Telling Story Through Sound and Music with the Team Behind MATERIALISTS | Presented by the Dolby Creator Lab

Celine Song is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and filmmaker whose signature blend of emotional depth, intelligence, and humor has established her as an essential voice in today’s entertainment landscape.

Upcoming, Song presents her highly anticipated sophomore feature, Materialists, releasing internationally on June 13 through A24 and Sony Pictures. Written, directed, and produced by Song, the film follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a young, ambitious New York City matchmaker torn between the perfect match (Pedro Pascal) and her imperfect ex (Chris Evans). Materialists—clear-eyed and sensitive—is above all a piercingly honest examination of the contradictions of modern love and dating.

Released by A24 in Summer 2023 following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Song's feature debut Past Lives has received widespread critical acclaim. The film earned Academy Award® nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture, alongside numerous other honors including the Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Feature Film, Best Feature Film at the 2023 Gotham Awards, the Film Independent Spirit Award for both Best Picture and Best Director, as well as Golden Globe®, Critics’ Choice, and BAFTA nominations.

As a playwright, Song is best known for Endlings, which premiered in 2019 at American Repertory Theater and had its New York debut in 2020 at New York Theatre Workshop. She has been a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award. Song also wrote on the first season of Amazon series The Wheel of Time.

Glenn Kiser is the Director of the Dolby Creator Lab, Dolby’s initiative to bring education and inspiration to filmmakers and content creators about the creative use of sound and picture in storytelling. Previously, Kiser was the VP & General Manager of Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound, where he oversaw sound work on film projects such as Avatar, The Incredibles, the Star Wars prequels, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter films. 

Before joining Skywalker, Kiser was a post-production executive at Propaganda Films, where he worked with directors including David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Jane Campion, and Neil LaBute. Fun facts: Glenn played a mean tuba in high school, and at one time Marlon Brando called him obsessively for two weeks. 

He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Daniel Timmons is an Emmy-winning sound supervisor and mixer who started his career in live sound before transitioning to post-production. With his wealth of experience, Dan brings a sense of realism to his collaborations with esteemed documentarians and filmmakers including Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus, Jesse Moss, Thomas Kail, and Derek Cianfrance.

Dan has been recognized for his exceptional work, having received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards for What Happened, Miss Simone? and Going Clear: Scientology and The Prison of Belief. Additionally, he has been nominated for two MPSE Golden Reel Awards, one for What Happened, Miss Simone? and the other for Disney’s Hamilton. For his sound design on director Liz Garbus’ biopic film Becoming Cousteau, Dan was a finalist for a 2022 HPA Award. And in 2019, he was the recipient of the George Foster Peabody for his work on Emelie Mahdavian’s Midnight Traveler.

Dan’s recent credits include Ray Romano’s Somewhere in Queens, Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, HBO’s Tokyo Vice, Jesse Moss’ Mayor Pete, and Alex Gibney’s Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, and Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos.

Most recently, Dan was nominated for a 2024 Primetime Emmy for Best Sound Editing for his work on Jim Henson: Idea Man.

Daniel Pemberton is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy winning composer and songwriter who has regularly been cited as one of the most exciting and original new voices working in modern film scoring today. He has scored films for some of the industry’s most legendary figures such as Ridley Scott (All the Money in the World, The Counselor), Michael Mann (Ferrari), Danny Boyle (Yesterday, Steve Jobs), Aaron Sorkin (Being The Ricardos, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Molly’s Game), Celine Song (Materialists), Ari Aster (Eddington) David O Russell (Amsterdam), Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Edward Norton (Motherless Brooklyn) and Guy Ritchie (The Man From U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) and written songs with the likes of Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Busta Rhymes, Drake, Celeste and many more.

He has been nominated five times as Film Composer Of The Year for his vastly broad range of work by the World Soundtrack Awards (WSA) as well as winning the prestigious honour in 2021 from both the WSA and also the international film music critics association IFMCA. He was nominated for an Annie Award for his work on the original The Bad Guys film in 2023 and won the award in 2024 for his score to Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. Pemberton received a 2021 Best Original Song Oscar nomination for “Hear My Voice” (performed and co-written by Celeste) from Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. Pemberton has also received multiple Golden Globe nominations for projects including his neo-noir score to Motherless Brooklyn, his mix of opera and electronics for Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and for the songs “Hear My Voice” and “Gold” (performed and co- written by Iggy Pop). His score for Being The Ricardos was Oscar shortlisted and BAFTA nominated.

Comfortable composing for everything from rock bands to symphonic orchestras, record-scratchers to jazz quintets, Pemberton’s innovative scores have consistently been singled out for critical acclaim. His other credits include studio films such as Enola Holmes, The Bad Guys, Birds of Prey and Ocean’s Eight as well as smaller independent features such as the Sundance winner Brian And Charles, acclaimed Thai caves documentary The Rescue (for which he won the Critics Choice Original Score award), Cannes Palme d’Or competitor Mal de Pierres or the powerful Paralympics documentary Rising Phoenix, for which Pemberton won a Sports Emmy Award for Best Music Direction. He also works in series on shows such as Black Mirror and espionage thriller Slow Horses, including co-writing its BAFTA nominated main title theme song “Strange Game” with Mick Jagger.

Josh Berger is a highly regarded re-recording mixer, known for his exceptional work on both narrative and documentary projects. He has collaborated with revered directors, such as Ken Burns, Ron Howard, Reinaldo Marcus Green, Steven Soderbergh, James Gray, and Alan Yang.

Notable credits include James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard, Hulu’s Not Okay, and the Amazon series, Outer Range.

In the documentary world, Josh has contributed to several award-winning titles, including Ken Burns’ College Behind Bars, The U.S. and the Holocaust, Benjamin Franklin, and Hemingway. He recently completed Martin Scorsese’s Personality Crisis: One Night Only.

Josh’s meticulous approach to his craft has earned him widespread recognition, including a New York Emmy Award for his work on Billy Joel: New York State of Mind and nominations for White Hot Spotlight: Billy Joel and the Greatest Arena Run of All Time, Master of None (Season 2), and College Behind Bars. His work has also been showcased at numerous film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, NYFF, Tribeca, and Sundance.