comprehensive post-production Sound, first edit to final mix.
SOUND design services
your sound, refined.
Whether you’re building a world from scratch or need to clean up what you captured on set, I’m here to help your project sound as good as it looks. I specialize in the technical and creative "invisible art" of sound.
All-encompassing design, to one or more singular services.
What is Sound design?
A Sound Designer is tasked with creating the sonic vision of a film or other production. It is an art and science, but the art depends heavily on a firm understanding of the unique science behind how we consciously and subconsciously perceive sound, known as Psychoacoustics.
Our perception, understanding, and subconscious response is influenced psychologically, physiologically, emotionally—even by culture, gender, religion, sexuality, and on many other levels. A Sound Designer must have strong knowledge and understanding of these highly influential factors to deliver a product that not only compliments the visuals of a film or production, but enhances the viewers experience.
We must know the difference between hearing and listening, and that more sound doesn't mean better sound when silence can be deafening. And we must acknowledge and embrace that the majority of the complex layering of sound effects, foley, ambience, and music is passively registered by our brains without actively noticing it, but is enormously impactful and influential to the audience's psychological and physiological experience.
Sound Design is the Invisible Art.
sound design, and it's many roles...
While in larger, studio productions, a designer may only serve solely as a visionary, on smaller, independent productions, the designer takes on the entire creative and technical responsibility of the production.
Below are all the services I offer as a Sound Designer.
(Note, I also can be brought on to serve a smaller role in one or more of the following services only.)
dialogue
When a scene has dialogue, all other sound takes a backseat. Though a mostly technical job, perfecting the dialogue is paramount to high-end quality sound design. Much of other aspects of sound design involves "passive listening," dialogue draws the most "active listening" from an audience, so perfection is not a goal, but a necessity.
scope of service
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Audio Cleaning, such unwanted noise reduction, removing non-verbal sounds (breathes, pops, lip smacks, etc.), deverbing, and spectral editing.
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Volume consistancy and intelligabilitiy.
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Ensuring dialogue doesn't have that "mic'd" quality and sounds natural.
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Equalization to enhance vocal timbre.
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Creating consistent room tone and smoothing transitions between clips.
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Using sound design techniques to create unnatural, other-worldly dialogue, such as creatures, aliens, and many others.
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Creating temporary dubs for review with the director, and making necessary changes.
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Mixing and creating a pre-dub mix for final dubbing during re-recording mixing.
Foley
Foley, as you may know, lives in the same world as Sound Effects, but with one major distinction: Foley is performed sound effects that must match specific action on screen. This includes footsteps, cloth movement, and prop handing.
Traditional Foley usually requires a sound treated stage, hundreds of pieces of footwear, cloth, and endless props, and a team of artists, recordists, and mixers. Though I do have the equipment to record traditionally when needed, I use a modern day collection of foley-specific virtual instrument plugins and programs that can perform sounds matching on-screen action using MIDI-Controllers and Voice-To-MIDI performance.
scope of service
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Spotting the film for any moments where sound effects needed to be performed in sync with action on screen.
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Recording or virtually performing various different foley effects, such as footsteps, cloth or item movement, prop movement and handling, and others.
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Layering effects to create realism, complexity, and humanality.
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Editing and ensuring sync in Pro Tools.
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"Worldizing" sound clips through EQ and reverb.
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Creating a pre-dub mix for final dubbing.
Sound Effects & Ambience
Sound Effects (SFX) generally fall into two categories: "hard" or "spot" effects, and ambient effects. As a Sound Effects Editor, my responsibility would be choosing and acquiring these SFX from my library of +300,000 sound assets, or field recording effects with an array of stereo or mono microphone setups, and my fielding recorder able to record at 96Khz, 32 Float Bit quality audio.
These SFX are then brought into and layered in Pro Tools, then edited, synced, and modified to create complex, immersive soundscapes of ambience and hard SFX that bring the on-screen visuals to life.
