What "moment" led you to Post-Production?

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by philper

It seems like a lot of the "newbie" people who post here are looking to move into post from music work of some kind. How many people here--no matter what your experience level is, miss music engineering (I mean studio type work, not location recording)? Would you have stayed in music if the money and opportunities had been there?

Philip Perkins

Knowing what I know now, I wish I would have gotten into post sooner.

[Steven1145]

I used to play guitar in a band back in high school (Lycée in France). I had bought some PA gear and did the sound for our band for some time. When it was time to choose an education path, I decided to try to be a sound engineer (music), but wanted to get proper training to do so. So I passed the examination for one of the French film schools (Louis Lumière) that had a sound course, and there I met with Sound For Picture!! Love at first hearing
After school I started working on set (boom op), though I did do a small stint in a music studio that tried to f*** me over (sent them to court and won).
After a couple of years I met my business partner Eric, who already had a small post studio in Paris. I started learning sound editing and really loved it.
From then on, it's a sad tale of working in post and buying gear
After having bought quite a lot of gear for a film I worked on in Italy, I decided to start a company, together with Eric who was having trouble with his former partners.
Here we are, 12 years down the line!

I love post. The last on-set gig I did was back in 2001, and I dont regret one for one moment being exclusive to post. However, I do quite a few aspects of post (sound editing, mixing, ADR and foley mixing), which is a bit unusual for France. But I get a kick out of following a whole project through, and I believe it makes sense.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by philper

It seems like a lot of the "newbie" people who post here are looking to move into post from music work of some kind. How many people here--no matter what your experience level is, miss music engineering (I mean studio type work, not location recording)? Would you have stayed in music if the money and opportunities had been there?

Philip Perkins

I don't know if I would have stayed with it, because I always liked the advertising and scoring side of the business more than the pop music side.

When my wife and I moved to LA from NYC in the mid '80s, ad and scoring work was a lot harder to break into than records -- at that point, if I was willing to do graveyard shift overdub sessions, I had all the big-label music work I could stand. It just got old really quickly.

That said, any time my present situation affords me the opportunity to either write or engineer music for a project, I jump on it.

[thierryd]

With an organ playing background I started tinkering with a Realistic Moog MG1 synth that I bought new (discounted :-) when I was 12 and very soon was doing more sea, wind, train and plane imitations with it than playing music. Then came the MIDI era and I continued to play music with MIDI synths, while having a firm interest in the technical side of things. I always read keyboard magazines with tests of Emulators, Kurzweils and Akais that I could never afford. Then I went to film school because it was the closest I could find to something that had to do with music and the recording side of it. I always liked films however and during film school probably the Moment I really wanted to continue in post and sound design, was when The Hollywood Edge released their Premiere Edition that was bought by the school. The school was for me like a big toy store with all sorts of equipment that I could try out. I was recording with Nagras, syncing sound to picture on flatbed 16mm and with Tascam 8track and 2track Revox with Tascam synchronizers + FSK tone and Alesis MMT8 sequencer combined with Akai S950, but those Premiere Edition sfx made my jaw drob at the time and I thankfully used them to death (nowadays everybody in the world seems to have done that unfortunately :-). Then the school bought an Akak DD1000 and a ProTools 1 system and one could really start speeding up the sfx editing (I really prefered the DD1000 at the time, because the PT1 system wasn't quite good yet to put it mildly).
Another big moment for me were some visits to the then opened 25 theater Kinepolis in Brussels, where they were showing 70mm prints at the time. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comes to mind and a presentation in Kinepolis by Scott Ross then at ILM, who talked about ILM and THX and showed a section of Star Wars on the enormous screen.
To answer Philip's question, I did start out in a 2inch 24 track music studio and also got paid for the work I did. The owner is still a good friend, but he has sold the studio years ago, because the music recording business just wasn't paying the bills. I've always worked in post at the same time though. First 2 things I bought with my hard earned music engineering money were a Tubetech CL1B and a PE1C that still serve me well today. Second big thing I bought was a used Akai DD1000 that I first started using as music mastering device and later to cut SFX for a television show. I got tired of recording music quite quickly for reasons others have already mentioned here. So even if the pay was great in music recording, I would still prefer post (where I still do some 5.1 music mixing now and then).
I recently did production sound for a feature film with a director/friend that I've been working with since film school. Although I had great fun and loved the challenges, I still prefer mixing films in the studio (which I'm doing again right now).

