Walter Murch (born 1943) is an Academy award winning film/sound editor. He started editing sound with Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People. From there, he worked on American Graffiti and The Godfather, Part II before winning an Oscar nomination for his efforts with sound in The Conversation. In 1980, he won an Oscar for sound in Apocalypse Now. While working on Apocalypse Now, Walter coined the term "Sound Designer", and along with colleagues helped to elevate the art and impact of film sound to a new level. In 1997, Murch won two more Oscars for his work on The English Patient, one in sound and the other in editing. He has since become both an acclaimed film editor and sound designer/editor. He has directed one film, Return to Oz.
He is known to prefer editing while standing up. In 2003, Murch edited the Anthony Minghella film Cold Mountain on Apple's sub-$1000 Final Cut Pro software using off the shelf G4's. This was a leap for such a big budgeted film, where expensive Avid systems are usually the standard NLE tool. His efforts on the film were documented in the 2005 book Behind the Seen.
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