Insights In Sound 211 – Karol Urban, Re-Recording Mixer – S22 E1

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0:2828 secondsSo, I’m here with Carol Urban at Formosa Studios, Stage Six. And where is it? 959. What?
0:3535 seconds9. It’s the 959 location in Hollywood. There’s a number of Formosa locations.
0:3939 secondsBut enough about Formosa. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk.
0:4242 secondsUm, [laughter] so first of all, you are a post-p production mixer. I am. Yes. I’m a re-recording mixer. A re-recording mixer.
0:5050 secondsThe official.
0:5151 secondsUm, a longtime audio professional and a total badass. Ah, I love it. I’m paying the right people. AB,
0:5858 secondsthere you go. [laughter] Absolutely. So,
1:001 minutewhat I usually try and do first is just kind of establish like who you are and where you came from. So, Oh, okay.
1:061 minute, 6 secondsLike, tell me a little bit. Did you Did you start out like all of us wanting to be a rock star or how did you get into this?
1:111 minute, 11 secondsOh, actually, although I it is interesting. I don’t even think I realized that. I mean, it seems obvious now in retrospect that there would be a
1:191 minute, 19 secondslot of my uh compatriots in this industry, a lot of my co-workers that uh went into music and then ended up in post, but actually no. Um I rejected
1:291 minute, 29 secondsmusic. I did not want it. Yeah. I I um uh so uh I I I had a uh a disability that became
1:381 minute, 38 secondsthe best ability and opportunity of my life, which was um I was born with a muscular deformity in my eyes. Uh-huh.
1:431 minute, 43 secondsThat made me legally blind until the age of six. Wow.
1:461 minute, 46 secondsUm and uh I had optical input, but I didn’t have uh bioptical control, so I had kind of floating fly vision going
1:531 minute, 53 secondson. Um until my eyes were big enough that they could surgically make a correction and then I went through PT and blah blah blah. Wow.
2:012 minutes, 1 secondUm yeah. Nowadays, because lasers and technology, um if you had this and your child was born with it, they’d zap you as an infant and send you home with vision. But in my day in the 70s, um,
2:122 minutes, 12 secondsyou had to wait until you physically could be operated on and what have you. That’s fascinating. So, what Okay. So,
2:192 minutes, 19 secondsso I have to ask,
2:202 minutes, 20 secondswhat was what is that like to not really see anything for I mean, how did that impact you in terms of like your your
2:282 minutes, 28 secondsdevelopment of being, you know, all of a sudden at the age of six being able to see the world around you? Um, it was actually really overwhelming.
2:352 minutes, 35 secondsI don’t think my parents really understood. I remember my father taking me to the petting zoo, which was actually one of the favorite my favorite places.
2:422 minutes, 42 secondsAnd um I didn’t realize, I think, how big the animals actually were.
2:472 minutes, 47 secondsAnd he put me in the room with a horse that I knew. And I was like horror movie
2:552 minutes, 55 secondspetrified. They had to pull me out of the petting zoo, take me home. I spent I The story is I spent a couple of days in my closet with like too much too much
3:033 minutes, 3 secondsinput. um basically working everything out. Um reminds me of that story of the uh the blind men with the elephant. You know that I don’t know the story.
3:103 minutes, 10 secondsThere’s this story about like four blind men with an elephant and each of them is feeling a different. So like one feels the leg and thinks it’s a tree, one feels the tail and thinks it’s a rope,
3:193 minutes, 19 secondsone feels the trunk and thinks it’s a snake,
3:213 minutes, 21 secondsyou know? It’s like because when you don’t have that that sense yeah the other senses take over and become more dominant.
3:283 minutes, 28 secondsAbs. Yes. And it’s not like I I tell people all the time, it’s not that I mean I know statistically because I test my hearing because it’s what I do that I have very very good hearing especially
3:373 minutes, 37 secondsin my age group and I am in an excellent percentile but I don’t have super hearing. I’m not you know a Marvel character. Um what I do have is
3:453 minutes, 45 secondsobservation and and I dominantly take in a lot of information through my ears because even to this day I’m like that
3:523 minutes, 52 secondsreally old Saturday Night Live skit of Mr. Death Perception Man. Like that is me. I I have terrible death perception.
3:593 minutes, 59 secondsUm I am clumsy everywhere all the time. Um yeah, it is it’s awful vision.
4:054 minutes, 5 secondsYeah, I my develop the spatial that kind of spatial sense that neurological connection between shadow and like that
4:134 minutes, 13 secondsdevelops a great deal in those early years and I wasn’t really stable with my PT until I was probably around eight. So yeah, you know, I mean, I’m just
4:224 minutes, 22 secondsthinking like for example, um I have uh one of my oldest my older daughter was born in Germany and so when she was
4:304 minutes, 30 secondsyoung, she learned two languages at the same time. And so I did a lot of studying on bilingual uh children.
4:364 minutes, 36 secondsYeah. The neurlex flexibility at that developmental stage. Yeah. And and so I can imagine that, you know,
4:414 minutes, 41 secondsa similar thing must have happened to you with with the the accentuated other Yeah. Actually, that’s a really good way to look at it. Yeah. And as somebody who learned a second language in their 20s,
4:504 minutes, 50 secondsit took me 15 years to do what it takes a child in that neuroplasticity stage to do in two years. Oh yeah. And yeah, that
4:584 minutes, 58 secondsit it’s very very true. But it’s true. I do tend to notice the sound or remember the sound of something more than I remember what it looks like. Um, and I’m
5:075 minutes, 7 secondsvery good at um, like I love ADR and I love uh, different reverbs and roomizing
5:145 minutes, 14 secondsand I love worldizing and I I love all of that because um, that is oftentimes how I perceive space and and how I
5:235 minutes, 23 secondsnavigate really around the world. That’s still a very useful if not dominant way for me to to get around. In fact, I do drive. I am a terrible driver. I will always be a [laughter] terrible driver.
5:345 minutes, 34 secondsI have the beeps, the sweeps, and the creeps in in excess on my vehicle because I am hideous and I drive it. I’m not getting behind you. Yeah, exact. Don’t. [laughter] Yeah,
5:425 minutes, 42 secondshonestly. Yeah. I I I drive a particular sized vehicle that I learned how to drive in a hayfield in Suffach, Virginia at different speeds until I could drive
5:505 minutes, 50 secondsit without running into things because my depth perception is terrible. Well, I love it. I love it.
5:545 minutes, 54 secondsUhhuh. [laughter] But yet, you can probably tell the difference between certain types of reverbs better than most of us. I I’m very observant with decays and very observant with like I
6:026 minutes, 2 secondsconsider ADR to be kind of like those pictures where it’s like you know um you know what’s different in this image that’s different in this image and you’re like oh she’s wearing a ring or her hair is a little bit more on the left on this. That is that’s ADR to me.
6:136 minutes, 13 secondsIt’s like such a fun game. That’s interesting. Yeah.
6:166 minutes, 16 secondsBut so I loved world. I loved the sound of world. So to me I it wasn’t about being a performer or it wasn’t about
6:236 minutes, 23 secondsbeing a musician. Um, it was about the fact that I take in the world sonically and as a result I can’t really play
6:316 minutes, 31 secondssports. Um, I did watch a ton of TV and movies. I was the kid that didn’t go outside to play. Um, yeah, you know, um,
6:396 minutes, 39 secondsI come by my complexion honestly. I never hit sunlight. [laughter] Um, so very studio. Damn, I had to work really hard on mine. But yeah, I sit in a dark room and I am,
6:476 minutes, 47 secondsyou know, I’d say I’m not just a dealer,
6:496 minutes, 49 secondsI’m a user. I love stories and I love hearing my stories. Um so uh
6:556 minutes, 55 secondsI I’m a big consumer of media and um whether it is live productions or whether it’s audio dramas or you know
7:047 minutes, 4 secondsand I’m a big fan of music as well. I did play the piano and I did study composition and the little town that I grew up in in Portsouth, Virginia and southern Virginia.
7:137 minutes, 13 secondsIf you were in sound, you were clearly going to be a musician.
7:167 minutes, 16 secondsThat’s what you do. Those are the only people that do sound, right? Sound.
7:207 minutes, 20 secondsThat’s music. Sound is music. Um, and it wasn’t until um, actually I got into college and I thought, okay, well, I guess I’ll be a film composer because I don’t want to perform,
7:307 minutes, 30 secondsso I want I’ll be, you know, because to me also I I was fooled. Good job,
7:347 minutes, 34 secondsHollywood. Um, I was I didn’t realize all the functions that existed growing up when I was consuming this media. I didn’t think about the spaceship sound
7:437 minutes, 43 secondsand the fact that there weren’t really spaceships or the sound of the alien language and there weren’t really aliens. I didn’t think about that in in a construction aspect. I just took in
7:527 minutes, 52 secondsthe narrative. Why would you? The, you know, it’s working. You know what I mean?
7:557 minutes, 55 secondsIf you’re doing a good, if Hollywood’s doing a good job, you don’t know,
7:597 minutes, 59 secondsright? It’s working. So, I consumed these stories and the sounds always, oh my god, they impacted me so greatly. And
8:078 minutes, 7 secondsum and so I got basically into college and somebody said, well, you know,
8:108 minutes, 10 secondsthey’re they’re studying to work in post. And I’m like, what a what? Don’t they record all that on the set? And they went, oh no. And I went, oh, I
8:188 minutes, 18 secondschanged my major. I was like, I’m out of this. I finally I found the thing I’m supposed to do. Um it’s it’s the heavens parted and all of a sudden you
8:268 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. I was like, “Oh, thank God I don’t have to perform anymore. Oh my god.”
8:308 minutes, 30 seconds[laughter]
8:308 minutes, 30 secondsThat’s really interesting though because because so many people Yeah. [laughter] But so many people who do what you do, come across it
8:378 minutes, 37 secondscompletely by accident, have no idea the job even exists, you know. And that’s one of the things, you know, for me because I came up as a musician and
8:458 minutes, 45 secondsthen, you know, first time in the recording studio, I knew that that’s what I wanted to do. And then I discovered the oh while the engineer is doing that there’s a producer oh I want
8:538 minutes, 53 secondsto do that you know and so on and so forth. But I never I’m always fascinated because so many
9:009 minutespeople from that particular let’s say sector of the industry then all of a sudden they discover there’s all these other jobs that they didn’t know
9:089 minutes, 8 secondsexisted. I I go through that with a lot of the students that I teach now. You know it’s like oh okay so there’s also what uh live sound right? Yeah. you
9:169 minutes, 16 secondsknow, well, but you know, and everybody thinks, “Oh, I know what I want to do.” And then there’s like 1,600 other jobs.
9:239 minutes, 23 secondsThere’s so many other fun discover, you know.
9:259 minutes, 25 secondsYeah. Yeah. Yeah. Silent heroes of storytelling. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
9:299 minutes, 29 secondsAnd so, so I mean, I think it’s interesting for you. Their work isn’t silent, but you know what I mean.
9:339 minutes, 33 secondsYeah. Yeah. Well, but but they are sort of, you know, behind the scenes and nobody knows they exist, you know. Absolutely. Absolutely.
9:389 minutes, 38 secondsAnd so for you to just discover that like, you know, and go, “Oo, that’s what I want to do.” That’s unusual. I it’s
9:459 minutes, 45 secondsvery unusual and I found myself um that early because I was I went to an art school. My mother was a public education teacher who she she was great because
9:549 minutes, 54 secondsshe was an advocate for me and so I went to the Governor’s Magnet School for the Arts in Norphick and I was able to essentially take composition classes and work on
10:0210 minutes, 2 secondsmultitrack recording and theory at age 13. Wow.
10:0710 minutes, 7 secondsYeah. I was in a studio at age 13. I know it was lovely. I was 17 traveling uh in a in a musical in Japan, you know,
10:1510 minutes, 15 secondslike I was I was very lucky to to have all this experience very early on in my life and and to know that the
10:2310 minutes, 23 secondsperformance was the thing I had to do in order to be able to take the elective to get in the studio because what I wanted to do was I wanted to engineer but also the per doing the performance
10:3110 minutes, 31 secondshipped you to what that side of the the equation is like% that’s why I mean I’m I’m grateful that I have performed on stage because I understand what the
10:3910 minutes, 39 secondsfront house guy does, you know, and I understand what the monitor engineer does and I understand what the producer does and, you know, because you need to
10:4710 minutes, 47 secondsbe able to spend a little bit of time in those roles, you know, I mean, I I’ve always believed, for example, that if you want to work in the studio,
10:5410 minutes, 54 secondsyou need to spend at least a month or two out on the road.
