R.J. Kizer, the sound editor and ADR specialist who worked on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, three features from Christopher Nolan and three Planet of the Apes movies, died Aug. 12 in Los Angeles after a battle with glioblastoma, his family announced. He was 73.
Kizer received 10 Golden Reel Award nominations from the Motion Picture Sound Editors during his career, winning for the ADR-heavy War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), his third film in the franchise after Planet of the Apes (2001) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).
He did those movies and many others at 20th Century Fox, among them Waiting to Exhale (1995); The X-Files (1998); X-Men (2000) and its 2006 and 2019 sequels; Shallow Hal (2001); Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum (2006) and its 2009 follow-up; We Bought a Zoo (2011); Deadpool (2016); and Hidden Figures (2016).
He supervised dialogue with actors after films was shot, generally to record lines that needed to be replaced or added, and collaborated with walla groups to create ambient voice tracks as well.
Robert James Kizer was born on Sept. 27, 1952, in Long Island City in New York. He was raised in Fanwood, New Jersey, and graduated from Union Catholic High School and NYU film school.
After working for a few years in the New York film industry, he came to California and would live in the L.A. area for nearly 50 years.
Kizer’s résumé included the Nolan films Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014) plus Arachnophobia (1990), Rookie of the Year (1993), The Lion King (1994), Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and Bad Boys for Life (2020).
He served two terms on the Film Academy’s sound branch executive committee and was the inaugural chair of the sound branch museum subcommittee.
Kizer authored the 2024 book ADR and Post-Sync Dialogue: What It Is and How It’s Done and was writing an “anecdotal memoir of his journey in the movie business working with too many well-known actors to name,” his family noted.
In the sound section at the Academy Museum, he can be seen in a video in which he and colleagues describe the process of creating the soundtrack for Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), on which he was supervising ADR editor.
Beyond sound work, he served as project manager for special effects on John Crapenter’s Escape From New York (1981), directed the films Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) and Death Ring (1992) and worked as a film editor.
Survivors include his wife, film and sound/dialogue editor Joanne D’Antonio (Terms of Endearment, The Empire Strikes Back) — they first met at Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in 1979 — their son, Christopher, and his younger brothers, Jack, Edward, Richard and William.
Donations in his memory can be made to The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens or to the Glioblastoma Research Organization.
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