Rick Bal

Rick Bal
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Role:	Production Sound Mixer
BSG Universe:	Re-imagined Series and Blood and Chrome
Date of Birth:
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month! ,
Nationality:	CAN
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IMDb profile

Rick Bal, CAS, is a Canadian production sound mixer whose work on the Re-imagined Series spans the series' full run, from the 2003 miniseries through the 2009 finale and related television films. He served as production mixer on all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica, on the television films Razor and The Plan, and on the prequel film Blood & Chrome. His work on the franchise earned him four Primetime Emmy nominations, all in the sound mixing category.

Career

Bal established himself as a production sound mixer in the Vancouver-based television industry during the late 1990s. His longest pre-BSG engagement was on the Canadian police procedural Cold Squad, produced in Vancouver for CTV, on which he served as sound mixer and production sound mixer across 72 episodes from 1999 through the series' conclusion in 2005. His sound work on Cold Squad was recognized by the Gemini Awards, Canada's English-language television awards: he shared in a 2005 Gemini Award win for Best Sound in a Dramatic Series for the episode "And the Fury", and received shared nominations in the same category in 2002 and 2003.

When Battlestar Galactica began production in Vancouver in 2003, Bal joined the sound department as production mixer, a role he retained for the entirety of the series. Over the course of the show's four seasons plus the 2003 miniseries, he is credited on 73 episodes of the television series. He continued in that capacity for the standalone television film Razor (2007) and the post-series feature The Plan (2009), and later for the prequel film Blood & Chrome (2012).

His Emmy recognition came entirely from his Battlestar Galactica work. The Television Academy nominated him for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour) three times: in 2006 for the series overall (59th Emmy Awards), in 2008 for Razor (60th Emmy Awards), and in 2009 for the series finale Re-imagined Series' "Daybreak, Part II" (61st Emmy Awards). The nomination for Razor listed Bal as production mixer alongside supervising re-recording mixer Michael Olman, CAS, and Kenneth Kobett. For Blood & Chrome, he received a fourth Emmy nomination, this time for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or a Movie at the 65th Emmy Awards in 2013.

Bal is a member of the Cinema Audio Society (CAS), the professional organization for sound mixing practitioners in the motion picture and television industry. He was nominated for a CAS Award for Battlestar Galactica: "Daybreak, Part 2" in the television series category (46th CAS Awards, 2010), and for the Caprica pilot in the television movies and miniseries category at the same ceremony, both alongside re-recording mixers Michael Olman, CAS, and Kenneth Kobett, CAS.

Beyond his work on the Battlestar Galactica franchise, Bal has had a sustained career in Vancouver-based television production. His subsequent credits include long runs on The Flash (55 episodes, 2014–2018), The Man in the High Castle (20 episodes, 2018–2019), Falling Skies (20 episodes, 2012–2013), Away (2020), Debris (2021), Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024), and Under the Bridge (2024). He also served as sound mixer on the 2023 Goosebumps series and most recently as production sound mixer on The Hunting Party beginning in 2025.

References