10:5710 minutes, 57 seconds100%. And and honestly, I feel like um I have a weird uh I guess line to this chair for this town
11:0511 minutes, 5 secondsas well. I I feel like a lot of people in Hollywood come in on either lower positions on rather impressive productions.
11:1311 minutes, 13 secondsUm or they come into this town at least working in a particular sector, a particular job.
11:1911 minutes, 19 secondsUm I came in uh at 36 uh and I worked in DC. Well, well, I I’ve been No, I was
11:2711 minutes, 27 secondsworking at like 13. I was Yeah. Yeah. But that’s what I’m saying.
11:2911 minutes, 29 secondsBut to be here at But to be here at this age, I was definitely a little bit of an anomaly.
11:3411 minutes, 34 secondsBut um I worked for 12 years um and was a sound designer which is what they called the job in the Mid-Atlantic region in Washington DC. Yeah.
11:4311 minutes, 43 secondsAnd I started on I probably shouldn’t say this out loud but like political ads and what people don’t know is that actually DC is actually the charity capital of the world. So there’s a ton of documentary work. Yes.
11:5311 minutes, 53 secondsSo I went from political ads one or two years maybe four max I was doing a little bit with a client or two that hung out. Um but I moved very quickly at about year two into documentary work.
12:0312 minutes, 3 secondsYes. The home of NPR, you know,
12:0512 minutes, 5 secondsand Exactly. And I did a lot of nature docs, political docs, uh, military documentaries, just a lot of, uh, social
12:1212 minutes, 12 secondsdocumentaries, a lot of ecological documentaries.
12:1512 minutes, 15 secondsAnd that’s what I did until I came to Los Angeles.
12:1912 minutes, 19 secondsAnd interesting. Yeah. And but in the documentary world and in the Mid-Atlantic region, there’s like like each person is kind of a soundpost island.
12:2812 minutes, 28 secondsYes. It’s a different structure. But you see a lot of storytelling, too,
12:3212 minutes, 32 secondsdoesn’t it? It does. We It is It is a different way of telling stories. Yeah.
12:3712 minutes, 37 secondsUm and and it was strange when I came to Los Angeles. I remember meeting with the, you know, my my husband is also a sound super and a sound editor and we
12:4512 minutes, 45 secondsboth met with uh someone who has become a great mentor to us in LA. And he was like, “Kid, it’s great that you’ve done all these things, but what do you want to do?” And I’m like, “Audio post.” He
12:5312 minutes, 53 secondsgoes, “That’s not a gig here. You need a gig. What do you want to do?” Like, “What’s your gig?” And I was like, “I mean, you know.” Oh, and he’s like,
13:0113 minutes, 1 second”No, no, no. You can’t do it all and be good at everything. Here, we’re experts and we hone in very specifically and we work in larger teams. You need to be
13:0913 minutes, 9 secondsable to work in a larger team. Where do you want to be an expert?” And immediately I was like, “Gh, mixer, you know, and my husband was like,
13:1713 minutes, 17 secondseditor, you know.”
13:1813 minutes, 18 secondsYeah. [laughter] No, that’s really interesting because, you know, that’s um I mean, I’ve had this conversation with a lot of people where I have I have kind
13:2513 minutes, 25 secondsof lamented that um on the one hand I’ve you know, I’ve worn a lot of hats. I’ve done a lot of different things which has enabled me to understand a lot of things
13:3413 minutes, 34 secondsbut it’s also like I’ve never really focused on one thing for very long. You know I’m a I I refer to myself as a lead actor in short attention span theater.
13:4213 minutes, 42 secondsI love it. That’s actually really great.
13:4413 minutes, 44 secondsYeah. And and you know so therefore I’ve done all these different things and it’s like plenty of friends of mine who like oh you stuck with that while I went off
13:5213 minutes, 52 secondsand did something else. Squirrel you know.
13:5413 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. Yeah. But but it was wonderful in DC because I did get to do a little bit of those jobs. I did get to actually perform, you know, fill in fully for my
14:0214 minutes, 2 secondsnature docs. And I did, you know, record and do ADR and do narration recording.
14:0714 minutes, 7 secondsAnd I did uh do music editing and I did do sound design and I did logo branding and I did world building and and I got a taste of it.
14:1514 minutes, 15 secondsA taste of all of it because that was your principal position. Even if you shared a job in DC, you might cut something that your buddy mixes based on
14:2414 minutes, 24 secondsthe way the schedule works. But then you’re also mixing something that your buddy cut. But your job is they book you on whatever needs to get done.
14:3114 minutes, 31 secondsSo you did sound design as well. Yeah, you had to do it all.
14:3414 minutes, 34 secondsThat’s really interesting. I’ve I’ve always found sound design to be really fascinating. I have a few friends who are really into it. It makes me super versatile and actually even this year I
14:4214 minutes, 42 secondsdid some logo branding for new networks um you know this year which was great and I easily slip into supervision work when I need to and I uh I mixed uh or I
14:5214 minutes, 52 secondsI cut uh dialogue for a very good friend of mine a lovely supervisor um on uh Dope Thief for Apple last season um
15:0015 minuteswhile I was mixing um dialogue and music on Say Nothing at the same time for Fox.
15:0515 minutes, 5 secondsUm so it allows me to do a lot of different things. Um, but given my brothers and asked what type of animal I am, it’s mix all day.
15:1315 minutes, 13 secondsInteresting. Interesting. I mean, it’s really good to be that versatile. I’ve always felt like, you know, yeah, please like try a little bit of everything. You
15:2015 minutes, 20 secondscan always, you know, if you’re really lucky, you might get to choose, you know, what you want to do at a certain point in your career. But the other thing about it is that if you try
15:2915 minutes, 29 secondseverything, nine times out of 10, you’re going to discover something that you didn’t even know was.
15:3315 minutes, 33 secondsThat is very, very true. And and actually when I um as an example of that, when I was cutting Dope Thief, um I had new mixers that I were uh you
15:4115 minutes, 41 secondsknow, mixers that I was cutting for and um workflows that I needed to adhere to and um and a supervisor that has a very
15:4815 minutes, 48 secondsuh specific way of labeling and setting things out. And so I had I basically reverse engineered how that mixer was
15:5615 minutes, 56 secondsmixing the project based on the feedback and what was being asked of me as the editor which gave me a new way to perceive the next mix that I would be
16:0416 minutes, 4 secondsworking on. So it was it was a very good learning experience. Well, and you know the other thing is that I think most of us who come up in this kind of industry,
16:1216 minutes, 12 secondswe become autodidactic whether we want to or not. You know, because a lot of times, you know, it’s like yes, you can learn from a mentor, but
16:2016 minutes, 20 secondsnine times out of 10, you’re going to be picking up half that on your own because you have to. Absolutely. You know, and you have to just go, okay,
16:2816 minutes, 28 secondsyou know, deductive reasoning. I see what’s happening here. Why is it happening? Hm. you know, oh, you you touched that knob over there and all of a sudden this happened, you know.
16:3716 minutes, 37 secondsYes. Exactly. Exactly. And I mean, I you know,
16:4016 minutes, 40 secondslook, I fell into this thing um I uh after working for uh myself for many, many years.
16:4816 minutes, 48 secondsUm I fell into a gig working for a company helping to design control surfaces. Oh wow.
16:5416 minutes, 54 secondsAnd I, you know, I mean, I thought I knew enough about electronics to get myself in trouble. All of a sudden, I find myself working as, you know, the person who’s helping to figure out like
17:0317 minutes, 3 secondswhat the MIDI commands should do for this or that to run a DAW from here. Sure. Sure. Sure.
17:0917 minutes, 9 secondsWell, you’d be perfect at that though because you’re a user and you also have the internet background so you can be a liazison, right? But then that led to they said, “Oh,
17:1617 minutes, 16 secondswell, you know, can you help write the ads?” And sure. So then, you know, and then when they laid me off, I was like, “Oh, well, you know, um, you got some skills.”
17:2417 minutes, 24 secondsYeah. you know, all of a sudden I found myself accidentally starting a PR company.
17:2817 minutes, 28 secondsAnd actually, these last couple of years since the the writer strike and with the changes that are happening in Los Angeles, I’ve been very blessed with the
17:3517 minutes, 35 secondsability to be uh very resourceful in a lot of different directions uh which is really lovely and and it’s kept me busy and honestly it’s kept me at the board mixing which has been a blessing.
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondsThere you go. Exactly. you know, and just being able to to take those things.
17:4917 minutes, 49 secondsAnd the other thing about it is that when you can do that,
17:5217 minutes, 52 secondsyou can also relate to the people who are doing their jobs.
17:5517 minutes, 55 secondsYou you can communicate with them a lot better and also have a bit of empathy for what you’re asking for. A lot of times people don’t know what they’re asking for and the person’s like, “Wait,
18:0418 minutes, 4 secondsyou want me to double cut all the you know, and you don’t until you’ve gone through that, you don’t really realize,
18:0918 minutes, 9 secondsoh, I’ve just asked you for 40% more of your work.” Right. Right. For the same price.
18:1318 minutes, 13 secondsExactly. So, yeah. Yeah. So maybe, you know, we can talk about this.
18:1718 minutes, 17 secondsYeah. [laughter] Yeah. Exactly. So So you fell into all this stuff and yet you still were able to have the luxury to say, you know what, but this is really what I wanted to do.
18:2618 minutes, 26 secondsOh, yeah. Well, I belinded. I I don’t know that I fell into anything as much as I’ve always lived with the philosophy of um success is preparation meets
18:3418 minutes, 34 secondsopportunity. And so um you know uh I I make sincere connections. If I don’t like somebody, I’m not going to like you regardless of who you are. If you don’t
18:4318 minutes, 43 secondsgel, [laughter] then then I’m going to very peacefully allow you to ecosystem somewhere else, you know, but uh but you know, but but uh and I’m sure people do the same with me, you know, you know,
18:5218 minutes, 52 secondspeace be with you. Yeah. You know, um but I do like people for the most part.
18:5618 minutes, 56 secondsI I enjoy people and I like being a member of my community and I like being helpful and I like being a resource and
19:0319 minutes, 3 secondsI like learning about um people’s situations and perspectives. I mean, I think the reason that I do like post-production, uh, specifically
19:1219 minutes, 12 secondsversus, um, songwriting or being a musician, um, is because I have a very large changing narrative that I’m being
19:2119 minutes, 21 secondsasked to interpret and use a lot of subconsciously effective methodology
19:2719 minutes, 27 secondsthrough sound to affect the the the psychology of the viewer. And that is a
19:3419 minutes, 34 secondscombination of psychology and sociology and the physics of sound and also the creative problem solving of weaving
19:4319 minutes, 43 secondsthose elements together and a certain amount of intuitiveness too. You know, you have to have that that innate understanding in that sense.
19:5219 minutes, 52 secondsI I you know what I like the best um is actually notes. I know that sounds like people don’t like notes. I love notes. I love notes. Um, now granted with the
20:0120 minutes, 1 secondright client, you know, like but but if you have a real collaborative relationship with your client, notes are like the best,
20:0720 minutes, 7 secondsyou know, because that’s where, you know, if you do, you know, step off the cliff in the wrong direction or in a right direction, you’ll get that
20:1520 minutes, 15 secondsfeedback and you’ll more intimately understand the perspective that they’re trying to communicate to the end audience.
20:2220 minutes, 22 secondsIt’s a breadcrumb trail, too. It’s absolutely because you can you can look back at that and say okay so you know where did we if we miscommunicated where did we
20:3020 minutes, 30 secondsmiscommunicate right you know correct and what we because a lot of times what’s happening is you’re you’re working at 100 miles an hour and a lot of goes by you that
20:3920 minutes, 39 secondsyou don’t remember budgets are smaller and timelines are smaller the job is not getting actually easier even with technology getting better and better which is helping us it
20:4820 minutes, 48 secondsis not compensating for the smaller crews the smaller budget and the the smaller timeline.
20:5420 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. And so to be a Yeah, I I I hear you with the notes because the whole idea is to be able to go back and look at that or to be able to just compare. I
21:0121 minutes, 1 secondmean, I’m a real fan of the written word. In fact, one of the things that kind of infuriates me these days is when I’m trying to look something up and all
21:0821 minutes, 8 secondsI can find is a YouTube video because I don’t want to sit through your video. If you like this, subscribe. You
21:1621 minutes, 16 secondsknow, it’s like, no, shut the hell up and tell me what I want to know.
