in Four Parts) and newcomer Charlie Reynolds tell the story of a woman who has a one night stand, and all of her shoes are stolen. She is determined to win them back.”
Director + Writer: Katherine Croft
Cinematographer: Maddy Talias
Producers: Betsy Laikin, Ana Vardi
Sole Pursuit
Fiction, 12 minutes, 2025
Sound mixer
“Bound by loyalty and a troubled past, a family of teenage runaways flees a botched bank robbery after one of their own is caught on camera. With capture imminent and their freedom at stake, they must decide their collective fate: to stay together or part ways forever.”
Director: Shawn Butcher
Cinematographer: Peter Garajszki
Writers: Shawn Butcher, Jon Boyer
Producers: Katherine Lillian Croft, Naomi Lex King, Ana Vardi
Lessons
Fiction, 13 minutes, 2024
Best Narrative Short - Sarasota Film Festival
La Gran Liga de Nueva York
Sound mixer
Branded content, 6 minutes, 2024
Director: Rodrigo Olivar
Remezcla Agency
Client: MLB
Sound mixer
Branded content, 3 minutes, 2025
Director: Travis Wood
Meerkat Media Cooperative
Client: AG1
AG1: Morning People
Sound mixer
Ad, 52 seconds, 2024
Director: Shawn Butcher
Goodie Two Shoes (GTS) Prod
Client: CoverGirl
CoverGirl: Clean Invisible
Sound mixer
Branded Content, multiple lengths, 2023
“Securing Your Success, a series that highlights small business success stories and the importance of connectivity within entrepreneurship”
Director: Sam Baumel
Cinematographer: Eric Arthur Fernandez
Entrepreneur Magazine
Client: Comcast
Entrepreneur:
Securing Your Success
