Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542296
Robin Whittaker. Danika Wikke. 44 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E props! And they lifted rugs, and there were different surfaces for recording footsteps. They also showed me Studio One, which was this big movie theatre with a console big enough to accommodate three mixers. My jaw dropped. I got the gig there as a runner. One of my duties as a runner was making tea and coffee for clients, which, after five years of study, made me think "hmm...". But what it actually taught me, which is really important, is that, in the end, what we do is service the industry. Wikke: Your goal is to please your client, and everyone has a different aesthetic. Dahanne: After a few months as a run- ner, I began learning the ropes of mixing at De Lane Lea, assisting other mixers and eventually becoming a mixer myself. After I moved to the United States in 2006, I began doing much more sound effects editing and sound design, and I learned to mix in the box [mixing completely digitally, in a digital workstation with software plug-ins], where the lines between editing and mixing are blurred. So I not only do mixing: I cut sound effects, I do dialogue editing. For me, it's all sound. I'm fortunate to wear different hats, and I love being versatile and adaptable. So I can do a lot of work remotely from where I live in Mammoth Lakes. There are challenges, of course, with living in a resort mountain town. For exam- ple, when visitors come for weekends and holidays, as a local, you need to get all your groceries ahead of time. And there is snow removal in the winter. But I live relatively close to LA, a 4-to-5-hour drive, so I can easily come back to mix on a show. Robin Whittaker: Aida, tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into post? Kattan: I was interested in working in film and TV but didn't know what exactly I wanted to do within the industry, so I tried a few things before I landed in post. I moved to LA midway through college and graduat- ed from USC as an English major, so it felt natural to pursue a job in development. I worked at a couple of smaller produc- tion companies for about eight years but eventually decided that the pace was too slow for me. I wanted to see the fruits of our labor rather than spend years on a project that might never see the light of day. So I left development to work in production, mostly on indie films and shorts, as a script super- visor and doing other miscellaneous jobs. While I loved my time on set, it still wasn't quite right for me. I got my next opportunity when one of my old bosses got hired to run a new network and offered me a job in promo. I enjoyed it and had a great five-year run in that department until, sad- ly, the network shut down. I decided to make an effort to get into scripted television, a longtime passion that was always out of reach and seemed impossible to break into. I emailed a friend who was an assistant editor on a show to get some advice and insight into her world. She reached out within a month to say that a post coordinator position had opened up on that show, so I applied and got it. I've been in post ever since and haven't looked back. Robin Whittaker: How did you get into the union? Wikke: At the beginning of everyone's career, getting into the union is such an enormous thing. And then you're in and working, and you forget how hard it was. I don't remember the number of days you needed in a certain amount of time, but whatever it was, I had the hours. I had a steady editing gig at a non-union reality house. But they were being less than helpful in helping me achieve my goal of getting on the roster. In a very last-minute turn of events, I was able to get my payroll company to verify my hours and that got me on the roster with Contract Services. I joined the union shortly after that. Robin Whittaker: Besides being so woman-centric, what makes this show different? Danika: The show has some spunk to it. The overall vibe is chill. And also because Raamla welcomed jokes. Colette and Jason would put jokes into the mix, and we would play them during our playback. Some jokes would be bold and others more subtle, but always perfectly timed. Some showrunners are not as playful when it comes to their mixes, but Raamla is. Dahanne: By Season 2, she expected a couple of Easter eggs for every episode. And for the last episode, Raamla requested that two of our jokes stay in the mix; they went on air! Whittaker: This is the most women on a stage that I've worked with. Most of the time, there are one or two ladies, but the balance is always less than 50%. This show was 75%, if not more. Have you seen a change in the last few years? Dahanne: Well, when I first studied au- dio engineering, I was the only woman out of seventy students taking the final exam. When I first started, I could count female mixers on one hand. But I feel there has been a lot of progress since then, and in the last five years, I have seen so many more women mixers in the field. ■ Robin Whittaker is a music editor.