21:1921 minutes, 19 secondsGive me some steps, man. I can read it in 10 seconds, you know, and I have to put up with 40 seconds of and find what I need. Yeah. I can search it and find what I need. Give me the
21:2821 minutes, 28 secondsmanual. I’ll just do search. Yeah. But you know, you brought up another thing that I think is interesting, which is the ability to really communicate. And
21:3521 minutes, 35 secondsyou have you have done much as much as I have,
21:4121 minutes, 41 secondsyou you have realized the importance of being able to communicate with other people and create these I love with other people. [snorts]
21:5121 minutes, 51 secondsYeah. I find people even in going back to even when you meet somebody that maybe doesn’t doesn’t you don’t gel with so great oftentimes I find that um those people are the most interesting.
22:0222 minutes, 2 secondsYeah.
22:0322 minutes, 3 secondsAnd if you meet them with curiosity y um I would say eight times out of 10 they actually don’t become the people that you go peace be with you. They
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondsactually become your most loyal supporters and you become their best advocates. Yeah. because reaching out and recognizing that different
22:1722 minutes, 17 secondsperspective is a really amazing learning opportunity and with it comes a great deal of gratitude.
22:2322 minutes, 23 secondsI and you know that that’s it’s interesting. I did a um years ago I took an improv class. Wow.
22:3022 minutes, 30 secondsAnd uh one of the things that I learned I I took it because I was producing artists and I thought, “Oh, you know, it could be really interesting. It’s a muscle. It’s a muscle,
22:3822 minutes, 38 secondsbut you know, one of the things that really made me realize, and it sounds kind of hokey to say it, but it made me realize how interconnected we
22:4622 minutes, 46 secondsall are and you know, that we really no matter how different we think we are, we’re not so different.
22:5222 minutes, 52 secondsWe’re not so different at all. And we really, you know, you start to always find these ways of connecting with people. Absolutely.
22:5922 minutes, 59 secondsAnd I’m, you know, I’m a real believer in community in in working with my community and connecting with my community. And um, you know, I think
23:0823 minutes, 8 secondsthat’s really one of the things that you gain from that is the ability to work well. What do they call it? Play nicely with others, you know.
23:1623 minutes, 16 secondsYeah. Absolutely. Yeah. and really just be curious about when I find a difference with another individual that
23:2323 minutes, 23 secondsactually makes that individual increases their value. Yeah. Um because if I can even understand without even changing my
23:3023 minutes, 30 secondsperspective like if I if I still keep my perspective if I can expand to understand how they’re looking at it that still gives me more information and
23:3823 minutes, 38 secondsit gives me more depth in my belief systems and in my perspective. Yeah. And that happens very often with my scripts.
23:4423 minutes, 44 secondsLike when I get these pieces, it is very common for me to get a rough cut, which is just, you know, the picture all sliced together, temp music thrown up,
23:5223 minutes, 52 secondstemp sound effects, you know, everything’s temp and and and a script.
23:5623 minutes, 56 secondsAnd I’ll watch it before I come in for the dub where I’m getting all these like this ma mine of gold of foley and sound
24:0424 minutes, 4 secondsdesign and backgrounds and cut dialogue and ADR and go beautiful composition with you know all my stems separate and
24:1224 minutes, 12 secondsall this beautiful work. Um, I I get all these incredible pieces and I I try to follow the breadcrumb trail of the temp,
24:2024 minutes, 20 secondsbut oftentimes you will get on stage and you’ll come to a a section because, you know, this is a lot of material and we’re talking hundreds of tracks. Yeah.
24:2924 minutes, 29 secondsum they’ll you know a client will say oh well you know when I wrote that what I was really wanting to do by you know
24:3724 minutes, 37 secondscutting away or doing this I want to really focus on or or foreshadow this or I want to misdirect that or I want to
24:4424 minutes, 44 secondsmake this person feel really weak until this moment I need this moment to be transformative. We can’t know that they’re going to become this great
24:5224 minutes, 52 secondsperson here. We have to believe that they don’t have it in them here. It’s about the transformation and it’s that information and that communication that
24:5924 minutes, 59 secondsmakes me go aha and I feel like I really became an effective mixer of true like true quality that I would want as a
25:0825 minutes, 8 secondsstoryteller when I was able to go I did not see it that way. But if I were to have written it with that in my mind and
25:1625 minutes, 16 secondsthat is what I would want. Now let me take all these same tools that I have being a professional in sound and apply them from that perspective. Let me put
25:2425 minutes, 24 secondsmy your glasses on and your hat on and look at it from your angle. Yeah. And go okay now let me reapply all this
25:3125 minutes, 31 secondsknowledge that I do have in the field of what it is that I do to reach the audience in that manner from that direction from that perspective. Well,
25:4025 minutes, 40 secondsand you know, and that’s you put your finger on one of the things that I think is so challenging about the medium that
25:4625 minutes, 46 secondsyou work in because you have the storyteller aka the script writer or whoever, right? You have the visual,
25:5625 minutes, 56 secondsyou know, the camera, all the camera angles, where do I cut, what do I cut to, all that stuff. And you have all the different sonic elements. And each one
26:0426 minutes, 4 secondsof those is approaching the story from a completely different place. And each one of those is at the same time totally interdependent on each other.
26:1326 minutes, 13 secondsThat is correct. That is correct.
26:1526 minutes, 15 secondsAnd that, you know, I’ve always loved the idea of like the the sum of the parts being so much greater. You know,
26:2126 minutes, 21 secondsyou have these people all of whom are doing totally divergent things. Yes. But yet they have to come
26:2826 minutes, 28 secondstogether. Correct. And they have to be so interdependent and intertwined. Yes. To create the final piece.
26:3526 minutes, 35 secondsAbsolutely. And there’s also technical requirements and and uh technical aspects of each one of their positions.
26:4226 minutes, 42 secondsYes. That requires them to hone in in different ways and relate to their crew. Exactly.
26:4726 minutes, 47 secondsRight. Like like you know if you think about like the front of house guy, he’s got to deal with all of his people, his systems people and stuff like that, you know.deed and uh the monitor engineer,
26:5626 minutes, 56 secondsshe’s got to deal with all all of you know the the wireless stuff and the wireless tech, you know, and it’s the same thing for you. you know, you’re dealing with every everything from, you
27:0527 minutes, 5 secondsknow, multiple camera angles and those people and what they did. You’re dealing with, you know, the the guy who was holding the boom over here, you know,
27:1327 minutes, 13 secondsand absolutely and and all of that is part of the raw stuff that you have to then
27:2027 minutes, 20 secondsindeed. Yeah. It’s kind of like um Foley oftenimes I think has this aspect. The Foley artists are so brilliant. And the Foley mixers are so brilliant. Um to be
27:2927 minutes, 29 secondsable to pick the sound of a shoe that is going to help complement an aspect of character or um the sound of one’s hands
27:3527 minutes, 35 secondsbeing soft or rough or heavy or the heaviness of their cloth or and often it comes from some place like so completely unrelated. Yeah.
27:4427 minutes, 44 secondsGood friend of mine is a sound designer. Um his name is Rick Allen and Rick. Oh yeah. You know Rick of Yes.
27:5027 minutes, 50 secondsYes. Well, Rick and I uh Rick Rick and I were talking he was telling me this story about um he did some tire squeals by taking a hot water bottle.
28:0028 minutesYes. That’s exactly right.
28:0228 minutes, 2 secondsAnd um I think it was Yeah. I had a panel with him and Charles Mains and a couple of other people. Love Charles Mains.
28:0828 minutes, 8 secondsAnd Charles does um Yeah. And Charles does Seal Team. Yes.
28:1228 minutes, 12 secondsAnd he was saying, you know, we went through probably He’s your artillery guy for sure. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Well, [laughter]
28:1728 minutes, 17 secondsand Rick is the one who blows up all the time.
28:1928 minutes, 19 secondsRight. Right. But he, you know, he was saying, “Man, we went through like, you know, a library of tire squeals to try and get the right one and we ended up using the hot water bottle.”
28:2728 minutes, 27 secondsExactly right. Exactly right.
28:2928 minutes, 29 secondsAnd the idea that that these people, and you know, again, this is this is what you’re talking about here. The idea that a person can say,
28:3528 minutes, 35 secondsI can make this sound. What can I make this sound like? You know, like Correct. I’m going to take a hot water bottle.
28:4128 minutes, 41 secondsCorrect. But I’m going to make it sound like that. You know, that to me, the whole idea that I can take something and make it abstractly something else. Yeah. And
28:4928 minutes, 49 secondsthat, you know, I I’ve always loved that. You know, I always talk about how um when you have very creative people,
28:5828 minutes, 58 secondsthe thing that they love to do the best is take something and go, how can I use this for something it was completely not intended for? How can I take this thing and break it?
29:0729 minutes, 7 secondsYou know, like u like you know, I I remember talking to u a man named Richard Factor. He was the founder of
29:1429 minutes, 14 secondsEven Tide and he was tell talking about how they first came up with the harmonizer and he said we intended it for something
29:2229 minutes, 22 secondscompletely different and all of a sudden these people are starting to use it for something else you know and I just think the whole idea of if you’re a really
29:2929 minutes, 29 secondscreative person you know you’re going to take stuff and you’re going to find something you know it’s like what can I do with this that that was that would be
29:3629 minutes, 36 secondscompletely unique you know absolutely I remember when synthesizers came out oh yeah and then it was like how is oscillating like frequency supposed to be. Yeah,
29:4629 minutes, 46 secondsexactly.
29:4629 minutes, 46 secondsHow can I make this make a sound that it wasn’t intended to make?
29:4929 minutes, 49 secondsThat’s often something we say on the dub stage as well is like, okay, well, we like where this is going. We may be at a good place, but maybe we just go ahead and break it for a second and see if it gets better or worse. Yeah.
29:5829 minutes, 58 secondsYou know, like, let’s just take it to crazy and then pull it back. And is and is where we stopped where we wanted to be, or was there some other place or direction we could go?
30:0630 minutes, 6 secondsOr maybe it just gave you some some idea that you never would have even thought of, you know? I love that. Um, you know,
30:1230 minutes, 12 secondsthere’s a there’s a concept in um in psychology called beginner’s mind. Oh, interesting.
30:1930 minutes, 19 secondsAnd beginner’s mind is basically I’m going to approach this task as if I’ve never done it before. Ah, you know,
30:2630 minutes, 26 secondswell, that gives you the creative opportunity to solve the problem without having the the pre the sometimes the training is limiting, right? You know,
30:3430 minutes, 34 secondsthis tool is for that.
30:3530 minutes, 35 secondsExactly. Well, it could because once you have that training, you have these, you know, you have these walls. Absolutely.
30:4030 minutes, 40 secondsWhereas if you approach it like you’ve never seen it before, you know, how can I and and again it’s like okay so if I don’t know the rules
30:4930 minutes, 49 secondsI can break the rules new rules. I I think actually as a simple uh example of how this is has hit me is I remember for
30:5830 minutes, 58 secondsthe beginning of my career always trying to make ADR match production and now sometimes I often times realize
31:0631 minutes, 6 secondsthat the production um can be made to sound a little bit more like the ADR which in this particular case is actually more preferable.
31:1331 minutes, 13 secondsInteresting. So, so the so the processing isn’t going to happen only on the ADR side, but maybe there’s an adjustment to be made on the production,
31:2131 minutes, 21 secondswhich all in all is going to give us closer to the presentation that we want as the end goal. Um, same thing backing into it. Yeah, backing into it. Yeah.
31:2931 minutes, 29 secondsSame thing with um there are plugins that are made to kind of make key points in diction for dialogue, right? Um that
31:3531 minutes, 35 secondswill allow you to kind of sync things to production. Like you can take something that’s slightly out of sync and it will time compress, expand it just slightly a
31:4431 minutes, 44 secondslittle bit and do the the pitch adjustment so that you can just line up the T with the P and so that the speed is absolutely perfect. Um, well, what’s
31:5131 minutes, 51 secondsreally cool about that is I found in Creature Design, um, one of the things that’s really nice is to actually take things that aren’t voices and layer it
31:5931 minutes, 59 secondswith the production voice that’s in placement and actually use those settings to time compress, expand to hit
32:0632 minutes, 6 secondsthe the the rhythm of it and make it feel like it’s coming out of that mouth.
