Windermere resident revisits life-long career in film industry

WINDERMERE – He might not have his name embedded in a brass star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, but Windermere resident Joe Foglia has worked with countless Hollywood icons and musicians throughout his life. 

With his 35-year career as a sound mixer for the motion-picture industry, Foglia has traveled all over the country to record the sound and dialogue for several TV and movie productions, and he has no plans to stop yet.

His expertise and experience resulted in Emmy nominations for sound-mixing in “Miami Vice” and the HBO miniseries “Earth to the Moon.” He eventually won a Primetime Emmy in 2008 for his nine years of work on the TV show “Scrubs” and continues to play a behind-the-scenes role in various upcoming productions.

FINDING HIS NICHE

Before becoming a sound mixer, Foglia — whose family moved from New York to Florida when he was 12 — worked for a computer firm in South Florida tracking NASA space shuttles.

While there, he befriended a musician in another department at the firm who helped him find work at Criteria Recording Studio. At that time in the late 1970s, Criteria was one of the top studios in the country and reputed for being a hit factory, which allowed Foglia to meet hundreds of bands and musicians before they became famous, such as Jimmy Buffet, Bob Seger, The Allman Brothers Band and Black Sabbath.

But with the advent of CDs, those in the music industry became wary of its future, leading Foglia to branch out into other types of recording. 

“There are so many different avenues of sound recording, and I didn’t quite know what I liked yet,” he said. “I didn’t know if I felt like making records because that was kind of changing, but I knew that there would always be entertainment no matter how bad the economy gets because people will always buy cable or TV and watch it. So I figured with commercials, TV or movies, I would always have a job.”

That’s when he began shooting commercials in Miami and moved on to record several sports for CBS around the world in his early 20s. But once he tired of commercials and sports, he started doing gigs with movies and TV shows. 

Since then, Foglia has recorded the dialogue and sound for several shows and movies such as “Miami Vice,” “Scrubs,” “Earth to the Moon,” “Nashville,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Castle,” “Marley & Me” and more. The experience afforded him the opportunity to meet numerous celebrities and continue doing what he realized he loved most.

WORKING WITH THE STARS

Although Foglia works behind the cameras and lights in the sound department, his occupation has provided him and his 15-year-old daughter Grace Foglia, who travels everywhere with him, the chance to meet many movie stars and watch them in action.

“Two weeks ago, we were asked to go do a one-day gig with Dwayne Johnson in Atlanta for the show ‘Ballers,’” he said. “And so, you know, Grace and I went up and we got to meet him. It’s not like we look forward to it but we just like to meet different people and see how they are — and most people are really nice.”

Foglia can’t recall all the names of those he’s met over the past three decades of his career, but his daughter Grace, who keeps up with her father by attending Florida Virtual School, reminds him of all the big-name musicians and actors they’ve met during his work.

Meeting all the new people and traveling to different locations is his favorite aspect of the job. He’s not forced to work in an office building and do the same thing every day. Although nowadays, the work comes easily to him, given his decades of experience and the multiple scenes in which he’s had to capture audio.

“If there’s a script written and an actor’s got to memorize it, it’s up to me to record it,” he said. “And the skills come in when you are given many obstacles. For instance, shooting a scene at the airport or shooting a scene with a loud air conditioner going — no matter the environment — you have to deliver the best quality sound so that they can use it to put the show together. So it’s a challenge every time and doesn’t get boring because you’re always going to different locations, you’re seeing different places and you’re meeting new people every single day.”

The biggest challenge for him now is trying to anticipate how a director is going to shoot a scene and then how to capture the sound needed without getting in the way or sacrificing audio quality. But as long as he has his trusty sidekick and daughter Grace next to him, he’s up for it.

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Contact Gabby Baquero at [email protected]