CAS Quarterly

14 FA L L 2 0 2 1 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y DANIEL VASQUEZ VELEZ CAS MEET THE MIXER Daniel Vasquez Velez, who is usually referred to as Daniel Vasquez, is a CAS member from Medellín, Colombia. He's been a re-recording mixer, editor, and supervisor in both London and his hometown on projects ranging from shorts and documentaries to features. He's made a habit of blazing trails to carve out his niche—often creating opportunities in new and unexpected places. Daniel's interest in mixing began while learning drums and bass in school. He was fascinated with the soundboard and slowly learned the basics. He went on to pursue an engineering degree, which he successfully began, but wasn't enjoying the field. He turned to music, briefly considering Los Angeles for his studies, but settled on London given its vibrant musical scene. There, he pursued studies, earning a BA in recording arts and earned a MA in audio post-production at Middlesex University. He also began to work in live sound and music recording. Daniel's interest in music production, recording, and mixing led him to study Pro Tools, of which he quickly became certi ed as an operator. He wanted to continue to an expert level in music production, but found the only classes available at the time were in post-production, a eld that Daniel hadn't explored much until then. Looking at his options, he decided to go ahead and take the post-production instruction, acing his tests to become a certi ed expert. This quickly led to an opportunity to become an instructor at school given his newly found expertise. For this opportunity, Daniel thanks Luca Barassi, one of his rst teachers who was also a mentor and a boss. After gaining technical knowledge and skills in the eld, Daniel began exploring the aesthetics of lm and the narrative, along with the artistic power that sound has on motion pictures. Daniel dove into post-production work. Initially cutting dialogue for video games—English, Spanish, and Catalan—working through about 100 lines/hour, then doing QC work, cleanup, and deliverables. He developed a strong feel for delivery requirements and the rigors of post-production. Daniel was working three jobs at once during this time; mixing live sound at a music venue, working nightshifts as audio supervisor at the university, and lling his remaining time with post- production work. After working for other people, he teamed up with Martin Schulz and Daniel Jaramillo and co- founded SoundNode, a London audio business, where they built the studio themselves. While Daniel is no longer directly associated with the company, it's still an ongoing successful enterprise in England. His London success led him to pursue the idea of returning to his home country of Colombia to nd the right business partners to build his own company, Clap Studios. This was a bold move at the time as the industry was expanding rapidly. It was groundbreaking to set up in Medellín, which is about 260 miles away from Colombia's established lm center, Bogotá. Daniel had to not only build a studio, but create interest and education for lmmakers to come to Medellín. This has created opportunities for other sound mixers and editors to be part of the industry from different cities across his home country. Daniel used his practical engineering and construction knowledge (and plenty of hands-on labor) to construct the rst studio which consisted of a small mix stage, an ADR/Foley stage, and of ces. Once completed, his job was to educate the lmmakers that getting a lm ready b y K u r t K a s s u l k e C A S

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