Alan Splet

Alan Splet
Born	December 31, 1939
Died	December 2, 1994(1994-12-02) (aged 54) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Sound designer and editor
Spouse	Ann Kroeber

Alan Splet (December 31, 1939 – December 2, 1994) was an American sound designer and sound editor known for his collaborations with director David Lynch on Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Dune, and Blue Velvet.^[1]

Due to being legally blind, Splet rarely traveled and mainly worked from Berkeley, California.^[2] In 1980, he won an Oscar for his work on the film The Black Stallion. He did not attend the Academy Award ceremony and became the butt of several jokes by host Johnny Carson throughout the remainder of the telecast.^[3] He was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing for Never Cry Wolf.^[4] In 1995, The Motion Picture Sound Editors union posthumously honored Splet with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his creative contributions to the field of cinema audio.^[5]

Splet was married to sound effects designer Ann Kroeber, and collaborated with her on most of his projects from 1979 until his death in 1994.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1970	The Grandmother	David Lynch	short film
1976	In the Region of Ice	Peter Werner	Sound design
1977	Eraserhead	David Lynch	see Eraserhead soundtrack
1978	Days of Heaven	Terrence Malick	additional sound effects
1979	The Black Stallion	Carroll Ballard	Special Achievement Academy Award
1980	The Elephant Man	David Lynch
1983	Never Cry Wolf	Carroll Ballard	Academy Award nomination
1984	Dune	David Lynch
1986	Blue Velvet	David Lynch
1986	The Mosquito Coast	Peter Weir
1988	The Unbearable Lightness of Being	Philip Kaufman
1988	Dirty Rotten Scoundrels	Frank Oz
1989	Winter People	Ted Kotcheff
1989	Weekend at Bernie's	Ted Kotcheff
1989	Dead Poets Society	Peter Weir
1990	Mountains of the Moon	Bob Rafelson
1990	Henry & June	Philip Kaufman
1991	Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead	Stephen Herek
1991	At Play in the Fields of the Lord	Hector Babenco
1992	Wind	Carroll Ballard
1993	Rising Sun	Philip Kaufman
1996	The English Patient	Anthony Minghella	died during production; replaced by Walter Murch

References

1. Woodward, Richard B. (May 13, 2014). "Snapping, Humming, Buzzing, Banging: Remembering Alan Splet". The Paris Review.
2. Luers, Erik (12 April 2022). "Editor Duwayne Dunham on Collaborating with David Lynch on Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks | Filmmaker Magazine". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 4 June 2022.
3. "And the Winner Is...Alan Splet, Who Became a Household Word by Skipping the Oscars". People Magazine. May 5, 1980. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
4. "The 56th Academy Awards (1984) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
5. "Milestones in the History of the MPSE". Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.

External links

• Alan Splet at IMDb
• "Eraserheads" the last part of Christopher Cook's "Dancing Shadows" series about sound design in film, originally aired on BBC Radio 4, 20.2.2001, repeated 25.3.2002
• Eraserhead Interview