They have also worked on Korea's highest-grossing films such as The Admiral: Roaring Currents, Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds, 12.12: The Day, The Host, Miracle in Cell No.
[1][2] Choi is best known for his collaborations with director Bong Joon-ho, and worked together in all his features, including Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017), and Parasite (2019).
[3] He also a long time collaborator of director Kim Jee-woon, and has worked together in A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), A Bittersweet Life (2005), The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), I Saw the Devil (2010), The Age of Shadows (2016), and Cobweb (2023).
Choi, along with Livetone, has 15 Grand Bell Awards nominations under his belt, winning three of them for Save the Green Planet!
[7][8][9][10] After returning to South Korea, Choi, a 27-year-old technical director at the time, co-founded Livetone, a startup sound production studio in 1996.
Kim Jee-woon wanted to create a "cool comedy," but Choi's sound design was too rich, which did not match the desired tone.
This included capturing footsteps at the Crown Hotel nightclub in Busan, gunshots with live ammunition at Yangsu-ri Studio, and ambient sounds from Seoul at night.
The film's sound design effectively utilized panning, reflecting director Kim Jee-woon's visual style.
The sound design aimed to make the bow a main character by capturing the nuances of different arrow types, flight directions, and speeds.
Using nine microphones and an experienced archer, they meticulously recorded various arrow shots to capture the authentic sound of the bow in action.
[14] Mr. Go was the first Korean film to utilize Dolby Atmos, an advanced sound technology that creates three-dimensional audio based on the movement and positioning of objects on the screen.
Sony typically focuses more on resolution rather than 3D, to maintain sound waves and frequencies that are beyond human hearing range.
To capture the ship's movement, he incorporated twisting sounds that simulated external pressure on a large tree.
He has contributed to Bong's entire filmography, starting from his first feature Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) to his critically acclaimed works like Snowpiercer, Okja, and Parasite.
However, at director Bong Joon-ho's suggestion, actor Oh Dal-su's voice was used for the sound of the monster snoring and spitting out its prey.
[20] Despite Choi's involvement in all of Bong Joon-ho's previous films, this project faced a setback during production that almost halted its completion.
[21] Choi revealed that film Okja, a genetically modified "Super Pig" was inspired by Bong Joon-ho's vision of a creature that, despite its origins, possessed human qualities and a vegetarian diet.
To bring Okja to life, Choi meticulously blended the sounds of various animals, including New Zealand's pigs, hippos, and rhinos, with the voice of actress Lee Jung-eun.
During the final mix, Choi heavily relied on the automation and stem routing features of the Neve DFC 3D console to bring the director's vision for the film's sound to life.
The sound editing (dialogue, SFX, backgrounds) and recording (ADR and Foley) at Live Tone Studios started in December 2018 and went until the end of January 2019.
[3]Choi's and his team, including Young Kang Hye, Kim Byung-in, Park Sung-gyun, Lee Chung-gyu, and Shin Yi-na, were awarded the MPSE Golden Reel Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Foreign Language Feature for their work on the critically acclaimed film Parasite (2019).
This prestigious award is a testament to their masterful sound editing, which played a crucial role in enhancing the film's immersive and impactful storytelling.
[22] Choi was confident that Livetone Studio's work on Squid Game marked the beginning of the K-sound trend.
Choi expressed disappointment that domestic producers may not fully understand the importance of sound technology in content creation.
[37] Livetone's first foray into handling sound for a Disney+ production was with the series Moving, providing valuable insights and opportunities for the company.
Through the agreement, Dexter Livetone will donate over 200 original analog and digital sound pieces it owns to the Korea Film Archive.
Choi, who had prior military experience in a band, used his personal memories to guide the sound mixing process.
As the story unfolds in such a tense manner, we put a lot of effort into even the smallest elements of the sound mixing to support the narrative.
The Dolby Atmos setup allowed them to optimize the directionality and immersion of sounds to provide a truly cinematic experience that would be difficult to replicate on streaming platforms.
[45] Choi stated about his work in Alienoid: Return to the Future, "The sound coherence was maintained throughout the film, as the first and second parts are considered to be the same movie."