32:1132 minutes, 11 secondsBut it’s really great for say werewolf voices that to make it sound like those instead of something’s layered under something, it sounds like it’s coming from the same source.
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsThat’s awesome. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about, you know, and I think again, you know, it’s like, yeah, we have to be able to approach stuff,
32:2632 minutes, 26 secondsyou know, completely without those preconceptions. I love that. It’s really fun.
32:3132 minutes, 31 secondsI It really is fun. But I think, you know, the more you do stuff, the more difficult it is, you know,
32:3532 minutes, 35 secondsthat is true. That is true. In fact, one of the weird things that I recommend to people all the time that I think outside of California, they they’re a little hoohoo woo woo about it. [laughter] Um,
32:4432 minutes, 44 secondsbut um I love a sound bath. I love a sound bath. And the reason that I love a sound bath is the very first time I had
32:5032 minutes, 50 secondsa sound bath, I recognized that um so when you’re mixing a lot, you often recognize that there are certain frequencies that show up in production
32:5932 minutes, 59 secondsthat are just uh symptomatic of RF interference in a microphone or they’re symptomatic of a room decay. Oh, yeah.
33:0733 minutes, 7 secondsUm or um you know, a 60 cycle hum or what have you. Um you know, or the uh the sibilance uh spikes, etc. Yeah. Um,
33:1633 minutes, 16 secondsand you kind of keep an eye on those.
33:1833 minutes, 18 secondsAnd a lot of times when you listen to something automatically when you’re doing a lot of work, you’ll go for those things and you’ll see them as kind of subconsciously the bad things you need
33:2633 minutes, 26 secondsto manage. You know what I mean? Got to do the thing, right?
33:2933 minutes, 29 secondsUm, but what I also realized, and this is actually something that um I did when I was working on a show um called uh
33:3733 minutes, 37 secondsShe-Hulk, uh, Attorney Ed. Um, it was really [laughter] fun. I love that show.
33:4133 minutes, 41 secondsI loved that show. It was great. It was great. Wow. Um but um but what was interesting is the character Tatiana when she was not hulked um she still has
33:5133 minutes, 51 secondsthe same voice. She’s stay played by the same character but when she is not hulked um they wanted her to almost feel like frustratingly like small like
34:0034 minutesTatiana the actress is kind of small like they didn’t cast that on accident.
34:0334 minutes, 3 secondsIt fits the the juxaposition of her transformation. Right. Makes sense. So,
34:0834 minutes, 8 secondsso one of the things that I did was I noticed that there’s kind of like this 4K tone that um it’s like whenever I get
34:1534 minutes, 15 secondsa note where it’s like so and so sounds whiny or I’m like ah too much 4K. And so like [laughter] like this is this is usually where it hits is like
34:2334 minutes, 23 secondsone in 4K. It’s like but 4K is kind of like the it’s kind of like the have you done the dishes? That’s your 4K. Yeah.
34:2834 minutes, 28 secondsSo like you know you know so um so what ended up happening is in that case instead of that being something that I managed um I actually let it fly when
34:3834 minutes, 38 secondsshe was frustrating and going uh and and expressing her frustration because I’m actually using that frequency which I
34:4634 minutes, 46 secondssubconsciously in general dialogue treatment want to manage and allowing it kind of to fly a little bit on this line or that in order to make it more
34:5534 minutes, 55 secondsinsistent and actually make her a little annoyingly you know, yeah,
35:0035 minutesdismiss it like or dismissible, you know. Yeah.
35:0335 minutes, 3 secondsUm and and also the opposite when she was halt, you know. Um and the reason that I came up with that uh idea, I
35:1035 minutes, 10 secondsremember I was in the middle of working on the show and I went to a sound bath and they were playing that true tone by itself and I thought to myself, my god,
35:1835 minutes, 18 secondsI totally get why this is the whiny tone. This tone is driving me crazy. And the same thing with kind of like what a
35:2535 minutes, 25 seconds60 cycle does or what like a 120 or a 240 does like like this kind of like resonance of uneasiness or like it’s
35:3335 minutes, 33 secondsthere and it’s just kind of like you kind of sort of notice it along with other with other harmonics and yeah but no listening and observing to those
35:4135 minutes, 41 secondstones as true tones by themsel and sitting in them resonate um allowed me to rediscover those sounds
35:4935 minutes, 49 secondsfor their subjective contributions to a mix side of their technical intrusions
35:5635 minutes, 56 secondsum in a regular signal pattern because you’re introducing them in a completely different environment. Completely different environment.
36:0136 minutes, 1 secondI I I mean I’ve I’ve done that with um you know those Tibetan singing bowls.
36:0636 minutes, 6 secondsYeah, exactly. Same thing, you know, and they have these certain resonant frequencies. Um and also, you know, I work a lot with synthesizers.
36:1336 minutes, 13 secondsYeah. They play a lot of like rain sticks and bowls and that type of thing.
36:1536 minutes, 15 secondsBut it’s really interesting to listen to the textures of those sounds as an abstract item that doesn’t matter.
36:2236 minutes, 22 secondsand listen to the sound for the sound’s sake and then ask yourself emotionally where does that hit you?
36:2836 minutes, 28 secondsYeah. Yeah. I’ve done that one since you know I um I was very involved in the synthesis community for a long time.
36:3436 minutes, 34 secondsThat’s so much fun. That’s a really fun community.
36:3636 minutes, 36 secondsYeah. And so, you know, like I I have learned like, you know, okay, square wave versus triangular wave, you know,
36:4236 minutes, 42 secondsversus sign and stuff like that. And those are things where, you know, it’s like they’re very very subtle. Yes. But yet the impact they have
36:5036 minutes, 50 secondssit in them for 30 seconds and focus on it. They’re not subtle anymore.
36:5436 minutes, 54 secondsExactly. It’s like, oh, that’s going to drive me bad if I see Exactly. Or, you know, oh, this has a really different emotional response than that other Yeah. Exactly.
37:0137 minutes, 1 secondYeah. And even, you know, there are frequencies that we don’t necessarily hear,
37:0737 minutes, 7 secondsbut they’re part of the over overall overtones and absolutely man, you know,
37:1337 minutes, 13 secondsit’s like I take that out. Well, all of a sudden, you know,
37:1737 minutes, 17 secondsit changes the entire timber of the mood, feeling of something. Yeah, absolutely.
37:2337 minutes, 23 secondsAnd also, it can make room like there are these frequencies that you don’t really notice or kind of, you know,
37:2937 minutes, 29 secondshappen as a a natural harmonic or what have that you can remove that you can actually reduce the buildup of a particular frequency range and then give
37:3737 minutes, 37 secondsyourself a more precise and delicate and localized when you’re looking at something. Yes. um uh depiction of what’s going on. Like it will help clear
37:4537 minutes, 45 secondsthe space for the the actual portions of those frequencies to direct your attention towards what you want to narratively direct attention to.
37:5337 minutes, 53 secondsYeah. And also because you I mean I’m sure you work a lot in immersive, you know. I do. I love it.
37:5837 minutes, 58 secondsThat’s another [laughter] thing that I think you know because then um you know one of the things that I really I find fascinating about immersive especially now that we’re using it more with music
38:0638 minutes, 6 secondsmixing as well. Yes. is, you know, it’s one thing to be able to move stuff around in the field to move it back and
38:1438 minutes, 14 secondsforth, but immersive has given us the ability now to gain height to to move things in certain way more expansive.
38:2238 minutes, 22 secondsYeah. And that I think is fascinating because then you can take those frequencies and you can really sort of place them in this entire sphere that really makes it,
38:3338 minutes, 33 secondsyou know, it it it changes again the psycho acoustic just the the I mean I’m really into like the whole psychology of sound.
38:4338 minutes, 43 secondsOh, me too. No, that’s honestly like uh when I am um like I am I’m technically a student and I’m I’m quick, don’t get me wrong. Uh, you know, I come from a a
38:5238 minutes, 52 secondslong line of, you know, like Eastern European engineers, you know what I mean? A lot of [laughter] neurologists and chemical engineers and Yeah. Like
38:5938 minutes, 59 secondsand yeah, and yeah, physics and there a lot there’s a lot of math in my family and and I am a math girl for sure and
39:0639 minutes, 6 secondsand I love uh the natural sciences. Like I love physics. I love Yeah, I can tell you’re very leftrained. Yeah.
39:1239 minutes, 12 secondsYeah, I am. But but um what what I find fascinating about that is it’s a way to quantify what it is that affects me with my right brain.
39:2139 minutes, 21 secondsAnd so for me like what what promotes my left brain nerdiness is actually what I observe with my right brain. And so that
39:3039 minutes, 30 secondsis the impetus for that the motivation for me to find comprehension or some way to measure or to and and in a sense
39:3739 minutes, 37 secondsultimately to replicate it and or to diminish it. And that bridge right there, that’s what’s fascinating to me because, you know, there are so many and
39:4539 minutes, 45 secondsespecially when you start talking about artists of any sort, but especially, you know, anybody who’s in these sonic or musical fields, you know, there’s this
39:5439 minutes, 54 secondsthere’s a there’s a definite like dual firing of left and right brain concepts.
39:5939 minutes, 59 secondsYeah, I love it. I love it. And I find that really fascinating because it it gives us much more sensitive antenna,
40:0740 minutes, 7 secondsyou know.
40:0840 minutes, 8 secondsYes, it does. and we pick up on things that um and I think it’s really advantageous for the work that we do,
40:1440 minutes, 14 secondsespecially the work you’re doing because what you’re doing is you’re able to hone in on these things that
40:2140 minutes, 21 secondsI would say you can place that you the understanding of how the leftbrain nerdy
40:2740 minutes, 27 secondsstuff impacts the the more intuitive rightrain stuff enables you to almost like
40:3540 minutes, 35 secondssocially engineer certain things, you know, to to be completely inert and invisible and yet they’re there and you know they’re there, you know.
40:4440 minutes, 44 secondsAbsolutely. And and I I think it is part of my, you know, because I have like my mother’s side of the family, they’re they’re painters, they’re musicians,
40:5240 minutes, 52 secondsthey’re chefs, there’s like and my father’s side of the family is my father was a a supervising chemical engineer for aircraft carrier reactors.
40:5940 minutes, 59 secondsOh, totally left. Total leftrain. And and so I grew up with kind of both of these schools and education and and art
41:0841 minutes, 8 secondsand um the sciences in general being very highly valued. And it’s really given me an incredible incredible place
41:1641 minutes, 16 secondsto grow from a as somebody who needs to use those clinical minds in order to be
41:2341 minutes, 23 secondsable to operate. um but has to use that that right brain communication and curiosity and uh observational skills.
41:3241 minutes, 32 secondsYeah. In order to implement the left brain effectively.
41:3641 minutes, 36 secondsI think that artists and artistic people um I think the leftbrain component is really um it’s under it’s underplayed. I think that we we don’t realize how much,
41:4741 minutes, 47 secondsyou know, just the idea that, you know,
41:4941 minutes, 49 secondsI mean, perfect example, a a a musician has to be incredibly leftrain to learn Oh, yeah.
41:5641 minutes, 56 secondstheir instrument to the point where they can play it rightrain at at at the most derivative mathematical sense, one could
42:0342 minutes, 3 secondssay a musician is actually a a human sequencer.
42:0742 minutes, 7 secondsYeah. Yeah. And what you’re doing is pattern creator. That’s it. And what you’re doing is the same thing because you’re having to learn all of this stuff
42:1542 minutes, 15 secondsin a very highly analytical manner in order to then apply it in this very intuitive way.
42:2342 minutes, 23 secondsAbsolutely. Down to even basic chord progressions like the 1451 like the basic Yeah. I mean like that that is something that affects us. It it is the
42:3042 minutes, 30 secondsstructure of you know modern music essentially. Um but at the same time is it because we figured it out like
42:3842 minutes, 38 secondsmathematically or because we have been able to mathematically quantify it that affects us and and it’s probably be it’s definitely be you know a little bit
42:4742 minutes, 47 secondschicken and egg [laughter] actually I mean you think yeah I think because you know uh you you also are talking about centuries of evolution that’s true where
42:5442 minutes, 54 secondsthe brain has evolved to kind of accept that you know that’s true and there are different modalities in different uh in different societies etc. Exactly.
