The Motion Picture Sound Editors trade group has elected David Barber, MPSE, to a two-year term as president. Barber succeeds Mark Lanza, MPSE, who reached his term limit. Additionally, Miguel Araujo was re-elected as secretary, while Eric Marks was appointed to fill Barber’s previous post as vice president on an interim basis until the next board election in October. Chris Reeves and Solange Schwalbe continue in their roles as treasurer and sergeant at arms, respectively.
Timothy Muirhead and Brian Armstrong were elected as general board members, joining returning members Eric Marks, Stuart Morton, Baylon Fonseca, Christina Horgan, Korey Pereira, Kevin Howard, and Mark Lanza.
In assuming his new role as president, Barber praised Lanza for four years of strong and creative direction.
“Stepping into Mark’s shoes presents a considerable challenge given his exceptional leadership through the trying times of COVID,” Barber said. “Under his guidance, and the oversight of the board of directors, we not only persevered, we experienced unprecedented expansion. My goal is to keep MPSE on that trajectory, championing the arts of sound editing, design and foley to our community, the industry, and the public at large.”
Barber is an award-winning supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer with more than 200 film and television credits. He is the winner of three MPSE Golden Reel Awards, most recently for his work on Taron Lexton's In Search of Fellini.
Lanza expects Barber to bring new ideas and enthusiasm to his role. “David’s integrity is well known to our board and members and is himself a highly accomplished sound and music artist,” he said. “I can’t wait to see what he and the new board accomplishes over the coming two years.”
During Lanza’s four-year tenure, MPSE took steps to further the Golden Reel Awards’ reputation for excellence and objectivity. “We continue to set the standard for non-biased judging,” Lanza observed. “Our blue-ribbon panel gives careful consideration to every nominee, no matter the size of its viewership.”
He noted that MPSE also expanded categories for the Golden Reel Awards to include sound for games and furthered its outreach to the sound community and the entertainment industry as a whole through its Sound Advice and Sounding Board events, and its participation in trade shows and other public events.
Motion Picture Sound Editors mpse.org