In mid-December 2019 — the week before Christmas — Damien Del Borrello received a phone call from Los Angeles. Amazon was setting up what would become one of the most ambitious television productions in history, and they needed a New Zealand-based co-supervising sound editor. Would he be available?
Six weeks later, in February 2020, he started work on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Two months after that, everyone went home. COVID had arrived.
What followed was a two-and-a-half-year sound-post process conducted partly in person and largely by remote collaboration — across Wellington, Los Angeles, and London — between three of the most accomplished rerecording mixers working in American television today.
Zebra Home Cinema assembled all three for a rare joint interview: Lindsay Alvarez (Formosa Group, LA), Beau Borders (LA, Academy Award nominee for Lone Survivor), and Damien Del Borrello (Wellington, founder of DB Sound). Between them, they shaped the sonic world of Middle-earth as it returned to screens 20 years after Peter Jackson's trilogy.
Meet the Sound Team — Three Mixers, Two Continents
Lindsay Alvarez, rerecording mixer and sound editor at the Formosa Group in Los Angeles. From Houston. Studied Music Engineering Technology and Computer Science at Miami University (one of four women on her programme). Started at Santa Monica's Lime Studios mixing award-winning commercial campaigns for Coke, Microsoft, and Chrysler. Moved into film and television in 2013. At Bad Robot, collaborated with J.J. Abrams on the sound of BB-8 in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Won a Golden Reel for her editing work on War for the Planet of the Apes. Won an Emmy shortly before the interview.
Beau Borders — Academy Award nominee for Lone Survivor. Rerecording mixer on Titanic, The Lord of the Rings (the original trilogy), Transformers, Iron Man 3, The Last Stand, Captain America, Battleship, and more recently Ambulance, Morbius, Uncharted, and Amsterdam. Also an accomplished racing driver and founder of Borders Racing with multiple wins in the Formula Mazda series.
Damien Del Borrello — co-supervising sound editor on The Rings of Power. Based in Wellington. Founder of post-production sound house DB Sound. Graduate of the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. Previously worked on Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand, AMC's Fear the Walking Dead, and Netflix's Marco Polo, along with a long list of Australian, New Zealand, and Chinese productions. Also a university lecturer.
Alongside them on the Rings of Power project: Robbie Stambler (co-supervising sound editor, LA) and Paul Fairfield (also in the supervisory team).
The COVID-Era Build — Two and a Half Years in Isolation
Del Borrello was on the show for over two years. Stambler had the earliest relationship with the production, having been on the producer's shortlist from the start. When the production committed to New Zealand as a base, Del Borrello was added.
The original plan was elegant: the sound team would be embedded with picture editorial for the duration of the edit, feeding high-quality sound effects pre-dubs directly into the cut so the picture editors could shape the show with proper sonic material rather than library placeholders. Two months in, COVID collapsed that plan. The production went remote. Sound post continued — but in isolation, Del Borrello in Wellington and Stambler in LA, for roughly a year of just the two of them building the sounds of Middle-earth from scratch.
The wider crew came on in stages from July 2021:
- ▪Dialogue team first, to catch actors for ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) before they left New Zealand when the principal photography wrapped at the end of July.
- ▪Effects team, Foley team, and additional designers scaled in through late 2021 and into 2022.
- ▪Mixing and final rerecording happened with Alvarez and Borders flying out to New Zealand — where they spent the latter stages of the 100-day New Zealand post-lockdown window able to do whatever weekend adventures they wanted, since the country wasn't yet admitting tourists.
"It was a really great time. There's such a great film scene there. We really had a love affair with the country of New Zealand."
The final crew breakdown was roughly half New Zealand talent and half American — a deliberate echo of the original Peter Jackson Weta-based collaboration that Borders himself had been a part of two decades earlier.
No One Called It a TV Show
The single most important decision shaping the sonic identity of Rings of Power:
"Nobody ever called it a TV show. We really approached this as if it was a really huge cinematic event."
That framing produced the show's reference-grade sound. Borders, who has more feature-film mixing experience than most working American mixers, treated every episode the way he'd treat a 2.5-hour theatrical feature. The reference playback chains they mixed on — subwoofers tuned for octave-down performance, fully calibrated Atmos arrays — were exactly the same as the ones they'd used on Battleship, Transformers, and Uncharted.
