Larry Sider is currently Director of the School of Sound symposium and formerly Head of Post Production at the NFTS.  As a film editor and sound designer he has worked for 25 years in documentary, animation and fiction. His work is known for its emphasis on integrating creative sound production within a broad range of visual styles.  

Sider came to London from Chicago in the late 1970’s to work with experimental film-makers Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey at the British Film Institute. He then met the Brothers Quay who were beginning to develop their unique puppet animation techniques. Sider worked with the Quays on their productions through the ‘80s and ‘90s, including The Comb, Anamorphosis, Street of Crocodiles  and the live-action Institute Benjamenta.  In 2006, he was Director of Sound on their latest feature, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes.

His other work in animation includes films by Simon Pummell (Secret Joy, Butcher’s Hook, Blinded by Light), Ruth Lingford (Death and the Mother) and Dave McKean (Mirrormask).

For both cinema and TV he has worked in a variety of documentary forms that include Patrick Keiller’s surreal blend of fiction and fact (London, Robinson in Space), Chris Austin’s musical biography of jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, The Brother With Perfect Timing, and Mark Mundan’s portrait of renegade commercials director Tony Kaye, The Outsider.

Sider has elevated the profile of sound in screen production through his symposium, the School of Sound, an international four-day event exploring the use of sound in film, multimedia and digital art. At the core of the SoS is the integration of theory with practice. Speakers at the SoS have included Walter Murch, Carter Burwell, Michael Nyman, Mike Hodges, Mike Figgis, Piers Plowright of BBC Radio, avant garde filmmaker Peter Kubelka, and academics Peter Wollen, Ian Christie, Laura Mulvey and Michael Chanan.  From these meetings came the book, “Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001”.

He regularly gives seminars on post-production editing and sound for television and film professionals. He has taught at various film schools including the Royal College of Art, Surrey Institute of Art and Design, International Film School (Köln), California Institute for the Arts, Discovery Documentary Campus, Maurits Binger Institute, the Berlin Talent Campus, and Bournemouth Media School.

Credits include
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005) 
Mirrormask (2005)
The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000)
Simon Magus (1999)
Robinson in Space (documentary) (1997)
Institute Benjamenta (1995)
London (documentary) (1994)
Anamorphosis (1991) (sound editor)
The Comb (1990)
Street of Crocodiles (1986)