Greetings,

Thierry

[tsvisser]

That moment was yesterday where I sent out a flyer to my business associates that I was moving into post sound. Jumping into the water with both feet and with one shoe off. I'm not in LA and I'm a minuscule sized studio, so I hope for the best.

[PoxyMusic]

Originally Posted by philper

How many people here--no matter what your experience level is, miss music engineering (I mean studio type work, not location recording)? Would you have stayed in music if the money and opportunities had been there?

I do miss the rush of a basic tracking session, but that's about it. Lousy hours. I sort of like seeing my kids!

Got out of music in 1993, my first post gig was doing sound design for all the Sega commercials in the '90s. Great fun! I was always trying to see what I could get away with, like putting bong hit sounds in etc.

Come to think of it, at this very moment I'd rather be working with a band than doing Foley for puppets...which is what I'm doing!

[BeK$]

Originally Posted by charles maynes

seeing Terminator II.


I had already done film work prior to that too.

Ha the first cd I bought was the Terminator II sound track... I originally went to school for aviation, maybe T2 and my love of The Fifth Element in 5.1 secretly took me were I am. I got into post because its where I could get in and Im still here. Need to move on to a different company though, but thats a different thread I need to start.

[philper]

Originally Posted by tsvisser

That moment was yesterday where I sent out a flyer to my business associates that I was moving into post sound. Jumping into the water with both feet and with one shoe off. I'm not in LA and I'm a minuscule sized studio, so I hope for the best.

Good luck to you--I know you from jwsound, and think having a BG in production sound is as helpful to an audio postie as a BG in music (which I take you have as well). I think it helps me know what I'm hearing on the tracks. I can also say that working in post made me a much better production sound person.

Philip Perkins

[tsvisser]

Originally Posted by philper

Good luck to you--I know you from jwsound, and think having a BG in production sound is as helpful to an audio postie as a BG in music (which I take you have as well). I think it helps me know what I'm hearing on the tracks. I can also say that working in post made me a much better production sound person.

Philip Perkins

Thanks for your well wishes Philip. I think I know like 80 or 90 percent of the location guys here, and although a few of them cross-train into other disciplines, like editing or VA, I don't know anyone who has a studio or specifically does post sound. I know a lot of the VO and ADR work goes to a couple of mainly music studios, like Lost, but that work is now gone, so I'm pretty sure I'm the only game in town... were just short on players. Anyways, with little overhead, and no significant investment, it didn't seem too foolhardy of a move. This is all possible due to a pretty good commercial sub-lease opportunity that I had, but hoping that I can expand and do proper construction some day soon.

[D'Animation]

Indiana Jones and saturday morning cartoons via a Earth Science degree - made an effort to try a normal career although in reality I got the degree knowing that was my last involvement in that area. Sound and technology turned out to be my only big interest...not really any transferrable skills from earth sc but at least I could jump ship before I got comfy in it

[Jfriah]

First question on my first post sound interview:
"Psychology degree? What the hell are you doing here?!?"

And I've used it still nearly every single day.

Jeff

[rgr22]

Well, Im still a newbie but im a couple months away from finishing sound engineering career but a week ago I realized that I could make a better living out of post instead of music but a more important reason is that I could actually enjoy it, have fun and be creative!. I love working in the studio (though I really cant stand musicians anymore). So right now Im trying to figure out where to go from here, switching from music sound engineering wolrd into post lol making questions and getting advice etc but definitely Im going for post!

