Brian Vessa is a dedicated audio professional with more than 35 years of experience in the industry. He became a became a recording engineer, producing albums and recording orchestras, after the attending UCLA Engineering School. As music editor and sound editor, Vessa became a re-recording mixer at Cannon Films and MGM, then handled audio restoration at NT Audio. He was hired by Sony Pictures in 1998, and is now their executive director of digital audio mastering and representative to DCI. Vessa is a member of the Academy Sound Branch, SMPTE and AES. He is the founding chair of the SMPTE TC 25CSS Technical Committee on Cinema Sound Systems and serves on many SMPTE and AES committees. He has been instrumental in standardizing the IAB immersive audio distribution bitstream for cinema and IMF as well as a host of related standards. Vessa is a past and current chair of the DCI Technical Committee, and has written many audio specifications, including a white paper on near-field mixing for home theater that has been widely adopted.