Nick Bozzone is an award-winning sound designer and re-recording mixer with decades of experience in commercials, film, television, and branded content. His work has earned nine Telly Awards, along with numerous other industry honors throughout his career. A longtime member of the professional audio community, Nick has also served as a judge for the Telly Awards for more than five years, bringing his experience in sound design, mixing, and storytelling to the judging process.
How many years have you been a judge?
5+
What are your responsibilities in your current role and what do you love most about your job?
As a sound designer and re-recording mixer, I’m responsible for taking a project from its raw audio elements through the final mix—shaping dialogue, sound effects, music, and the overall sonic environment to support the story. Every project brings a different creative challenge, whether it’s a :30 commercial or a feature film. What I love most is that moment when all of those individual pieces finally come together and the sound begins to elevate what’s happening on screen. Even after doing this for many years, I still genuinely enjoy the process of finding the sound that makes a scene or an idea click.
What inspired you to pursue your career path?
I was interested in sound and music from a very early age and really never looked back. I played musical instruments throughout my youth, so audio was always a big part of my life. In college, I took a class called “Introduction to Pro Tools,” and that was the moment I realized my love of sound could actually become a career. It opened up an entirely new creative world for me, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be working in it ever since.
What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
My first job in the industry was an unpaid internship at a small boutique radio commercial studio in downtown Sacramento. I knew enough to know that I still had a lot to learn if I wanted to make post audio a career in the real world. My first assignment was alphabetizing their entire stock music and sound effects CD libraries, which took me three solid days. The moment I finished, the owner brought me into one of the studios, walked me through the room, their mix templates, VO talent lists, and how the business actually worked. A month later, I was being given my own projects, the keys to the studio, and perhaps most importantly at the time… I was finally getting paid! That experience taught me that no job is too small when you’re starting out, and that being willing to put in the work can open doors pretty quickly.
What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?
One of the things I’m most excited about right now is expanding my studio and workflow into Dolby Atmos. I’ve spent much of my career working in stereo and 5.1, so moving further into immersive audio feels like a natural next step. There’s a lot to learn, which is actually part of what excites me about it—it’s giving me new ways to think about sound, space, and how an audience experiences a mix. After all these years, I still love finding something that makes me feel like a student again.
What excites you about judging for the Telly Awards?
I genuinely enjoy being a Telly Awards judge because it gives me the opportunity to see and hear what my peers are doing and where the level of work is across the industry. I’m always hoping to come across a technique, approach, or creative idea that I haven’t heard or thought of before. Seeing how someone else solves a creative problem can spark an entirely different idea for me and ultimately expand the way I approach my own projects. I think one of the best parts of this industry is that, no matter how long you’ve been doing it, there’s always something new to learn from the work of others.
