Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521235
Eric Friend: "For me, it's the collaboration. Collaborating, not just with the director and sound people. But what did the costume designer do? And what did the screenwriter do? What were your problems? You know what's happened with the movie before it came to me and I want to be part of your story. I want to know what you've gone through and what you're expecting. An actual collaboration with people where you're throwing ideas at each other. It's the one thing that I would try to leave people with." Morgan Honaker: "For the love of God, bring your production team at the very least, if not post, to your location scout. For one, you can pinpoint issues on set that other people who aren't attuned to sound might not notice, but the bigger thing is that you can record, and this is production and post and composing, all together as early as location scout. There was a feature I worked on last year where the composers were on set in New Mexico. In these old warehouses, they were shooting and recorded a lot of the sounds for the score on set. The score is fantastic, and that's because they had talked to sound early, and everyone was there as early as production and then for post. For this film, I was in communication with the production team early. I told them that I can't go to Mexico City and record. Please record a lot of wild sounds. And they did, and it was amazing. And the mix is so much better for it." Arturo Jiménez: "I'm going to go back to an earlier idea about when you start thinking about your projects. You're probably going to do a mood board or a visual deck. Start thinking, start watching those movies, those short films, those TV shows. Then listen to them and see what works for you. And what are your references? The earlier you start thinking about things, the sooner you can start integrating them into your script or you're planning for your filming, and your conversations with your post sound team. I think it's as essential as finding the right actor, finding the right location, finding the right DP, and the color palette, is to find the sound element in the world that you want to live in for your two-hour film." Sacha Ratcliffe: "I totally agree with what they said. Also, go all the way with your idea. If you have an idea, try it until you think, 'Oh, no, this doesn't work.' Go all the way, don't be afraid to experiment and try new things, and just be wild." Matt McCorkle: "I agree with everything that everyone has said. I would say, outside of the projects that you're working on for others or with others, do your own work and continue to be weird with it, explore sounds, and do things that you want to do on a project. When everyone said, 'No, that's too much; it's too crazy. We don't want to do it.' Explore it and learn about it. In doing so, you're going to figure out new methods that you can bring to other projects." Perhaps the most interesting responses came from Eric's question: "If you could pass along one idea to the next generation of filmmakers to improve the role of sound, what would it be?" 36 M PS E . O R G