The discipline underneath that framing was less glamorous: acknowledging that the audience would actually watch on anything.
The Two-Track Mix That Actually Matters
A less-known reality of modern streaming sound: there is only one mix authored per audio channel configuration. There is no separate "phone mix," no dedicated "tablet mix," no "soundbar mix." When you stream Rings of Power on an iPhone, you're hearing a downmix of the stereo mix that was authored on a reference mixing stage with reference speakers in a tuned room.
This means the stereo (two-track) mix has to work astonishingly well on every imaginable playback device.
"There isn't a separate sound mix for a phone. There's your home-theatre mix, there's a 5.1, there's a stereo. But that mix isn't tuned to just a cell phone or just a tablet or just a soundbar. We kind of all had to get together and creatively figure out how to just make it work on a soundbar and a 5.1 setup or a home Atmos setup if you have one."
The team's practical method: buy actual consumer playback devices and test the mix on them.
- ▪Borders bought a soundbar and took mixes home to check on it.
- ▪Alvarez checked mixes on earbuds.
- ▪Del Borrello checked on bookshelf speakers in his room.
Every episode's mix was verified across those reference points as well as the full professional chain. Borders described the two-track mix specifically as "probably one of the best sounding two-tracks I've ever heard for a show." Del Borrello, hearing it on various devices in New Zealand, agreed.
The underlying lesson for anyone specifying home audio: you cannot improve what the mix didn't contain. A reference system maximises the information present in a well-authored mix. A great mix is what makes a reference system worth owning. Rings of Power on a reference chain is what the mixers actually intended. On earbuds it's still good. On a £100 soundbar, still good. The reference system is what makes the difference audible.
Research as Sound Design — How Tolkienwiki Shaped the Dwarven Kingdom
One of the most specific anecdotes from the conversation: how Del Borrello approached the dwarven kingdom door scene — one of the first major sonic set pieces in season one.
"I spent half a day on the Tolkienwiki.net researching. And also the characters — Celebrimbor, because that was one of the first sort of times we're introduced to Celebrimbor. I basically had that tab open for like two years on my computer. I was just always reading."
The Tolkien universe is unusually forgiving to sonic research. The lore is dense. The cosmology is internally consistent. A door's significance in the canonical world affects what it should sound like as it opens — the weight, the reverberance, the cultural texture of the space it leads into.
For Del Borrello — who had never worked on fantasy before Rings of Power — the wiki was an unusual research tool for sound design but proved invaluable. Fantasy sound isn't decorative. It's informational. A door the audience knows is enchanted will be heard differently than a door the sound designer knows is enchanted but the audience doesn't.
The broader design lesson: on original properties, sound designers are building the world from scratch. On adaptations with a deep literary canon (Tolkien, Dune, Game of Thrones), they have a parallel universe of reference material to mine. Using it properly is a competitive advantage.
The Lindsay Alvarez Path — Coke Commercials to Middle-earth
Alvarez's path into prestige television sound is atypical. She spent the first phase of her career mixing advertising campaigns at Santa Monica's Lime Studios — Coke, Microsoft, Chrysler, award-winning national-reach commercials. Those years built a different discipline from film-school-to-feature: an ability to mix for fragmented attention, small time-windows, and a viewer who can change the channel at any instant.
When she moved into film and television in 2013, she brought that discipline with her. She worked with J.J. Abrams at Bad Robot on the sound of BB-8 in The Force Awakens. She worked on Inferno, War for the Planet of the Apes (for which she won a Golden Reel), Overlord, The Hateful Eight (where she was dialogue stage editor and ADR supervisor on a Quentin Tarantino feature), and many more.
The Tarantino experience was, in her words, "surreal" — partly because Tarantino famously rarely uses ADR. Alvarez was brought in as ADR supervisor on a director's production that was unlikely to need much ADR work, but ended up as the dialogue stage editor for final mix — and worked directly with Tarantino to cast the narrator for The Hateful Eight. They eventually settled on Kurt Russell.
