In early September, a small resort city nestled high in the Colorado Rockies was the center of the cinema world as scores of movie industry luminaries gathered for the 50th anniversary of the Telluride Film Festival. Meyer Sound was again a key supporter of the festival, returning this year as a Signature Sponsor and Cinema Sound Partner. Meyer Sound cinema audio systems carried the soundtracks at four of the festival's principal theaters, three of which were spaces temporarily repurposed for the weekend's festivities.

"The Telluride Film Festival greatly appreciates our long-term partnership with Meyer Sound," says Festival director Julie Huntsinger, "as we continue to expand their extraordinary audio systems within our festival environment to support the artistic intentions of our world-class filmmakers."

In recent years, the Telluride Film Festival has garnered a reputation as the "gateway to the awards season," with an impressive list of Oscar-winning films making either their world or Western Hemisphere debut in this former mining town. Some films unveiled in Telluride that promise to take top honors on Oscar night include Rustin, Saltburn, All of Us Strangers, Poor Things, The Holdovers, and Nyad. The importance of the festival is underscored by the fact that all but two of the directors for the film premieres came to Telluride for the screenings of their films.

"We congratulate everybody at the Telluride Film Festival on their half century of success," says Meyer Sound executive vice president Helen Meyer, "and we have been thrilled to be part of it for over ten years. Telluride gives us a rare opportunity to showcase our advanced cinema sound technologies to the global film community."

Three of the large temporary theatres, the Palm (650 seats), the Galaxy (500 seats), and the Werner Herzog Theater (650 seats) are equipped with similar Meyer Sound screens and LFE systems. All three have Acheron® cinema loudspeakers over Acheron LF low-frequency loudspeakers for the LCR channels, and all have X-800C cinema subwoofers -- ten each at the Palm and Herzog, nine at the Galaxy. The surround systems deploy HMS-10 surround loudspeakers. The intimate (165 seats) Nugget, the only permanent cinema, also has Acheron screen loudspeakers, but without LFE units, and only five of the X 800C cinema subwoofers. Surrounds are the more petite HMS-5 models.

For the Q&A sessions following many of the showings, three theatres offer temporary Meyer Sound PA systems with combinations of UPQ-1P or UPJ-1P loudspeakers with companion 750-LFC low-frequency control elements or Amie-Sub subwoofers. The Palm Theater -- a transformed high school auditorium -- has a permanent Meyer Sound PA system with M1D line array loudspeakers and 700-HP subwoofers.

Meyer Sound systems are permanently installed in other showcase venues for the film industry, including the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, operated by the Director's Guild of America, and the Rose Theatre of Jazz at Lincoln Center, a preferred location for many New York film premieres. Also, Meyer Sound monitoring systems are in use at leading post-production studios around the globe, including Skywalker Sound and the Newman Scoring Stage at Fox Studio Lot in California; Warner Bros. De Lane Lea in London; Rotor Film in Potsdam, Germany; Semillero Estudios in Guadalajara, Mexico; Toei Studios in Kyoto, Japan; and Soundfirm in Melbourne, Australia.

"Meyer Sound is honored to once again be a trusted sound provider for the Telluride Film Festival," says Meyer Sound program manager, cinema and residential Jay Wyatt. "Meyer Sound monitoring systems are increasingly the choice of film sound professionals when editing and mixing movie soundtracks, so it is only fitting that their peers in the broader film community -- producers, directors, and actors -- hear the films they have created with the same sound quality at the premiere showings."

The lifelong commitment of Meyer Sound co-founder, president, and CEO John Meyer to improving cinema sound was recognized when he was awarded the 2022 Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal by SMPTE, the international society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers. According to SMPTE, the honor was bestowed "in recognition of his contributions to the design, measurement, and analysis of cinema speaker electronics for cinema mixing, review, and exhibition facilities."