Fish(er) Tales

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! These posts will give you a better idea about what this site is about. Start here, then go here, and here, and then here.Getting clean production sound on location – primarily dialogue — is hard enough. You don’t need some territorial animal wreaking more havoc on an already nearly impossible task. Listen...

“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.” - Jean-Paul Sartre Doing too much, bad or no planning, ambiguous goals, constantly putting out fires, being a perfectionist, procrastinating, forgetting to say no, being disorganized, and having a serious lack of knowledge about your tools are the primary ways we all waste time. You can only do so much....

A student asked about my workflow approach when starting a new audio-post project. I thought about it for a few moments and then scribbled down these notes (only slightly tongue in cheek). For me it all starts with a long cry in preparation for the heart-wrenching work ahead. Then it’s a stiff drink, perhaps a single malt scotch, and I’m ready to begin. I prefer to watch the video nearly...

So, I’m watching the Kentucky Derby last weekend and it’s sponsored by Yum! brands. Do you know who Yum! is? Do you care? Well, some ego-centric person seemed to care because they spent a solid chunk of change to ‘bring awareness’ to the parent company of several other well-known brands. And what are those brands? You may have heard of them because they spend millions to compete...

It’s amazing that we can spend huge sums of money on a so-called war, but then lay off teachers. It’s frustrating that we can find money to bail out Wall Street, but can’t pay for physical education classes, art classes, and fund after school activities. It’s messed  up. Very. Did you know that 25 hedge fund managers made a billion dollars each. A billion. That’s absurd....

I finally found it … the secret to success. But you have to figure it out for yourself. Here it is: The secret to everything is on the board!

Here’s another audio post tip: Sound effects, especially backgrounds, offer opportunities to use wide stereo effects and ambiances. There are two advantages: One, you create a bigger soundscape and, two, pushing sounds to the stereo extremes leaves room in the center for dialogue. I often use the stereo widener effect from effect from Izotope Ozone 4. But what other tricks are there? Use two...

Here are five more must-have plug-ins that I rely on for my audio-post work. Compressor(s) Dealing with dynamics is as important as handling the tonal aspects of sound (using EQ). And just like EQ, I like my compressors to sometimes just work and not get in the way and other times to really have a sound that provides some new color. Standard compressors are a dime a dozen, and I have several. But for...