Rusty Dunn (IMDB)
Sound Design

2009 Emmy-Award ™ nominee Rusty Dunn (Sound Design, The Devil Came on Horseback) is a composer and sound designer with a long list of professional films to his credit. He is currently based in New York, NY.

Trivia: Rusty and director Chrystene Ells first met when he was one and she was four. Both of their childhoods were spent on Alberta ranches, and both of their fathers worked as professors in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. After nearly 30 years of going their own ways, ‘Sisu’ provided an opportunity for their paths to cross again.  

 “At 16, I bought my first guitar and started taking lessons. The lure of the guitar and the instant gratification that came from strumming chords soon had me hooked. Shortly after, I joined a rock band and played the odd gig for cowboy-booted, redneck ridden patrons at a couple biker bars in Calgary. At 17, I bought a four-track and started writing and recording music, a frustrating but fulfilling process that has enslaved me ever since.

In 1991 I moved to Vancouver to study sound engineering. Since then, I've worked as a sound designer for film and television, exploring the technical side of the business. I also recorded and produced local bands for a few years a great learning experience but I got tired of relegating my music to the sidelines.

At around the same time, the mysteries of the Far East and a quest to explore my familial roots pulled me to Asia, where I spent a year discovering my heritage, drifting with the ocean and writing music. My music has evolved over the years, shifting shape as time falls away. I'm inspired largely by the sounds of 70s funk, Parliament and Bootsy Collins, cranial riffs of Jimmy Page, and the esoterics of Pink Floyd. They echo subtly in my music, at times interwoven with other more vivid threads, usually relationship angst and assorted emotional contortions. In the past, I experimented with different approaches writing alone and writing with others -- but the sound I was seeking proved elusive. As the pieces of my life come together, interlocking like an elaborate puzzle, my music has become a truer reflection of myself. Right now, for whatever reason - maybe just a harmonious alignment of the planets - I'm in the center of a creative vortex, and thankfully the music just keeps flowing...”