43:0243 minutes, 2 secondsWhat is what is dissonant in one is not dissonant necessar I mean think about these cultures that have microonal kind of you know and and you know if you think about
43:1043 minutes, 10 secondsit I mean if I watch let’s say a Bollywood movie it’s going to it’s going to impact me completely differently than it would
43:1943 minutes, 19 secondssomeone who grew up in that culture you know.
43:2143 minutes, 21 secondsYes. No I did work on a Bollywood movie once that was very interesting.
43:2643 minutes, 26 secondsYeah it was. Yeah, I I did enjoy it, but it did take me a couple weeks to lean into it and a bit of research
43:3343 minutes, 33 secondsum working on it or previous to working on it to kind of get into the Yeah. And you don’t understand quite why,
43:4243 minutes, 42 secondsyou know, that’s the thing is so much of it is well, there’s so much cultural context.
43:4543 minutes, 45 secondsYeah. Yeah, there is. And I and I think again, you know, that’s why I think we are kind of conditioned, you know, based on what we grew up with.
43:5343 minutes, 53 secondsEspecially someone like you who who as we were saying, you know, you you developed uh orally. Yes. Much earlier than you developed visually.
44:0244 minutes, 2 secondsMuch more focused. For sure. For sure. You know. Yeah.
44:0544 minutes, 5 secondsThat’s that’s I mean I’m fascinated by that, man. That’s that’s amazing.
44:0944 minutes, 9 secondsYeah. The the world has always uh I mean music has always been a component of the world. It’s not been something that I centered sonically. Like I picked it out
44:1744 minutes, 17 secondsas being more or less miraculous than anything else. Uh-huh.
44:2144 minutes, 21 secondsUm, but also the world sonically has always been the most miraculous input of information that I I have experienced.
44:2844 minutes, 28 secondsSo, what kind of music did you hear growing up?
44:3044 minutes, 30 secondsUm, you know, I was really lucky again as well. It was very diverse and my grandfather um was very big when we were young to make sure that we had a
44:3844 minutes, 38 secondslot of different uh he was military and he was a meteorologist and he traveled around as a scientist for the government. So like my grandmother and
44:4644 minutes, 46 secondsand my mother, they lived in Cuba, they lived in Japan, they lived in they all these crazy places, you know, Brazil. Um
44:5344 minutes, 53 secondsso I I did grow up with a house full of things from all over the world with music from all over the world. Um with
45:0245 minutes, 2 secondsuh different pieces of, you know, like our little dog was named Chibi, which is the Japanese word for little one. And like you know we we we had a lot we had
45:0945 minutes, 9 secondsa very ethnically um open concept of of information like we were we were taught to meet
45:1845 minutes, 18 secondsdifferences with curiosity um which is which is a really be that’s possibly the greatest gift my family could have yeah like my mother god bless
45:2645 minutes, 26 secondsher and it was it was my mother’s family of of being professors and being people who traveled and be that they had this kind of you know concept
45:3445 minutes, 34 secondsdamn intellectual I know damn intellectual [laughter]
45:3745 minutes, 37 secondsYeah. But as a result, I do remember kind of growing up with music from different countries and different genres and even different instruments and you
45:4545 minutes, 45 secondsknow Yeah. All all very very interesting. So yeah, I’m sure that also impacted your your your textural Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
45:5445 minutes, 54 secondsYeah. And also the sounds that I pull on um when I do sound design a lot. I do have a lot of world instruments that I’ll pull from and you know mangling those you can get to a place that’s
46:0246 minutes, 2 secondsunrecognizable to Western culture pretty easy.
46:0546 minutes, 5 secondsYeah. Yeah. Well, and I I [laughter] I love the idea, you know, that to me,
46:0846 minutes, 8 secondslike I I spent several years living in Europe, and I think taking yourself and putting yourself into a different culture. Yes.
46:1646 minutes, 16 secondsCompletely just does wonderful things to I’ve only had the the I guess the gift of doing that for a few months at a time.
46:2346 minutes, 23 secondsUm but it it was really world changing. Yeah.
46:2646 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. Yeah, it And one of the things that I remember like one of the most impactful experiences was when I was in Japan. I had this strange experience um when I was I was sitting at the board
46:3546 minutes, 35 secondsand one of the uh members of the uh the dance choir came and said um I left my
46:4246 minutes, 42 secondsearrings in the in the dressing room. I have to be up there. We’re all supposed to be in dress rehearsal. Can you grab it for me? I know you don’t need to do
46:5046 minutes, 50 secondsanything for a second. And I went um yeah. But it took me there was this moment where I had because we were
46:5846 minutes, 58 secondsstaying in uh we were ambassadors. It was an exchange program between the United States uh switching a musical with a musical in Japan.
47:0647 minutes, 6 secondsAnd um I was in these homes that were diplomat homes and they were they didn’t speak a lot of English, you know, and I had like six months of Japanese. And
47:1447 minutes, 14 secondswhat was the hardest for me to understand and this is the same when I learned Spanish years later or would have is that I had to really focus and on listening different in order to hear
47:2147 minutes, 21 secondsthe words. If you listened as an English speaker to Japanese, you’re never going to hear Japanese. You know, it’s the same thing even with well any language,
47:2947 minutes, 29 secondseven Spanish, which is a romance language, which is closer and has a lot of cognates. If you listen with the rhythm of English, you will always be
47:3647 minutes, 36 secondsyou will you will not be able to hear it. Yes. You know, and so um I spent uh a couple of dark days uh in between a
47:4447 minutes, 44 secondsperformance um around only Japanese speakers and and their young kids having taken a couple years of English with
47:5147 minutes, 51 secondsterrible accents. God bless them. I get it. I get it. It’s a very different language. I’m No, no, no criticism, just observation. It was some serious
47:5947 minutes, 59 secondsaccents to fight through. Um, and so I hadn’t really heard comprehensible English for probably three or four days
48:0548 minutes, 5 secondswhen I came back to this day. And so my mind had like the first couple of days was very frustrating and I just couldn’t get what I couldn’t get. And I they were
48:1448 minutes, 14 secondssaying the word and when I pointed it out, that was it. But I couldn’t hear it when it was working and wasn’t picking up on my brain was still listening for English. And when it had switched and I
48:2348 minutes, 23 secondswas listening for Japanese, I then went back to this dress rehearsal and she came up and asked me to get her earrings and I tell you it sounded like I was listening to the Predator. Like English
48:3248 minutes, 32 secondswas gross. It was very glutal and it had all these like like very heavy consonants and and very strange long
48:4148 minutes, 41 secondsvowels because Japanese is very short with shorter vowels. And I was I I remember having this moment with her. [laughter]
48:4848 minutes, 48 secondsYeah. Because your brain switches until my brain kind of did this rack focus, so to speak, from one thing to the other and went, “Ah.” And I went,
48:5648 minutes, 56 seconds”Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. Let me get your earrings. That was trippy.” Yeah. But that observation, I remember that moment being very life-changing for me because
49:0449 minutes, 4 secondsI realized the different lens, the different the the the vastness of the perspective change that someone can be taking in sonic information.
49:1449 minutes, 14 secondsOh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I spent six years living in Germany. That’s crazy.
49:1849 minutes, 18 secondsAnd, you know, again, it’s like the first year or so, I was thinking in translation. Yes.
49:2549 minutes, 25 secondsAnd then, you know, all of a sudden from one day to the next, it kind of make that synapse connection and then you’re like, whoa, I just knew what it meant. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. [laughter]
49:3349 minutes, 33 secondsExactly. And and then once that happens,
49:3549 minutes, 35 secondsyou know, your brain starts thinking in that in that Yeah. And it’s completely It’s a paradigm shift. It really is.
49:4249 minutes, 42 secondsIt is a real paradigm shift. Yeah. Yeah.
49:4449 minutes, 44 secondsYeah. That happened to me in Spain once which was pretty amazing. I spent the first three days going I’m an advanced speaker. What is happening? This dialect is tripping me. I’m not because you know
49:5249 minutes, 52 secondsyou don’t run into a lot of Spaniards and Right. It’s Castellian.
49:5549 minutes, 55 secondsYeah. It’s Castelliano which granted was the which you know which was the the dialect I learned because it was okay.
50:0250 minutes, 2 secondsI had a relation of of my husband’s family has Castellian roots. So I chose you know but learning it with a teacher
50:0950 minutes, 9 secondsand one voice and then always practicing a different type of Spanish. going to people were just whipping it out left and right and my brain was
50:1750 minutes, 17 secondsit couldn’t do it. And it was two to three days of like honestly migraines.
50:2250 minutes, 22 secondsLike I was just like, I’m not getting it. Why can’t I get it? Everything is garbled and confused. And then I woke up one day and I went, “Ah.” And by the time I left, I was, you know.
50:3150 minutes, 31 secondsYeah. And especially like when you’re like if you’re in a noisy environment like you’re in a restaurant, you know,
50:3650 minutes, 36 secondslike I’m in a table with a whole bunch of people talking, you know, and then you know, uh the different dialects, you know, like in German, you know, you’ve
50:4550 minutes, 45 secondsgot like literally dozens of different dialects depending on where they’re from, you know, and and so so again, you know, it’s like you have to
50:5250 minutes, 52 secondswe have that focus um on the dub stage now as we’re fighting um with uh dialogue intelligibility and all the different ways that we need to reproduce things. I was going to ask you about
51:0051 minutesthat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be really really like it’s mixers have a wonderful position of actually
51:0851 minutes, 8 secondsnot having a long time on your material as opposed to say the supervisor or your editor or what have you comparably we
51:1651 minutes, 16 secondsget it like that you know. So therefore you have to pick up if I don’t hear it and you think you heard it well you wrote it you shot it. You edited it for a year and a half. Can you hear it?
51:2651 minutes, 26 secondsRight. You’ve been inside.
51:2751 minutes, 27 secondsCan you really hear it? Is it really clear? Yeah.
51:3051 minutes, 30 secondsYeah. No. So I’m, you know, we’re a decent barometer because we’re new, fresh ears that are orally observant. Yeah.
51:3851 minutes, 38 secondsYou know, um, and makes a lot of sense. It it and, and it also allows us to,
51:4251 minutes, 42 secondsokay, well, what is it that we don’t hear? Is it the consonant? Is it too much vowel? Is do we need a completely different take alto together? Is there a micro change that we can take that will make it clearer? Is it background noise?
51:5251 minutes, 52 secondsIs it sibilance? Like what is the problem? Like what’s the block? Right. Yeah.
51:5651 minutes, 56 secondsBecause then you can decide which tools to use to Exactly. Yeah. Oh, interesting.
52:0152 minutes, 1 secondIt is. Yeah. And it is. It’s all about perspective because even within your own language language and your own observation, when you observe something and you summize that that is what is
52:1052 minutes, 10 secondsoccurring, you only really need a cue to know that that’s what’s being said. You might not actually be hearing it. Well, and and to your point, you know,
52:1652 minutes, 16 secondsyou you raised an interesting point there about just being so deep inside something. Yes. That you lose your perspective. Exactly. Well, that’s why notes are lovely.
52:2452 minutes, 24 secondsNotes are great, you know. That’s why um I mean I love like when I’m working on a project with an artist, I love the idea of being able to do two or three
52:3252 minutes, 32 secondsdifferent projects at the same time or even, you know, working on a couple of different songs if I’m producing something because really if I just spend
52:4052 minutes, 40 secondshours and hours on this one thing, I have no idea what I’m hearing anymore.
52:4352 minutes, 43 secondsYeah. You know, it’s funny because I think that as uh people who create something that is subjective, I think often times we get typ cast
52:5052 minutes, 50 secondsuh by whatever the last project is that was most popular and that tends to lead us into a career where we are, you know,
52:5752 minutes, 57 secondsbecome like rock guy or become the drama person or the horror person or the blah blah blah. And I often find that my most favorite thing to work on is the thing
53:0553 minutes, 5 secondsthat’s most different from the thing that I worked on last. Right. Well, like with music producers,
53:1053 minutes, 10 secondsyou know, I love music producers who go from one project to something totally different, you know, and do like, you
53:1853 minutes, 18 secondsknow, u you say, “Wow, you produce this and you produce that.” It’s like Manny Mane or whatever.
53:2253 minutes, 22 secondsEverything. All the things. All the things.
53:2453 minutes, 24 secondsExactly. [laughter] Because And I think that’s really, you know, if you can do that, if you can remain that versatile, you know,
53:3153 minutes, 31 secondsthe trick is being able to zoom out and zoom back in and and change speeds. Yes.
