MPSE Wavelength

Fall 2020

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edit, sound edit, and mix, also film behind-the-scenes, do fund- raising and social media for your project. The main instructor knew it would make sense to bring me on during pre-production so that I could help the students with their sound issues before they shoot! I do tell them that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes but we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time! A wise person also learns from the mistakes of others. You must pay your editing dues by working on a bunch of "freebies." If you're lucky enough to work with a mentor or a more experienced editor, seek it out. As you get more experienced, you can start asking for more money. The people I like to hire when I get a chance to do that, are the ones who seek me out, who are passionate, who follow through. I don't mind if you don't know something. But don't pass yourself off as knowing something you don't. Be humble. Ask questions. There are no stupid questions. I wish we could have more apprentice programs. My hope is that a student today, who seeks to be an editor, will learn from the past, will seek out a mentor, will know and understand the basics and will honor the craft. Join and attend any and all groups that support editing. LA Post Production Group (LAPPG. org) is a great one that offers seminars and networking meetings. Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE.org) also has wonderful seminars and panels, even now during COVID. There are great resources on Facebook for anything and everything to do with post- production sound. When we get back to normal, I hope to see you at some of these great seminars, meetings, screenings, and panels! DICTIONARY OF TERMS FILL LEADER: This is usually previously released 35mm films, work prints, theater prints that were saved to use as SPACER for units. Fill would be the space between pieces of usable sound. Today's equivalent would be the white space between regions in Pro Tools. Fill spaces out from pieces of magnetic film to the next piece and would be built into 1,000' units called reels. (1,000' is approximately 10 minutes of film.) The first picture above is of about 200' of film or about two minutes. The piece of mag with a footage written on it would be spliced into 1,000' of this fill at the right footage (250 feet in) from a 0 start mark. DUBBING UNITS: (aka "reels") If two or more sounds happen at the same time, they would have to be spliced into another reel or unit. These units would be built into 10-minute segments which are determined by the picture editor. 1,000' reels would be wound on a bench so they would be heavy if you have more than one or two at a time. Now, since things are digital, some people are editing the whole feature film in one session!! We still like to break features into about 20-minute reels because we, as sound editors, may have hundreds of tracks of all the dialogue, background sound effects, Foley effects, ADR and Group ADR, hard effects. Makes the session really dense! Today, we can see all the "units" but we call them tracks! MOVIOLA: Usually an upright machine that had separate film and sound sides with an interlocking wheel. The film could go forward or backward. Sound was sunk up and marked with a footage so that it would stay in sync with the picture. It was then built into a unit or reel. On page 26 is a photo of me with my mom's Moviola which I donated to the Hollywood Sound Museum which will also be the home of her 50,000-plus sound effects library! REELS: The 10 or 15 minutes of a film that are split up into easily handled units. We still call these sessions "reels" today in the digital world. ADR: Stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. When a line of dialogue is either so hard to understand because of a noisy shooting environment or because some new dialogue will be added, the actor comes into an ADR stage to re-perform the line. An

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