Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1279181
54 I M PS E . O R G times Craig was supervising and mixing on the same show, a goal he'd always had to allow for more control of the soundtrack. When talking about freelancing in Los Angeles, Craig said, "In the freelance world it's kinda like a universe where you have these planets, and the planets have moons and other planets in their orbit. That's like a studio and the freelancers that work at the studio. You may work in one orbit for a while but one day be flung to another planet and end up working in that orbit on many projects." Over the next 10 years, Craig would land key roles on films such as Men in Black II, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, I, Robot, The New World and Superman Returns to name a few. During this period, Craig's friend Sean Garnhart, who was now living in New York, introduced him to Skip Lievsay. Skip was doing work between New York and Los Angeles and needed a point person in L.A. for the film Wild Wild West. While the film was being done through Sony and Weddington Productions, where Craig had a room, he remained in his home studio for the majority of post-production only going in to transfer tape materials and other functions he was not able to do at home yet. This new connection with Skip started a long-term stint in co-supervision and mixing jobs together. Craig remembers a story from a Men in Black II temp mix where he had cut sound effects for a sequence they were reviewing with the picture editor, director, and producers. After the playback, the picture editor turned to Skip and gave him all the praise for how great the sequence sounded. Skip said nothing, turned around and pointed directly at Craig. This was a learning moment about leadership and Craig truly appreciated that Skip shared the accolades. On Terrence Malick's The New World, Craig moved into the mixing chair, alongside Skip using the latest controller from Digidesign, the Icon. This sound effects heavy mix took a toll on this new were networking their workstations together. The next time Craig was back in L.A., he called Digital Sound and Picture and had a conversation with the co-owner, Nancy Ross. Nancy explained that they don't have time to run through how things are hooked up at their facility but she asked if Craig would like a job. They assisted with a trainee visa for Craig and he started his first on-staff position in post sound. In his interview with Nancy, Craig encountered his first big challenge between workflows in Canada and the US. He was asked what discipline in post sound he was focused in. Craig began to list his set of skills such as recording Foley and ADR, editing sound effects and dialogue, as well as mixing. Nancy insisted that Craig had to pick one discipline as that was the way they distributed the work. Craig ultimately picked sound effects and spent the next two years developing his skills and moving up to supervising and mixing films. In the mid-nineties, Craig cut effects on the Disney film Blank Check which was brought into Digital Sound and Picture by an out-of-house supervisor, John Larsen. By the end of work on the film, John told Craig to let him know when he got his green card and was looking for work. One year later, Craig joined the night crew freelancing at Fox with people like Sean Garnhart, Susan Dawes, Donald Sylvester, and others. The post-sound team at Fox primarily used the Avid Audio Vision as their post-sound workstation. When asked if he knew how to use it, Craig gave a simple "yeah, sure" response and in classic fashion went back home to read the manual. Like most sound editors, Craig worked in a separate suite most of the time and eventually he moved up from sound editor to co-supervisor and re-recording mixer which allowed him more access to the dub stage, increasing his exposure to the above-the- line crew. "Up until this point, I had primarily been offered jobs by sound supervisors, eventually this changes and directors start asking you to work on their films," Craig said. A couple of years into freelancing with Fox, Craig stepped outside the norm of the industry and purchased his own edit station, along with a tape machine and moved back to his home in Beachwood Canyon where he shared an office with Catherine. Craig's workflow had to be adaptable as they shared the office so he would jump between speakers and headphones when he had to. This was one of the first Craig using his eight fader artist mix and Wacom setup on the mix of True Grit (2010).