53:3653 minutes, 36 secondsyou know, and and zooming in and zooming out, you know,
53:3953 minutes, 39 secondsthat that and and that’s one of the things that I have always found is a really it’s a challenge, but it’s so rewarding to be able to like
53:4753 minutes, 47 secondsreally zoom in and look at the blades of grass, but then always remember that this is the grass field.
53:5353 minutes, 53 secondsHow does it fit into the aerial photography from 30,000 ft? Exactly. you know, and yeah, you know,
53:5953 minutes, 59 secondsthat’s one of the things that I try and teach students when I’m talking about like, you know, music production, for example. You know, yes, right now you’re agonizing over that kick drum sound,
54:0954 minutes, 9 secondsright?
54:0954 minutes, 9 secondsBut you know what? In the overall scope of things, that kick drum sound is not going to be something they go home humming,
54:1554 minutes, 15 secondsright? You know, exactly. Exactly. But um it may be the thing though that gives you that right that that quintessential hook or that
54:2454 minutes, 24 secondsleads them in or or it may be the thing that they go I don’t know what I don’t like but you know that’s true that’s true and so true being able to you know I I used this
54:3254 minutes, 32 secondsanalogy with one of my students the other day. I said you know right now you’re you’re in the wood butcher phase. You’re you’re framing the house, you know, right? And you have to
54:4154 minutes, 41 secondsbe able to frame it accurately so that when you put the sheetrock up, you don’t have bumps and stuff like that. But ultimately, you know, you’re going to
54:4954 minutes, 49 secondshave paint, you’re going to have, you know, uh, gingerbread, you’re going to have all this different stuff and you’re going to walk into the house as a lay
54:5754 minutes, 57 secondsperson and you’re going to go something I don’t like and I don’t know what it is because it’s going to be so going to feel it buried. That is actually sometimes the
55:0655 minutes, 6 secondsmost frustrating note is the fact uh that they don’t know what they want.
55:1055 minutes, 10 secondsThey just don’t know what they don’t like. Oh yeah.
55:1255 minutes, 12 secondsYou know what I mean? They’re just like there’s something about it. No, I just don’t I don’t I don’t like it. And then you’re just kind of like, you know, pollock. They’re just kind of, well, how about Yeah.
55:2055 minutes, 20 secondsHow about how about, you know, and and that’s uh [clears throat] I think when asking questions and stepping away and referencing something they do like or,
55:2855 minutes, 28 secondsyou know, Yeah. Like one of my one of the favorite things I like to do when I meet a new director or I meet a new showrunner or a new creator is I like to
55:3555 minutes, 35 secondsconvince them if they have the time um especially if I meet them early enough on to meet at a place that has art to
55:4255 minutes, 42 secondsobserve. So, hey man, you know, do you want to go um catch coffee at the museum?
55:5055 minutes, 50 secondsDo you want to go to the gardens and grab an iced tea? Do you want to go? And that way you get to walk around and you go, “Well, what is it that you’d like to
55:5855 minutes, 58 secondssee while we’re here?” Because we’re here.
55:5955 minutes, 59 secondsRight. Right. Perspective. Yeah. And oftentimes, like if they want to go see Maro, they oftentimes want to hear Maro.
56:0656 minutes, 6 secondsYou know what I mean? Very rarely do do you have an Anel Adams sound aesthetic and and a you know, a uh I don’t know or
56:1556 minutes, 15 secondsa Maro or a you know, you’re just it’s not going to you very rarely have a a mismatched aesthetic. Sometimes you do and that’s very interesting.
56:2456 minutes, 24 secondsWhen you do that’s actually really interesting and your job is easier in a way because they’re much more open-minded. Exactly. Then they’re very experimental,
56:3256 minutes, 32 secondsbut usually they will find a school of visual that they that appeals to them
56:3956 minutes, 39 secondsand their sonic vision will describe and give dimension to that to that visual. It’s kind of like
56:4656 minutes, 46 secondsFincher says that, you know, he as a director, he always tried to to design for the world beyond the frame and that it was his motivation to give his
56:5456 minutes, 54 secondsviewers a feeling that what they’re looking at isn’t a frame with a story inside of it, but a world that they’re looking into that there’s something else.
57:0057 minutesThat way you you you get rid of those boundaries and get rid of that whole fourth wall thing, you know. Exactly.
57:0557 minutes, 5 secondsIt’s analogous to that. I um I remember talking to uh there’s a brilliant producer uh her name is Susan Rogers and
57:1257 minutes, 12 secondsSusan uh had come up working with Prince you know which there there’s a trial by fire if there ever was one right you know but she was talking about how one
57:2057 minutes, 20 secondsof the things she does when she gets together with new artists and I’ve done this too but I never called it what she called it she called it a record pull
57:2857 minutes, 28 secondsa record pull and I said you know what do you mean by that and she said you know and and when she when she described it I I said oh I do that too but I sit down with an artist and I say,
57:3657 minutes, 36 seconds”Okay, so I want you to grab me like, you know, 10 songs that you really love,
57:4157 minutes, 41 secondsyou know, and let’s listen and make them totally different because I want to find out like what it is that makes you tick,
57:4757 minutes, 47 secondsyou know, what forms your taste of your world, what type of movies, like what’s your favorite movie?” And and I always have to because people are like, “You
57:5457 minutes, 54 secondscan’t pick just and I’m like no, you can’t. Right now, in this moment, top five films, it’ll next time I talk to you, it’ll be different in this moment.
58:0158 minutes, 1 secondFive minutes from now.” Yeah. Five minutes, you know, like this five minutes. this this section this this moment your top five.
58:0758 minutes, 7 secondsAbsolutely. Yeah. And that’s that’s really great and I you know I always try and throw people a curveball when they ask me something like that you know and often times whatever they’re working
58:1558 minutes, 15 secondson since they are all pulling from those references in their mind when they’re creating that’s where they are right now. That’s where they are right now.
58:2158 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. Sure. Sure. Or what you just worked on last or what you just saw last or Sure. Absolutely. Yeah.
58:2658 minutes, 26 secondsYeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Like I’m I’m preparing actually I’ll be on um I think I think actually I think I am in this room for probably three months soon or a
58:3458 minutes, 34 secondslittle bit more. Um uh working on the second season of a show for Netflix called The Hunting Wives.
58:3958 minutes, 39 secondsUhhuh. which is um I don’t know if you’re aware of the show, but it’s a it is a deliciously salacious kind of
58:5058 minutes, 50 secondsit’s like I would say imagine almost like the the the hyperbolic characters of almost like an unscripted housewives of of Texas.
59:0259 minutes, 2 secondsWhoa. But and and husbands of Texas,
59:0559 minutes, 5 secondslike those type of archetypal wow like hyperbolic, but it’s scripted and beautifully done, wonderful production,
59:1259 minutes, 12 secondsexcellent performances, amazingly talented uh writers and actors. Um, so you but that that base of personalities
59:2059 minutes, 20 secondsand then drop a little bit of Twin Peaks into it. Um, because there’s murder and mystery and what’s happening, but it’s also a little bit odd. And then finish it off with a little [clears throat]
59:2959 minutes, 29 secondsbasic instinct like and it’s sexy and naughty and but but it’s got this kind of pull and dance to it and I can’t wait to get the music
59:3859 minutes, 38 secondsand I can’t wait to get back in and I can’t wait to play in that world. Oh, now I got to see this. It’s actually really good. And actually,
59:4459 minutes, 44 secondsas a music person, what you’ll really notice is um there’s this wonderful theme um that our composer Jeff uh created between the two main characters,
59:5359 minutes, 53 secondsthese two women. And um it it this is a perfect example of how Foley delivers and backgrounds deliver and effects
1:00:011 hour, 1 seconddeliver and dialogue delivers and you’ve got this script and you’ve got all these people kind of envisioning and then you come to the dubstage and you have this
1:00:081 hour, 8 secondspallet of material to pull from and then the music came in and there was this beautiful theme that he wrote between the two characters and it’s about the
1:00:171 hour, 17 secondsseduction of these two characters and their relationship and basically how they entangle um and how it confuses is
1:00:241 hour, 24 secondsthe reality of everyone and themselves around them. Oh wow.
1:00:291 hour, 29 secondsAnd and so and it’s this kind of instant like undeniable kind of like magnetism and that would only be possible with not
1:00:371 hour, 37 secondsonly this incredible theme that this composer wrote but also the fullness of the world being pulled and made vacuous
1:00:451 hour, 45 secondsin the place of that theme. So when this so when this attraction happens the world drops away. it blurs
1:00:521 hour, 52 secondsum and the the frequencies open up for that theme to become the the basically the essence of this pool that abstractly
1:01:011 hour, 1 minute, 1 secondwhen I saw the the you know when I saw the the cut um I I saw a possibility of it
1:01:071 hour, 1 minute, 7 secondsbut I it didn’t speak to me until we got into that got into it and I saw that clue that the the that the picture
1:01:161 hour, 1 minute, 16 secondseditor gave me with the sequence looked at the script and went Okay, this is what we’re going to do here. And that ended up being a theme that we kept revisiting and it was very effective.
1:01:271 hour, 1 minute, 27 secondsYeah. The the the art of composing for these also, you know, knowing when to compose and when not to. Yeah. Yeah.
1:01:341 hour, 1 minute, 34 secondsYeah. Well, and and that’s what’s really interesting about that too because um you know, in fact, I I I have interviewed one particular composer a
1:01:421 hour, 1 minute, 42 secondscouple of times, uh Jeff Rona. One of the things he talks about is the idea that the music needs to support but
1:01:501 hour, 1 minute, 50 secondsalso, you know, kind of be invisible because it’s an underscore, you know. Yes. And it can’t be too good, right?
1:01:571 hour, 1 minute, 57 secondsBecause if it is, it’s going to pull you away from the purpose of why it’s there.
1:02:021 hour, 2 minutes, 2 secondsExactly. And actually that my my Jeff on this particular project uh does a lot of that similar as well. It gets very moody and almost transparent. It almost comes
1:02:111 hour, 2 minutes, 11 secondsin as an emotional feeling up until there’s a theme or or a driving moment where the music should help connect those concepts and then get out of the way again.
1:02:201 hour, 2 minutes, 20 secondsThen get out of the way again. Yeah.
1:02:221 hour, 2 minutes, 22 secondsYeah. And one of the things that I find really fascinating too um across the board when I receive music is when um
1:02:291 hour, 2 minutes, 29 secondswhen the director or the showrunner or the writers have have directed um a composer to fall out and allow it to be
1:02:371 hour, 2 minutes, 37 secondsa sound effects moment and when to allow whether it is even a visually a big explosion. I think one of the most obvious examples I’ve seen of this recently is maybe even Oenheimer.
1:02:471 hour, 2 minutes, 47 secondsYeah. you know, where it’s like there could have been a massive, you know,
1:02:511 hour, 2 minutes, 51 secondsexplosion thing, but instead it was a musical moment and it was a rise of music. That choice is very uh effective
1:02:571 hour, 2 minutes, 57 secondsto change the perspective and world of the viewer when they take in that information.
1:03:021 hour, 3 minutes, 2 secondsNot only the choice, but the segue between. Yes, absolutely.
1:03:051 hour, 3 minutes, 5 secondsWhere does the music come back? How does it come back? All fascinating. It really is. Again, you know, we’re talking about I wait when I get my music tracks and so does expand.
1:03:121 hour, 3 minutes, 12 secondsOh, yeah. I mean, I I love the the whole juxtaposition there between all of these different parts.
1:03:171 hour, 3 minutes, 17 secondsYeah, absolutely. And and honestly, the handshake between that and effects,
1:03:211 hour, 3 minutes, 21 secondswhich is in itself its own music, like it is its own score. Like, if you hear something without a fact, like it’s so incredibly subconsciously effective,
1:03:301 hour, 3 minutes, 30 secondsthat I don’t think until people hear stems without the supportive backgrounds and without Foley and without the hard effects and without the sound design,
1:03:391 hour, 3 minutes, 39 secondsthey realize how much of a true character. Um, I am very often brought in on projects where they’re like, “Oh,
1:03:451 hour, 3 minutes, 45 secondswell, this is really this is really a music piece or or you know what, it it doesn’t really need that much sound design, blah blah. It’s a really a walk and talk or we just need it to sound
1:03:521 hour, 3 minutes, 52 secondsromantic or we just need, you know, them to be in the city and they’re walking around a park or whatever.” And I’m like, it’s actually a lot of work, man.
