Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 21 for a discount from the card rate. On the other hand, Warner Bros. would occasionally call and ask for a 24-track tape machine to be sent over. They didn't even ask how much it cost! They paid full card rate. I paused to think… Hmmm… I think the money is better in the film business. Then Pro Tools came out. I urged the owners of the rental companies to buy it. I told them that it was going to change the world, something I immediately intuited. They said no. Instead, I was unexpectedly fired. The owner had asked me to make a complete inventory of the gear. I discovered that there was gear that had been missing since before I worked there. Somehow, it was my fault. Getting fired turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I had just inherited $12,000 from my grandmother, so it was time to put my money where my mouth was. I bought a Mac IIci computer, Pro Tools version 1 with a four-channel interface and a DAT machine and I started to teach myself how to work it. It was very painful. I often felt like chucking the whole thing out the window. There were no classes or tutorials. Luckily, I had a friend who had bought Pro Tools and was three weeks ahead of me and Digidesign had free tech support. I put an ad in The Recycler (a weekly newspaper full of for sale and want ads [this is pre-internet]) that read, "Digital audio editing $5 hour." I got immediate responses. All my first clients were guinea pigs, I didn't know what I was doing. However, I figured it out and my "I had the vague idea that I wanted to be a famous 'serious' music composer or a film composer. Ten years later, I hadn't gotten very far… I had been working at two different companies that rented gear to music recording studios and occasionally movie studios. This job gave me a window into the two different worlds." Lee Scott MPSE Retired My first music editing job on a film was when I was hired to work on the temp score for Braveheart. I had never even heard of the job "music editor." But I owned a Pro Tools system, knew how to work it, and had a music background. In 1993 with all this, you were at least halfway to getting a job. This is when I learned that luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Here is the story of my preparation. I came to California from Atlanta, GA, in 1978 to study at CalArts where I received a master's in music composition. I was attracted there by electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick and the proximity of the movie business. I had the vague idea that I wanted to be a famous "serious" music composer or a film composer. Ten years later, I hadn't gotten very far. I had been a staff copyist for Frank Zappa and I had scored several little things. The biggest deal was the NBC cartoon show Kid 'n' Play. But I still had my day jobs. I had been working at two different companies that rented gear to music recording studios and occasionally movie studios. This job gave me a window into the two different worlds. Part of my job was to call up the record labels to get a purchase order (PO) for the rental gear bill. Sometimes the label would say, "We're not paying for that, the studio is paying for it." I would call the studio. They would say, "We're not paying for that, the producer is paying for it." I would call the producer and they would say, "We're not paying for that, the artist is paying for it." I would call the artist and they would say, "I'm not paying for that, the label is paying for it." Studios and producers were constantly asking couple feature projects and mix them as well. Despite how devastating COVID was for the world, it opened up a lot of opportunities for me. Fast-forward a few years, I was finally living in a small but comfortable apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and was engaged to my now wife Maddie. She had dreams to move back to California and be closer to her family. We were both ready for a change after living in New York for a decade, and I thought it was a unique life opportunity to be able to say I lived on each coast. We both quit our jobs and moved to LA without any job prospects. Most of my career up until this point had been a combination of hard work, practice, putting myself in uncomfortable situations, and luck of being in the right place at the right time. Once we landed in LA in the fall of 2023, I was in the right place at the wrong time and I had to break into the industry all over again! On top of the lack of work from the strikes, I was also learning how to be a freelancer for the first time in a city where I knew nobody. I started to step up my networking game and join MPSE. I started to reach out to all the LA sound supervisors, editors, and mixers I had some sort of connection with. To anyone reading this who has taken the time to meet with me, give advice, and welcome me to LA—I'm grateful, thank you! I hope to pay it forward one day. Even though it's a scary time in the industry, the sound community out here is awesome and I'm looking forward seeing how everything falls in (or out) of place. It's been a wild ride so far! The saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know" had never resonated with me until I made the move to LA. Even though I'm living on the opposite end of the country, all my friends back in New York are still keeping me busy. I do sometimes feel like I started my career over, but it feels good to know that I built some solid friendships and experience along the way and realize that sometimes you have to take a step back before moving forward. I know right now is a really tough time for most in the industry, but you never know what sort of opportunity is going to fall on your head tomorrow. Your whole life can change in a day.