Frank Serafine
Frank Serafine was an American motion picture sound designer, sound editor, and composer. He is best known for his work as a sound editor and sound designer on films including the Star Trek and Tron series, The Addams Family, The Fog, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Robot Jox, Ice Pirates, Hoodwinked 2, Orgazmo, The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, and Field of Dreams. He has received numerous awards, such as an Emmy Award for Sound Design on The Day After and an Academy Award for Best Sound for The Hunt for Red October.
Early career
After performing live with progressive rock guitarist Robben Ford and producing laser light shows at the Fiske Planetarium in Boulder, Colorado, Serafine was selected by Disneyland to compose and produce live grand opening summer shows at the Space Mountain Pavilion which brought him to Southern California. Shortly after, he created several records and toured live throughout Europe and the US with avant-garde jazz trumpeter Don Cherry.Serafine produced music with his friend and music teacher Ravi Shankar, along with George Harrison on Tana Mana. He produced the remixed Peter Gabriel "Kiss that Frog” travelling Pepsi ride film with William Orbit, which won the MTV Award in 1993. In the same year Serafine worked on sound design live on stage with Gabriel's Secret World Concert Tour for the shows in California and Phoenix, Arizona.
Sound Designer
Beginning his film career in the 1970s, Serafine worked on engineering sound effects on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and both Tron films.Serafine made hundreds of commercials and TV episodes including Baywatch, VR.5, Thunder in Paradise, 13 years of Chrysler, CBS and FOX IDs, Energizer Bunny series, Nintendo, National Geographic ID, Mercedes, Maserati, California Lottery, Seaworld, and Disney's California Adventure Park.
He supervised the audio production, acoustic design and construction installations for several ride films and interactive themed attractions with Six Flags, Busch Gardens, The Henry Ford, Disney, Epcot Center, Iwerks, Universal, and Sony.
Serafine's game credits include TRON, Grand Theft Auto, Pocahontas, Wing Commander, Interstate '76, and The Suffering. Frank was commissioned to produce two CDs for the European music library-licensing group Media Music. He was then commissioned by the biggest US Music Library Giant APM Music to compose two CDs titled “The Serafine Experience” that are heard on over 100 global broadcasts including the Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt and Jane Fonda documentaries, as well as To Catch a Predator, MSNBC, Dateline, and Animal Planet.
He composed music and supervised the sound editing and design for Awake, a documentary on Paramahansa Yogananda, and then went on to produce, design, and construct the interactive museum exhibit installation for Disney/Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. featured at Discovery Times Square.
Serafine was a major part of several advanced hardware and software innovations in the film sound industry, including the first to implement Apple Computers and Avid/Digidesign Pro Tools on a major feature film.