Her attitude to the job, and to the industry's evolving gender balance:
"At our university, there were only four women in our program. But more and more you're seeing more women on the mix stage and cutting sounds and sound designers. You get used to being around men. It's kind of fun when we all get to be together."
She pointed out after the main interview that the Rings of Power team included significant female representation across dialogue, effects, mix tech, and Foley — Stephanie Ng (dialogue supervisor), Luanna Barnes (mix tech), Aileen (dialogue editor, LA), and Aby Barber (Foley partner), among others.
The Beau Borders Path — Where Racing and Mixing Overlap
Borders's CV is unusual for a film-sound professional: two careers run in parallel, with real trophies on both sides. He founded Borders Racing and has multiple wins in Formula Mazda competition.
His website opens with two quotes:
"Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing." — Hunter S. Thompson
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"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." — Mario Andretti
When asked about the overlap between film mixing and racing, Borders's answer was direct.
"There are way too many similarities. The jobs that we do, we've chosen to put ourselves in the line of fire. There are certainly days at the mixing console that you feel like you might not live to see the end of the day. It's a pretty high-pressure gig."
Both disciplines involve:
- ▪A specialist (driver / mixer) accountable for a final performance
- ▪A support team (engineers, pit crew / assistants, tech staff) whose work is judged through the specialist's output
- ▪Intense, stopwatch-timed pressure
- ▪A notes culture where every error is catalogued and discussed
- ▪Temperament as a prerequisite — not everyone is suited to either
Borders does see racing as his relaxation despite its objective danger. The irony is not lost on him.
The Damien Del Borrello Path — Australia, Wellington, and Servant Leadership
Del Borrello came up through the Australian post-production industry, starting with the prestigious Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. He was mentored there by Academy Award-winning sound designers. Early credits included Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Netflix's Marco Polo, and AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. He's based in Wellington now, founded DB Sound, and lectures at university alongside his studio work.
His framing of leadership — particularly relevant given the unusual scale of Rings of Power — is the cleanest articulation of management philosophy in the conversation.
"Rather than being in charge of people, your job is to care for the people in your charge and make sure they have what they need to do the job as best as they can. It comes back to this management idea of servant leadership."
The two-and-a-half-year Rings of Power build was large enough that hierarchy could easily have broken the team. Del Borrello and the LA supervising team actively dismantled hierarchy instead — erasing distinctions between veterans and first-timers, supporting crew who were inexperienced on this scale, treating mistakes as inevitable rather than punishable.
"We really had to train up a lot of people. Pretty quickly we just erased any kind of hierarchy of who's in charge, who's the up-and-comer. Nobody's gonna fail. Nobody's gonna be mad at you if the computer crashes. Nobody's gonna be mad at you if you set something one way and then halfway through the day you realise it should be set another way."
That mantra — nobody is going to fail — was, by Borders's account, part of why the show finished on time.
What Comes Next
Lindsay Alvarez is currently working on Daisy Jones & The Six for Amazon Prime — the adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid's novel about a fictional 1970s rock band. The show's sound requirements are unusual: scene-by-scene source music, live performances, bar and venue settings, with an Atmos mix spanning decades of period musical styles. Release in March 2023.
Damien Del Borrello is moving directly into Taika Waititi's Time Bandits — the Apple TV+ series based on Terry Gilliam's 1981 fantasy-comedy film. He's also working on Our Flag Means Death, the half-hour HBO comedy on which Waititi is a producer and director. Both shows are shooting in New Zealand, with Del Borrello across both.
Beau Borders declined to name specific forthcoming projects on record — the scheduling volatility of studio work being such that mentioning a film can feel like jinxing the gig. He is, as always, busy.
All three expressed hope of reuniting on a future New Zealand project together. Del Borrello noted that's "high on the priority list" — but both Alvarez and Borders are in such heavy demand that it's a question of schedule rather than desire.
Key Takeaways
- ▪The Rings of Power was built to be mixed and delivered as a cinematic event, not as a television show. Every episode was treated with the rigour of a 2.5-hour feature film, using reference playback chains identical to those used on Battleship, Transformers, and Uncharted.