(any advice for a newbie??)

[Sonsey@mac.com]

Seeing an interview with Frank Sera_fine (hey GS, what's wrong with his name? It blanks out the first 7 letters!) about his work on Tron (specifically the discs)- the first time I really realized "Hey! Someone actually CREATED this sound". Yes I had seen all the Star Wars BTS stuff with Burt tapping guy wires and waving around flo-tubes, but it never really occurred to me at that age that laser guns really didn't make that sound.

[BeK$]

Originally Posted by Jfriah

First question on my first post sound interview:
"Psychology degree? What the hell are you doing here?!?"

And I've used it still nearly every single day.

Jeff

Haha yea working at a bar for a while paid off with me too. I guess I got my street degree in that hahaha.

I had the same thing happen when long story short I got out of aviation and was on a interview for a state school with an audio program. They thought I had 2 yrs under my belt of music not aviavtion. They were about to send me packing till they said sooo what exactly did you do before this? Oh ! What are you doing here? Your in !

[Matti]

I worked as a camera assistant , what´s the term internationally, but broke my back and found sound and was happy for years, now retiring

-Georgia, I love you

Matti

[Scoopicman]

Originally Posted by Jfriah

And whatever 'making of Star Wars' video back in the day showing Ben Burtt tapping on the wires, etc.

Ditto! I saw that same footage and tried my own version of that technique, by hitting springs (the kind you do chest exercises with.) I was 13, when STAR WARS came out, and the sound blew me away. I had been making short stories on audio tape (reel to reel), so it was only natural that I took some of those sound technics (pitch transposition, effects, foley, dubbing) into filmmaking, 2 years later.

[stuartprovine]

I knew the moment I looked around and realized that I would never make a living making music.... I loved the toys, the techniques, the technology, but I needed a way to pay for it. Ergo... post.

Sound designers are almost always also musicians. Sometimes they're professional musicians, but most are tinkerers like me. Musical sensibilities will serve you very well doing sound effects, and you don't have to live out of a van down by the river.

[Lipflap]

I was never a music engineer. Instead, I began as a film editor. Made a decent living and did some wonderful projects. For some reason I decided to take a gig as an assistant sound editor, just to improve my sound editing skills. I quickly realized that I have much more of a gift for sound editing, especially dialogue, than for picture. Never really looked back.

[cubivore]

i decided i wanted to intern at a post place in college since everyone else was going the multimedia and music route. i figured i would end up working on music videos or video art or something crazy. i got a job as a tape op and somehow got in to recording for post. ten years later to this day i still can't get a flippin music job. apparently music people don't think post people can mix music or know what the process is. they can go to hell hahahaha

[Rick Sanchez]

I moved to post when I realized the music business was heading down a rapid path to self destruction. The funny thing is that post-production is rapidly moving down that same path and I find myself now doing 40% of my work back in the music business doing preservation and archival work. How nice to hear dynamics in music again. I had almost forgotten how it can have an emotional effect on a musical composition.

[jimlongo]

I just knew as I walked out of the "Tales from Topographic Oceans" concert at Maple Leaf Gardens that I wanted to work as a mixer. I'm not even really sure of the connection - but I clearly remember that night.
It didn't really matter what it was. Started in music, then learned the basics in mastering, moved to commercial production-mostly radio, then television, jingles and about 13 years ago went to long form - live-action, animation, whatever.
My business partner is a composer so I still feel like I'm around music production.
I guess ultimately it's about making a living and doing something you love at the same time, because the alternative of doing something you love and not being able to make ends meet can be a bitter pill.

[georgia]

Originally Posted by MATTI

I worked as a camera assistant , what´s the term internationally, but broke my back and found sound and was happy for years, now retiring

-Georgia, I love you

Matti

thanks! but i'm taken.

cheers
geo

[Matti]

But I have a dream of an option

Matti