Full Sail Stories

“I’m still kind of mind-blown by it,” says Guillermo Moya, a freelance sound mixer and recent Full Sail University Recording Arts graduate, about his recent win of the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Student Recognition Award. “The award means everything,” Guillermo says. “The award means hard work. It means I’m doing the right thing.”

Guillermo, who graduated in November 2024, won the award for his outstanding achievements in sound mixing for Amora, a sci-fi short film created by Kiara Coll – a fellow Full Sail student and Guillermo’s girlfriend – for her Film Production MFA thesis. However, his fascination with audio began long before that.

Guillermo became interested in sound production when he was growing up as a musician in Puerto Rico. After high school, he studied music performance, and shortly after that, got his associate degree in audio engineering and music production. There, he encountered sound design for the first time, and for a final project, he took a World of Warcraft trailer and redesigned the sound in his own style.

Still, Guillermo wanted to learn more, and when he heard about Full Sail’s Recording Arts program he took the leap and moved to Central Florida to study on campus. During his time at Full Sail, Guillermo got to intern at SPARK, the university’s student-led production agency, which gives students the chance to experience the reality of professional production by helping out on projects for outside clients.

For one of his first projects as a student, Guillermo collaborated on a short film called Flight of the Emu. He worked on everything from foley and cutting background audio to dialogue editing and sound mixing. He also collaborated with Full Sail Film Production MFA students on their film theses.

Other notable projects that Guillermo worked on were F Plus with Swen Studios, where he did foley and sound editing, and the Winter Park Christmas Parade, where he acted as the audio lead. He continues working on exciting projects as an audio tech at SPARK.

“I’m really proud that I’m part of SPARK,” Guillermo shares. “It’s been very neat having those projects available to me because it helps in expanding what I can do.”

Guillermo had many mentors who have supported him on his Full Sail journey. Jason Strawley and Dave Chmela, who are both managers at Full Sail’s Dub Stage, mentored him in sound design and were key to Guillermo’s success. The head of SPARK, Jackie Gardner, was also invaluable to him.

“There's a lot of people and instructors at Full Sail that are very important to me,” says Guillermo. “The industry is not easy… So having someone that teaches you how to be strong is incredible.”

When Guillermo put his hat in the ring for the CAS Student Recognition Award, he had his mentors Marc Fishman (a Full Sail Hall of Fame inductee and a re-recording mixer on projects like Mean Girls and HBO’s The Last of Us) and Jeff King, a re-recording mixer with Skywalker Sound, check the quality of his sound mixing in Amora.

Guillermo Moya poses with his mentor Jason Strawley and girlfriend Kiara Coll.

Since being recognized for his success in sound mixing, Guillermo looks forward to what’s next.

“A big goal for me is keep mixing movies and keep helping people bring their creations and their ideas to life,” he shares. “I think it's more than me getting on a stage and mixing [a song]. I think it's really satisfying when you have somebody sit with you and be like, ‘Wow, that's my movie.’ Or when you mix a song and the artist is going nuts because it sounds great. That is a feeling of accomplishment in my opinion, and it is super satisfying.”