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White Bear alum leveling up Hollywood’s sound BY LOGAN GION CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“The Beekeeper,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Godzilla x Kong” — if a Warner Bros. movie sounds good, White Bear Lake native and sound mixer Jill Defiel likely deserves some credit. “With “Dune: Part Two,” I did the international sound mix,” Defiel clarified. “The Beekeeper,” I did the domestic mix for.” Just what does a sound mixer do? Broadly speaking, movie making is broken up into three sections: preproduction, production and postproduction. “Preproduction is getting the crew together, locking down the
script — LOTS of planning,” explained Defiel. “Production is getting on set, the director working with the actors, making sure everyone’s on the same page. Postproduction takes everything that’s been made and puts it together for the final product you see in theaters.” Post-production is where Defiel works, making sure every sound is at the appropriate level, which allows the director to accomplish their vision. “I push all the buttons before people play with the buttons,” Defiel quips. “When a movie comes to us, all the audio — voices, effects, everything — is up front. It’s a wall of noise. We take that wall and wrap it around the room.
We do everything we can to make it immersive.” Defiel had long been drawn to the movie industry (as a kid, she edited her own music tracks for her competitive figure-skating routines), but she didn’t know exactly where she fit. Upon attending the University of Southern California (USC), Defiel learned every part of the film workflow. “Directing, cinematography, producing: It didn’t feel right,” Defiel recalled. “I took sound classes with the audio team at USC … and that was the missing puzzle piece.” Frustratingly, in a field dominated by older men, Defiel herself has sometimes
CONTRIBUTED
Jill Defiel graduated from White Bear Lake High School in 2011.
SEE SOUND MIXER, PAGE 12
Local vet meets urgent need
Historical Society project seeks to educate public on
Native American heritage
BY SHANNON GRANHOLM MANAGING EDITOR
Ojibwe land before European settlement took over. Battala said that history like this, which she believes is forgotten nowadays, deserves a better understanding. “There’s not much knowledge about what used to be here in the
Local veterinarian Dr. Liz Sitter is hoping she can fill a need in the north metro. The Marine on St. Croix resident recently opened Aurora Urgent Veterinary Clinic in White Bear Lake, which is likely the first standalone pet urgent care in the Twin Cities. “There’s a high demand. It is hard to get into your regular vet, and a lot of times you have to wait for weeks, and the emergency clinics are at capacity,” Sitter explained. “I saw a big need in the market for urgent care. It’s kind of a newer thing.” Before the pandemic, general practices could generally carve out time for both regular visits in addition to urgent care, but now there are so many pets in the market that they are having a tough time accommodating them all. Some emergency clinics in the Twin Cities also provide urgent care, but as far as Sitter knows, she is the first vet to open a stand-alone urgent care. Sitter, who is originally from New Jersey, went to vet school in Oklahoma. She moved to Minnesota about 11 years ago to be close to her sister. She has been in general practice for 10 years; she formerly worked at Stillwater Veterinary Clinic and Century Animal Clinic in Maplewood. It was that need she saw while working in general practice that prompted her to open Aurora Urgent Care. “After the pandemic, I just saw we were turning so many people away every day,
SEE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, PAGE 14
SEE AURORA CLINIC, PAGE 22
CONTRIBUTED
John Hunter, co-founder of Twin Cities Native Lacrosse, presented a program on the history of the sport of lacrosse as part of the Native American Education Initiative Project. The project features a mix of in-person and Zoom presentations on Native American culture. BY ERIK SUCHY STAFF WRITER
The White Bear Lake Historical Society officially launched its Native American Education Initiative Project last Fall. The project, which runs through the end of May, seeks to educate
residents unfamiliar with the city’s history of indigenous populations. Project Coordinator Elsa Battala took note of the White Bear Lake community’s origins, which date back to the early 19th century. At that time, the area comprised both Dakota and
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