Oscar, Emmy-Nommed Felipe Pacheco Leads Costa Rican Crew Talent

It’s been a long time coming but Costa Rica can now claim an Oscar-nominated below-the-line talent, sound and music editor Felipe Pacheco, who was recognized for his sound editing work on Ryan Coogler’s multi-Oscar winning “Sinners.”

Based in Los Angeles, he moved there after earning a degree in film scoring at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. His extraordinary credits include Christopher Nolan’s epic Imax 70mm blockbuster “The Odyssey” and Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer,” “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” and Coogler’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” In television, he worked on Ben Stiller’s “Severance,” which snagged him an Emmy nomination.

Throughout many of them, he has worked closely with Academy Award-winning composer Ludwig Göransson whom he first joined when they needed a Spanish-speaking music editor for the many Spanish songs in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” His trial by fire came when Göransson asked him to join him on “Oppenheimer.” “We finished ‘Black Panther’ on a Friday, and that weekend Ludwig called: ‘I need you on ‘Oppenheimer’ Monday.’ I expected to join a team of music editors, but instead I was suddenly working alongside Nolan, learning his process on the fly. It was intimidating, especially as a young Costa Rican, but not knowing what I didn’t know may have worked in my favor. It all came together— and that’s why I was invited back for his next film.”

That next film was “The Odyssey” where he relates that Nolan wanted to avoid the traditional orchestral sound often associated with historical epics. Instead, he asked Göransson to blend ancient Greek instruments with modern elements like synthesizers, creating a score that reflected a contemporary retelling of an ancient story. For the music team, it was a major creative challenge. Without the emotional power of strings or brass, they had to reinvent how the music conveyed…