Dialogue Editing & Cleanup
Dialogue is often the most consequential element in the mix. It holds our attention to communicate the characters and story, it acts as the loudness anchor for music and effects, and it’s my top priority on most projects. I’ve been known to obsess over the alchemy of dialogue noise reduction, editing meticulously and using an array of cutting-edge tools. These techniques preserve performance and carve out smoothness. A good dialogue edit solidifies the base on top of which the rest of the mix is built.
Foley Recording & Editing
Foley is a powerful way to reinforce the suspension of disbelief when telling stories, both fictional and not. It accentuates the actors’ performances, ensuring each character’s body language is as legible as their dialogue. We need to believe that they exist as real bodies in a real world. Foley helps us get there. By using a combination of pre-recorded sounds and custom sounds that are recorded directly to picture, we can create the glue between raw performance and the rest of the sound effects track.
Sound Effects Design
Developing original and story-specific sound effects is one of the many tools that can be used to reinforce narrative themes, world-build, and immerse the audience in the story and characters. These sounds are developed using a multitude of techniques including field recording, studio recording, analog and digital synthesis, and manipulation of pre-recorded sounds from some of the top sound libraries on the market. These techniques combine to produce a robust and unique effects track for any project.
Final Re-Recording Mixing
This is where everything comes together. It’s my personal favorite, and my personal area of expertise in the field. We get to zoom out and asses the overall feel of a project, working together to imagine how the audience will experience the story in real time. I frequently joke about this part of the process — “if I do my job correctly, no one will know I exist”. Using an invisible hand to control the focus of the audience, whether that be towards the dialogue, music or effects, allows us to achieve a mix that is transparent, moving and sublime.