1:03:581 hour, 3 minutes, 58 secondslike the the like the devil’s in the details, you know, and actually sometimes the less obvious and big everything is, the the more detail and
1:04:071 hour, 4 minutes, 7 secondssubtlety and the more work there is to do to actually make it be that subconscious element that puts you emotionally in that space. That’s what sound is really really great at.
1:04:161 hour, 4 minutes, 16 secondsYeah, it is. It is. And I think that’s,
1:04:181 hour, 4 minutes, 18 secondsyou know, again, when you start talking about how the sausage is made, that’s the stuff that people don’t realize because by the time we put it all together, you know, it’s like there’s
1:04:271 hour, 4 minutes, 27 secondsall these little aspects. There’s all those little blades of grass that they’re not seeing because they’re at 30,000 ft.
1:04:331 hour, 4 minutes, 33 secondsI tell people when you’re watching a movie at home, if you want to understand how effective sound is, when you are watching a horror movie and you feel like, “Oh my god, I have to pull away.
1:04:411 hour, 4 minutes, 41 secondsThey’re going to pull the toenail out or they’re going to slam the blah blah blah or the guy’s going to jump out and I just can’t look. I can’t look.” Do not look away. Hit mute. Hit mute. Yeah.
1:04:491 hour, 4 minutes, 49 secondsHit mute and see if all of a sudden it kind of looks like ketchup and shadow.
1:04:531 hour, 4 minutes, 53 secondsLike I’m tell like you know I mean it’s not that dramatic. I’m being you know the picture is beautiful. The color is beautiful and all those things are important to you. Sound can’t save it
1:05:001 hour, 5 minutesalone. But but sound is so immersive and and it’s reproduced in such a realistic way especially where technology is and
1:05:091 hour, 5 minutes, 9 secondswhere it continues to head that it really does get into your brain.
1:05:141 hour, 5 minutes, 14 secondsOh, no question. And when you when you mute, you’ll notice just how effective that that drone that you didn’t even hear that started three and a half
1:05:231 hour, 5 minutes, 23 secondsminutes ago that it has been slowly climbing underneath the forest sounds has you on the edge of your seat. Yeah.
1:05:281 hour, 5 minutes, 28 secondsYes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And and I love, you know, just sometimes scrolling through social media and watching something without turning the
1:05:351 hour, 5 minutes, 35 secondssound on because I know that I’m getting a completely different take on it.
1:05:391 hour, 5 minutes, 39 secondsAbsolutely. In fact, I was actually reading something the other day about the psychological effects and add addictive nature of algorithms blah blah blah. And um they were saying that there
1:05:481 hour, 5 minutes, 48 secondsare two things that you can do. And one is and a lot of people are already doing this anyways with the you know the plethora of subtitles which makes me
1:05:551 hour, 5 minutes, 55 secondssad. Um uh but if you turn the sound off it’s less addictive. Yeah. A less attention gathering. You can turn away easier. Like statistically very easy.
1:06:051 hour, 6 minutes, 5 secondsMakes sense. Sure.
1:06:061 hour, 6 minutes, 6 secondsUm but also you can make it grayscale if it’s not colored. That’s true, too.
1:06:101 hour, 6 minutes, 10 secondsYou can get the information you need and the addiction to continue to look at this colorful, dazzling sounding thing.
1:06:181 hour, 6 minutes, 18 secondsYeah.
1:06:181 hour, 6 minutes, 18 secondsWill reducing those two elements will make you Yeah.
1:06:221 hour, 6 minutes, 22 secondsOh, absolutely. I mean, you know, like what would what would watching Clockwork Orange be like without, you know, in monochrome.
1:06:291 hour, 6 minutes, 29 secondsAnd to think back in the day all people had was black and white newspapers, right? [laughter] Oh my god, that’s so true.
1:06:361 hour, 6 minutes, 36 secondsThat’s funny. So I wanted to ask you about something else too and completely you know hair pin turn here but one of the things that you do a lot of
1:06:441 hour, 6 minutes, 44 secondsthat I think I mean I do as well and I think it’s really really important is you’re very aware of the importance of community.
1:06:531 hour, 6 minutes, 53 secondsI would be nowhere without community. I came to Los Angeles for community. I had a fine job. Uh I was salaried which is
1:07:001 hour, 7 minutesrare for my position here in Los Angeles. We’re all freelancers here uh in the Megalopouloolis or whatever this is in the you know um
1:07:071 hour, 7 minutes, 7 secondsbut um in Hollywood um but um in DC I was salaried I made great money um I had
1:07:161 hour, 7 minutes, 16 secondsuh stability um but what I also had was a smaller well of media to create for um
1:07:221 hour, 7 minutes, 22 secondsa smaller group of producers to work for and a smaller community of fellow artists to be inspired by and to learn from. Yeah.
1:07:311 hour, 7 minutes, 31 secondsAnd I had gotten to a place um where I knew I needed to be uh there’s a I like
1:07:391 hour, 7 minutes, 39 secondsto be a little scared and a little uncomfortable on every project. If I’m not a little scared and I’m not a little uncomfortable, you’re likely not going to get my best work.
1:07:471 hour, 7 minutes, 47 secondsI’m not going to be as creative. You’re not growing,
1:07:501 hour, 7 minutes, 50 secondsright? I need to I need to scratch and climb a little bit. That’s good. It’s good. And it grows.
1:07:561 hour, 7 minutes, 56 secondsUm and I was reaching a place where I wasn’t scratching and climbing. And I in fact was caring a little bit more about detail than even the people around me to
1:08:041 hour, 8 minutes, 4 secondsa point where I was having to let things go that I wasn’t really happy with. Um so I moved to Los Angeles to basically suck again.
1:08:141 hour, 8 minutes, 14 secondsLike I came here to to to not be good. I came here to learn and to be told what was wrong with my stuff and to have it
1:08:211 hour, 8 minutes, 21 secondstorn up and to go through that oh my god what have I done? Can I rise feeling?
1:08:261 hour, 8 minutes, 26 secondsRight. And um and I revel every single one of those experiences and every two years I listen to something that I’ve done and I goof I could do that better
1:08:351 hour, 8 minutes, 35 secondsnow. And as long as that’s still happening in my career, I am not giving up the console anytime soon. like that’s, you know, that the day that it
1:08:431 hour, 8 minutes, 43 secondscomes where I no longer feel like I’m improving and I no longer am a little embarrassed about something that I just learned about or there isn’t a tool that
1:08:521 hour, 8 minutes, 52 secondsI had at the time or a technology didn’t exist or oh my god how did we deal with that many clicks in the 80s in our dialogue like I’m [laughter] just like
1:08:591 hour, 8 minutes, 59 secondsyou know like as soon when that stops I’m done I’m done you know like I want people to have the discussion with me I want them to have the notes I want to
1:09:081 hour, 9 minutes, 8 secondshave people I can call and go dude what would you do with this you Yeah,
1:09:121 hour, 9 minutes, 12 secondsI love that. And and I also feel that I learn as much from people coming up as people that are Oh, absolutely.
1:09:191 hour, 9 minutes, 19 secondsfurther on their career. Yeah.
1:09:211 hour, 9 minutes, 21 secondsThey don’t know any of the horror. They don’t know any of the frustration.
1:09:251 hour, 9 minutes, 25 secondsThey’re not concerned about pension and blah blah blah. They’re like, they’re just like, “Cool, you get to do cool stuff all day long and you’re like, I got I just want to be a sponge.”
1:09:331 hour, 9 minutes, 33 secondsYeah. Exactly. That is inspiring. It reminds you of really the miracle and the beauty of being able to dedicate your life to widening people’s perspectives through storytelling.
1:09:431 hour, 9 minutes, 43 secondsYeah. Yeah.
1:09:431 hour, 9 minutes, 43 secondsYou know, like most of us like well every one of us in the world only has the experience that we have in our finite life and you can only experience so many
1:09:521 hour, 9 minutes, 52 secondsthings from that perspective. uh and really on a global scale with globalization and media and the power of American media which really does go
1:10:001 hour, 10 minuteseverywhere in the world we become end up for better for worse but we end up being a really cohesive cultural language that we all share. We
1:10:091 hour, 10 minutes, 9 secondsgive a commonality to people across the world. We have a shared culture within that sphere of media. Yes.
1:10:151 hour, 10 minutes, 15 secondsAnd we also have a bullhorn to share the perspectives of different people all over the world with the whole world.
1:10:221 hour, 10 minutes, 22 secondsLike media can make us much better.
1:10:241 hour, 10 minutes, 24 secondsThese stories, these narratives, they can make us much wider in our perspective and our human experience. It’s a really beautiful thing.
1:10:321 hour, 10 minutes, 32 secondsOh, it is. It is. And so so you know to my point about community I feel like you u not only realize the value of it but I
1:10:411 hour, 10 minutes, 41 secondsthink you understand the importance of connection and and how that and not just from the creative aspect of what you’re
1:10:481 hour, 10 minutes, 48 secondsdoing and how it relates to the world but also you work really hard to connect your community. I know you do a whole lot of
1:10:571 hour, 10 minutes, 57 secondswork, you know, with various various user groups and whatnot as well as, you know, um I do a lot of beta testing women’s audio mission.
1:11:051 hour, 11 minutes, 5 secondsI do. I do. Yes. Uh yes, I I’m a member of a number of organizations. U the alliance of women directors, the ETMA,
1:11:121 hour, 11 minutes, 12 secondsthe uh entertainment industry mentoring professional alliance, the cinema audio society. I’m a former president, a board member. Um I’m a board member of Meg
1:11:211 hour, 11 minutes, 21 seconds700, which is our local union. Um and yeah and actually um like right now actually this morning is an excellent example. Um currently because of uh kind
1:11:301 hour, 11 minutes, 30 secondsof the democratization of technology and really inflation and just general politics and etc in the world today um
1:11:391 hour, 11 minutes, 39 secondsHollywood is experiencing um a a real tugofwar to uh keep Hollywood rich with
1:11:461 hour, 11 minutes, 46 secondsopportunities to continue to allow the industry to flourish. So, right now there’s actually a bill AB2319. Yes.
1:11:531 hour, 11 minutes, 53 secondsUm that is going to be presented on the 7th um and uh in our assembly and um I’m calling out to our community to uh to
1:12:031 hour, 12 minutes, 3 secondsreach out to their representation and allow their voice to be discovered in Hollywood for Hollywood, you know. So,
1:12:101 hour, 12 minutes, 10 secondsum yeah, it’s really important. Yeah. uh this organization uh Kappa um is doing an incredible uh an incredible work in um really uh pushing this bill together.
1:12:211 hour, 12 minutes, 21 secondsUm the union is you know um endorsing it. Um that’s great. It’s yeah the community is embracing it.
1:12:261 hour, 12 minutes, 26 secondsUh many organizations are backing it. Uh manufacturers facilities formosa has had a a great uh part in and uh really being
1:12:331 hour, 12 minutes, 33 secondsbehind capab fromosa our founding members. It’s wonderful. So I think that’s so great. coastalized.
1:12:421 hour, 12 minutes, 42 secondsYeah. And and I think, you know, just the whole idea of what you’re doing, it I think it’s so important for all of us
1:12:501 hour, 12 minutes, 50 secondsto not only make the connections with other people, but to help other people coming into the industry to make those connections.
1:12:571 hour, 12 minutes, 57 secondsAnd we don’t have apprenticeships anymore in a classic sense. Exactly. Right. It is such a like I tell you, I’m mad.
1:13:041 hour, 13 minutes, 4 secondsI’m mad. The people before me, my mentors talk about being apprenticeship positions and and having Oh my god. How wonderful would that be? That’s fantastic.
1:13:121 hour, 13 minutes, 12 secondsYeah. I mean, when I came up in the studios, you know, I got to sit in the back of the room and watch these I won’t even hide it. Yeah. Envy right here.