- ▪The supervising sound team spanned three cities and two continents: Lindsay Alvarez (Formosa Group, LA), Beau Borders (LA, Academy Award nominee), Damien Del Borrello (Wellington, founder of DB Sound), alongside Robbie Stambler and Paul Fairfield on the LA side. The crew split was deliberately balanced between New Zealand and American talent — echoing Peter Jackson's original trilogy collaboration from twenty years earlier.
- ▪The post-production process lasted roughly two and a half years — starting February 2020, completing in 2022. COVID-19 struck two months in and forced most of the work into remote collaboration. For the first year, the show was built by just Stambler and Del Borrello across the LA–Wellington time zone gap.
- ▪A modern streaming mix must work on every device — phones, tablets, soundbars, 5.1 systems, full Atmos rooms — and only one mix is authored per channel configuration. The team validated the show's sound on consumer devices in their own homes alongside their reference stages.
- ▪Sound design for fantasy on a canonical property is informational rather than decorative. Del Borrello used Tolkienwiki as a live reference throughout the two-year build — a door to a dwarven kingdom sounds different if you know its canonical lore than if you don't.
- ▪Del Borrello's distillation of effective leadership on a large creative project: servant leadership. "Rather than being in charge of people, your job is to care for the people in your charge and make sure they have what they need."
- ▪Lindsay Alvarez is moving to Apple's Daisy Jones & The Six, Damien Del Borrello is on Taika Waititi's Time Bandits and Our Flag Means Death, and Beau Borders continues his studio-film mixing workload. All three hope to reunite on a future New Zealand project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who did the sound on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power?
The supervising sound team includes Robbie Stambler (co-supervising sound editor, LA), Damien Del Borrello (co-supervising sound editor, Wellington), Paul Fairfield (supervisor, LA), with rerecording mixing by Beau Borders (LA, Academy Award nominee for Lone Survivor) and Lindsay Alvarez (Formosa Group, LA, Emmy winner). Crew was split roughly evenly between New Zealand and American talent — echoing the Peter Jackson film trilogy 20 years earlier.
How long did post-production sound take on Rings of Power?
Approximately two and a half years. Damien Del Borrello started in February 2020. COVID-19 struck two months in, forcing most of the work into remote collaboration. The show's principal photography wrapped at the end of July 2021. Final mixing continued through 2022.
Is Rings of Power mixed in Dolby Atmos?
Yes. Rings of Power is available in Dolby Atmos on Amazon Prime Video, alongside stereo and 5.1 channel configurations. The team authored a single high-quality stereo (two-track) mix that also works well when downmixed for phone, tablet, and soundbar playback — there is no separate mix authored per consumer device.
How did the team mix an audio track that works on both reference home cinemas and phones?
By validating the mix on consumer devices themselves. Beau Borders bought a soundbar and took home mixes to test on it; Lindsay Alvarez tested on earbuds; Damien Del Borrello tested on bookshelf speakers in Wellington. Every episode was verified across these consumer reference points as well as the full professional mixing stages. The rule: the stereo mix had to work everywhere.
Who is Damien Del Borrello?
Damien Del Borrello is the Wellington-based co-supervising sound editor on The Rings of Power. He's the founder of DB Sound, a graduate of Sydney's Australian Film Television and Radio School, and has previously worked on Starz's Spartacus: Blood and Sand, AMC's Fear the Walking Dead, and Netflix's Marco Polo. He's now moving to Taika Waititi's Time Bandits (Apple TV+) and Our Flag Means Death (HBO), both shooting in New Zealand.
Who is Beau Borders?
Beau Borders is an Academy Award-nominated rerecording mixer whose credits include Lone Survivor (nomination), Titanic, The Lord of the Rings (the original trilogy), Transformers, Iron Man 3, Battleship, Amsterdam, Morbius, Uncharted, and many others. He is also a racing driver and founder of Borders Racing, with multiple wins in the Formula Mazda series.
Did the team use Tolkien source material for sound design research?
Extensively. Del Borrello describes keeping Tolkienwiki.net open as a permanent tab on his computer for roughly two years. Specific scenes — including the introduction of Celebrimbor and the doors of the Dwarven kingdom — benefited from half-day research sessions before the actual design work began. Sound design on a canonical property is informational rather than decorative; research is a competitive advantage.
