“And so, they’re in the movie”

“Throughout the movie, if you listen carefully, there are a lot of local Ohio radio commercials that are actually the voices of Nolan and our post-production assistant Hillary Carrigan. I needed a time stamp when J.D. was heading home to check on Bev, so I asked Nolan and Hillary to create a morning radio show he would listen to on his drive. And they came back with the ‘Trish and Scott Morning Show’ that turned out to be fantastic…

When it came time to record loop group, we auditioned other voices for Ron. During the playback he leaned over- well, we were on Zoom so he digitally ‘leaned over’ - and he says, “James, what happened with Nolan and Hillary? Was it not useable?’ I said, ‘No, it’s totally useable, expect we wanted to play the loop group in case you thought we could improve upon ourselves. And he said, ‘No, let’s go back to what they had. That worked brilliantly.’ And so they’re in the movie.” 

— James D. Wilcox, A.C.E.

“I was mentioned in CineMontage!

I was fortunate enough to work on Ron Howard's "Hillbilly Elegy" with James Wilcox, the editor (who is the cover story in this issue). During that time, Nolan Jennings and I experienced the crazy honor of making something that made it all the way into the film. James shared that very story during his interview..."

Nolan and I were tasked with collecting and digging through Ohio morning shows that could give viewers a quick hit of time and place in a driving scene... After not finding exactly what we were looking for, we ended up writing and recording what we thought would be a temporary placeholder until we found a gem (or perhaps - if we were really lucky- we wondered if it might be something voice-actors would re-record later). To our surprise... and this is still perhaps the coolest thing to ever happen to me... it made it into the film! Yes: my voice is in a movie- and as James says in his article, "I have to pinch myself at times" too.

I'm so honored and proud of that post-production team and the experience at large. I've never worked with a more dedicated, caring, and generous group of people and I can confidently point to where it stemmed from: the top!”