1:13:191 hour, 13 minutes, 19 secondsRight. Exactly. It’s like I got to watch the greats do what they did, you know,
1:13:231 hour, 13 minutes, 23 secondsand I see that now, you know, like the students who are coming in now, man,
1:13:281 hour, 13 minutes, 28 secondslike, you know, and I think it’s so important. It is incumbent of us in this in this very very fortunate position to be able to create for a living and to be
1:13:361 hour, 13 minutes, 36 secondsable to be an incredible mouthpiece for narratives and stories and in music emotions and human condition. It is an
1:13:431 hour, 13 minutes, 43 secondsincredible honor and and gift and it should not be taken lightly and it should also we shouldn’t be stingy with
1:13:501 hour, 13 minutes, 50 secondsit. We can’t gate right and by being open we are actually making ourselves better as artists. Well, and I always laugh about people who try and like hide
1:13:591 hour, 13 minutes, 59 secondstheir secrets, you know, and like come on, you know? I mean,
1:14:021 hour, 14 minutes, 2 secondsthe day I’m worried about you finding out my secret is the day that I’m no longer learning other people’s secrets, which means my secrets aren’t changing. I’m done. And and you know, it’s [laughter] like,
1:14:101 hour, 14 minutes, 10 secondsyeah, I can give you all my secrets.
1:14:121 hour, 14 minutes, 12 secondsYou’re still not going to do it like I do it. Correct. You know, I mean, I always I always use the discover what I am this afternoon because I play with XYZ.
1:14:181 hour, 14 minutes, 18 secondsExactly. It’s like I always use the analogy of like, you know, I can I can set you up in Abbey Road. M I can give you all the same tools that you know
1:14:261 hour, 14 minutes, 26 secondsthey used. You’re not going to get the Beatles. That’s exactly right.
1:14:291 hour, 14 minutes, 29 secondsAnd you’re not going to And even if you did get the Beatles, you wouldn’t produce them like George Martin produced them. Absolutely. And also there’s that whole,
1:14:361 hour, 14 minutes, 36 secondsyou know, 10,000 hours theory, which is very important. Like I do meet a lot of people coming out of school that and I remember having their perspective where
1:14:431 hour, 14 minutes, 43 secondsit’s just like I just need somebody to give me a chance. I know how to do it.
1:14:461 hour, 14 minutes, 46 secondsFirst you do this and then you do that and then you do this and then you do that and that’s how you do it. And yes,
1:14:511 hour, 14 minutes, 51 secondsthat is how you do it. But not until you have watched it and gone through it and put in your 10,000 hours do you realize the minute details that actually make all the difference to the end result.
1:15:011 hour, 15 minutes, 1 secondRight. And and the way I do it is going to be different from the way you do it from the way they do it. And and for each project too and how you
1:15:081 hour, 15 minutes, 8 secondsinterpret it is a changing and the devil is truly in the details like it is it’s not just a plus b plus c plus. It’s not
1:15:161 hour, 15 minutes, 16 secondsthat is not it. Those are such general structures. That is Yeah, that is a that’s a scaffolding. I mean, I always laugh about people who,
1:15:241 hour, 15 minutes, 24 secondsyou know, like I have to have this piece of gear because so and so you you know,
1:15:271 hour, 15 minutes, 27 secondsit’s like [laughter] Yeah, exactly. Like what’s your favorite kick drum mic? I don’t know what what’s the project, you know?
1:15:331 hour, 15 minutes, 33 secondsExactly. And all of these different perspectives. It’s like, you know, yeah,
1:15:371 hour, 15 minutes, 37 secondsthere’s a hundred different reverb plugins. You always need the same tools and you always need the same gear and you always need the same instruments and you always need the creat,
1:15:461 hour, 15 minutes, 46 secondsright? You’re not creating. Yeah.
1:15:491 hour, 15 minutes, 49 seconds[laughter] And and if you’re using the same tools on so many different things,
1:15:531 hour, 15 minutes, 53 secondsthen that’s a problem. You know, you should be trying different things all the time. You know, I love like, you know, oh, somebody gave me a new plugin. Cool. You know,
1:16:011 hour, 16 minutes, 1 secondexactly. That’s why I do all these like tech research things. is I’m on a emerging technical committee which I absolutely love where we get to play with new technology and not only analyze
1:16:101 hour, 16 minutes, 10 secondsit for like labor impact but also what’s needed in education or how much we think it’s going to I’m on these advisory committees for the same reason.
1:16:181 hour, 16 minutes, 18 secondsExactly. Yeah. Postprouction or all this. I love it. Yeah.
1:16:211 hour, 16 minutes, 21 secondsBecause that way we can try all these different things and the coolest part about that is that then we’re giving feedback also to those manufacturers.
1:16:281 hour, 16 minutes, 28 secondsThat’s true. That’s true. It becomes this Yeah. I I did some work with the ACA that way which was lovely with the Avid uh consumer alliance or consumer association is amazing.
1:16:371 hour, 16 minutes, 37 secondsYeah, it’s it’s very useful. It really is. It really is.
1:16:401 hour, 16 minutes, 40 secondsIt’s about it’s about staying curious but also appreciating like the different developmental uh cycles in one’s career. They’re being
1:16:471 hour, 16 minutes, 47 secondsaround all of those different stages does make a studio and does make a project um more creative and more enriched
1:16:551 hour, 16 minutes, 55 secondsand does make us as individuals more creative. That’s the big part right there.
1:17:001 hour, 17 minutesAnd it makes our end product appeal to a larger demographic which in the end makes that narrative more accessible to more people which is the goal.
1:17:071 hour, 17 minutes, 7 secondsYeah. And the human element I think is so important. It’s like you know all this stuff is really really great but without us as intuitive human beings
1:17:171 hour, 17 minutes, 17 secondsworking it don’t mean And also just knowing like uh the how the younger generations are consuming media. Yeah.
1:17:241 hour, 17 minutes, 24 secondsYou know what affects them what they think is good and what they don’t think is good. Yeah, you know, like it’s very very interesting.
1:17:311 hour, 17 minutes, 31 secondsIt’s very enlightening to me. Yeah. I’d love to work with students because they’re going to give me a totally different perspective than I would ever come.
1:17:391 hour, 17 minutes, 39 secondsKeep they keep my work fresh. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So, so speaking of that,
1:17:431 hour, 17 minutes, 43 secondsI’ll wrap with the question that I normally wrap with here, which is,
1:17:481 hour, 17 minutes, 48 secondswhat would you tell 15year-old you coming up in this day and age with this technology, with this work that we do?
1:17:561 hour, 17 minutes, 56 secondsbecause it’s completely changed from when you came up. Obviously. Oh, yeah. No, it has.
1:18:001 hour, 18 minutesUm, what do you mean obviously? No, I’m just kidding.
1:18:021 hour, 18 minutes, 2 secondsWell, I hope you a hard time. I’m giving you a hard time. Um, it has a great deal, actually. Um, 15-year-old me. H
1:18:121 hour, 18 minutes, 12 seconds15-year-old me was pretty tenacious and fearless.
1:18:151 hour, 18 minutes, 15 secondsUm, and you can say a lot of things about me, but tenacity is something that is prayed stayed pretty excessive in my personality. Um
1:18:221 hour, 18 minutes, 22 seconds[laughter] a and and I would hope that anybody coming up the the 15year-old coming up now damn well better be that tenacious.
1:18:281 hour, 18 minutes, 28 secondsYeah. I think um I there’s a piece of advice actually a director that I work with uh Katherine Michonne um who um once sat on a panel and it inspired me.
1:18:381 hour, 18 minutes, 38 secondsShe said um uh she said to somebody that said you know what what what do I need to do to become a director? And she said
1:18:451 hour, 18 minutes, 45 secondsum she goes just be a director. Just use your phone. Like you don’t need somebody to give you something to be something.
1:18:531 hour, 18 minutes, 53 secondsYou can be you decide what you are. You decide. Oh, I like that.
1:18:581 hour, 18 minutes, 58 secondsYou know, and and I remember my grandfather used to tell me something also very similar, which is figure out what type of animal you are, the natural thing that keeps you going that you can
1:19:071 hour, 19 minutes, 7 secondsdo forever and then find a way to monetize that. That’s the problem. The problem is not what you do. The problem is how to monetize it so that you can allow yourself to be who you are.
1:19:171 hour, 19 minutes, 17 secondsYeah. So, so just I would say to my 15-year-old self, if it speaks to you,
1:19:221 hour, 19 minutes, 22 secondsand if it is something that makes your heart sing,
1:19:271 hour, 19 minutes, 27 secondsjust do it and accept the fact that at the very moment that you do it, even if you’re doing it hideously and horribly,
1:19:331 hour, 19 minutes, 33 secondsthat is who you are in what you’re doing. You are a mixer. Like, I spent many years of my life waiting to get to a point where I would allow myself to say, “I am a re-recording mixer.”
1:19:431 hour, 19 minutes, 43 secondsUhuh.
1:19:441 hour, 19 minutes, 44 secondsI should have said that day one. I can be a lousy one, but that’s who I am. And upon deciding that that’s who I was, my
1:19:521 hour, 19 minutes, 52 secondsdetermination and dedication and certainty um that that was my path uh and my trajectory increased immediately.
1:20:001 hour, 20 minutesThat’s that’s what I would say.
1:20:021 hour, 20 minutes, 2 secondsThat’s very profound actually because I think that do it horribly. Yeah.
1:20:061 hour, 20 minutes, 6 secondsBut also meet with people and try and get better please by the way. Oh yeah. Like research, you know, aspire.
1:20:121 hour, 20 minutes, 12 secondsAlways always aspire [laughter] to improve. Yes. Right. But, you know, it it goes back to that same old thing of like, you know, do it and the money will be there rather than obsessing about the
1:20:201 hour, 20 minutes, 20 secondsmoney. Correct. Cuz I’ve always felt like, you know, every time I’ve done something for the money, it’s never been a good thing. No, it’s not. Yeah. Yeah. And And Yeah.
1:20:271 hour, 20 minutes, 27 secondsAnd And what do you want the money for if your animal is something that can’t do what they want to do? The money.
1:20:331 hour, 20 minutes, 33 secondsYeah. Exactly. What are you going to mix if you’re doing, you know, accounting for the money? Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You know,
1:20:381 hour, 20 minutes, 38 secondsso so [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s beautiful. I love it.
1:20:421 hour, 20 minutes, 42 secondsYeah. Yeah. Shooting yourself in the foot, you Yeah. Over and over again.
1:20:451 hour, 20 minutes, 45 secondsYeah. And honestly, if if if it weren’t for the money, like I mean, let’s be honest, money is fun. It’s great.
1:20:501 hour, 20 minutes, 50 secondsAbsolutely. Sure. You know, money will not buy you happiness, but not having money can give you sadness, you know.
1:20:561 hour, 20 minutes, 56 secondsSo, [laughter] this is true. This is true. You know, um so, you know, um but we didn’t choose this for the money.
1:21:021 hour, 21 minutes, 2 secondsThere are more uh skill applicable functions that we could do with right brain and left brain interchange,
1:21:091 hour, 21 minutes, 9 secondsunderstanding of human nature,
1:21:111 hour, 21 minutes, 11 secondsobservation of the human spirit, uh the propensities that we have that make us success successful in this field could be absolutely applied to other careers that would make us a lot more cash.
1:21:211 hour, 21 minutes, 21 secondsRight. Right. Like we choose this. We we choose this or it chooses us. Yeah. Or Yeah. You know, by the way, it’s it’s a sickness you can’t shake, you know. Yeah. You know,
1:21:291 hour, 21 minutes, 29 secondsit’s the truth. It’s the truth.
1:21:301 hour, 21 minutes, 30 seconds[laughter] But yet somehow or another we’ve managed, you know.
1:21:331 hour, 21 minutes, 33 secondsExactly. Exactly. And I do I love it. I love it every single day that I come to work and I have this gift and I can’t say this about everyone. I can even say this about my dad who had a very high
1:21:421 hour, 21 minutes, 42 secondsposition. I remember before he was going to retire him having sticky notes in the thousands peeling them off when he would be able to retire and not have to work
1:21:491 hour, 21 minutes, 49 secondsagain. O I don’t want to know when my last day is. I want to feel like I have forever for every single day. I can’t imagine when I come to work I am winning.
1:21:581 hour, 21 minutes, 58 secondsYeah. Oh, I can’t imagine, you know, and and it’s so funny because I talk to a lot of people who, oh, I’m looking forward to retiring. I’m thinking, I never want to be that way, you know.
1:22:071 hour, 22 minutes, 7 secondsWhat am I I suck at golf. I don’t want more than five days off, even on vacation.
1:22:111 hour, 22 minutes, 11 secondsYeah. You know, and it’s like, no, my mind is always working, you know. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, I love it. Yeah.
1:22:171 hour, 22 minutes, 17 secondsCarol Urban, thank you so much