During this process, it is common for more SFX to be used than may be necessary to fit the sonic intention of the scene. It is expected that the possibility to winnow down during temp dub review sessions may happen, but it is better to have too many options than not enough. Some scenes require complex layering and frequent hard SFX, while others are far better served by a minamislic approach.
scope of service
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Collaborating with the director to develop the sonic vision of the production, and how SFX can best serve that vision.
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Spotting each scene for needed SFX and background ambience.
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Aquaring, recording, syncing, layering, editing, and modifying SFX in needed or creative ways to build a soundscape that matches the sonic vision and adds depth, immersion, realism, and character to the on-screen visuals.
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Creating one or more temp dubs to be screened with the director and make decisions to add or reduce complexity, modify temporary SFX, or replace any SFX that the director feels more accurately meets their vision.
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Creating a pre-dub mix for final dubbing in the re-recording mix.
music
IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT a Composer or Songwriter, and am note able to create any original music or score. If needed, a Composer will need to be brought in by the Production.
In my capacity, I can serve as what is called a "Music Supervisor," as well as a Music Editor. A Music Supervisor is tasked with selecting and acquiring pre-existing musical tracks and ensuring legal licensing of such. For small budget films, this involves using subscription services of royalty free, universal licensed music libraries, such as Artist.io.
This process is very collaborative. Some directors and picture editors choose music during the picture edit that influences how the film is cut, matching musical beats, tempo, and mood. This can be done temporally (Temp Music), or intended to permanent. I, as a music supervisor/editor am happy to match any temp music, or work with tracks chosen by the director or picture editor. If other music is needed, discussions between the director and myself will allow me to pitch any musical tracks I believe fits the musical vision of the director. Thus, colloboration is the essence of this process!
scope of service
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Collaborate with the director, and possibly the composer (if applicable) to make decisions regarding any temporary or permanent music that has been chosen, the scope and vision of the composer, and any music that needs to be acquired.
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Collecting multiple possibly pre-existing musical tracks that are royalty-free, universally licensed that can be pitched to the director or temporarily placed and editing in a pre-dub mix for review.
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Editing, syncing, modifying, and enhancing any pre-existing score and/or agreed upon musical tracks.
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Presenting temp dubs for review with the director (and possibly composer) to adjust, replace, or make changes to any musical elements of the score.
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Mixing and creating a pre-dub mix for final dubbing during re-recording mixing.
Re-recording Mixing
Re-Recording Mixing is where the rubber meets the road. All of the above elements are created in isolation, and the Re-Recording Mixer brings all of them together into one cohesive, final mix (Final Dub). This is arguable the most important role of Post Production Sound. A Re-Recording Mixer begins by making final decisions about what stays and what goes, which elements deserve focus and which support and enhance those elements, and the treatment needed to worldize and transform each sound object to create mood, suspense, immersion, humor, contrast, and achieve the goals set forth in the sonic vision.
Mixing is far more than just raising and lower audio levels. It involves creative equalization, panning and volume automation, modulation, effects, reverb, delays, compression, and mastering the often dry, static sound elements created during the editing phase. A Re-Recording Mixer is a decision maker, an artist, and highly technically proficient sound specialist. They breathe life into the sound of each department, creating a singular soundtrack ready to be released to audiences. This work is essential. In the hierarchy of Post Production Sound, the Re-Recording Mixer sits at the top.
PLEASE NOTE: I am only able to provide a STEREO MIX, and am unable to create a 5.1 or higher surround sound mix. My final Pro Tools session will be available to producgtion
scope of service
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Audio Cleaning, such unwanted noise reduction, removing non-verbal sounds (breathes, pops, lip smacks, etc.), deverbing, and spectral editing.
-
Volume consistancy and intelligabilitiy.
-
Ensuring dialogue doesn't have that "mic'd" quality and sounds natural.
-
Equalization to enhance vocal timbre.
-
Creating consistant room tone and smoothing transitions between clips.