Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535880
s a Foley mixer, I usually try to get to the studio before the Foley artist arrives, turn on the computers and the stage lights, download the "Cued" Foley session, or if it's already on a drive for me to work on, I would import it to Pro Tools into my Foley mixing template. A "Foley Cue" session is when someone goes through the entire show and places frame-accurate blank regions for anything that needs to be recorded during the Foley session and places cues where they hear production footsteps or props along with markers that would help us navigate the scene cuts and black commercial breaks easily so we can have a smooth session for when we record those sounds in their specific places. I don't work with sessions that have "markers" as cues, instead of blank regions/clips in the session timeline, because it's very inefficient, time-consuming, and you don't know when the action ends or if the prop repeats many times during the show. This is especially true when the region cues are also not frame- accurate! Unfortunately, this has become the norm and sometimes even sound supervisors lack the knowledge or the time to cue accurately, or they have interns who are not trained properly to prepare the cues and make critical decisions. In other words, those are suggestions and not cues! This is a huge time and money wasting factor of this profession. So I expect the cues to be very accurate with their start and end, as well as their labeling to be in "ALL CAPS," short and precise in description. I would rather cue the session myself or have someone I trained cue it, so it stays consistent and efficient. If you have questions on how to cue, please reach out to me and I'll be happy to provide you with the step-by-step process. After the cues are in the session, I get to import the guide tracks and the video file that the client sent us to work on. I love having guide tracks that are separate tracks of DX, FX, ADR, and MX. That helps me understand the vision and choices of the director and the picture editor as a guide for us to follow. So now that I have the Picture, Guides, and the Cues, I double-check my 2 pops that should also exist in every cued track, which a lot of times I see people neglect and think it's not important to have it on all the tracks. It doesn't have to have the audio signal on the cued tracks, it can just be a blank 1-frame region/clip, but on all the tracks. Especially when you get a lot of messy cues it's important to know your session is in sync and it's not off because it drifted, but it's off because of the cuer, and we can confirm that the session was not cued professionally which means 2+ hours of your day is now going to be spent on adjusting those cues that are suggestions. M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 77 A