Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545099
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 13 I was meant to do, and I'm grateful that I have been able to muster up the perseverance and attract enough good fortune to keep it going for this long. Henry Maynard MPSE Sound Editor/Dialogue Editor Hello MPSE community, my diving into the industry wasn't the normal path that many found their career might be, but it was my path in making the right connections. and was doing live sound for my church at Grace Chapel. Which I'll make a circle around that later. Growing up in Acton, Massachusetts, I wanted to be an animator modeling rigger for Pixar, though it was in college that things started to click for me for audio and career in the post-production field. As a freshman back in 2012, I took my first audio class. A lot of my freshman friends were confused when I was talking about some advance terms from our audio textbooks and theories that I had heard of when I was doing live sound, things like parallel compression and compression practices in general, and basic audio recording that I was learning more about. It was in that class that I went behind the department's back determined to learn Pro Tools, which is the industry standard for audio production. The curriculum specified that Pro Tools was only for the advance class which was something that was not going to hold me back. I remember doing all projects of mine in Pro Tools my freshman year, even after being told by my professor of the audio class that I need to learn Adobe Audition at the time as well. Mid-semester, my professor, Dawn Ford, who previously worked up at the Skywalker Ranch (and some might know her), spoke fire in me— letting me know she could see the drive and passion and persistence I had for the art of sound production, and that I had an eagerness to be on the bleeding edge of the next big thing. It was in college that I decided that post-production sound is what I wanted to focus on. At the end of my college career of doing school graduation in 2016, I took my last semester out here in Los Angeles since my school is part of the LAFSC film program (LA Film Studies Center). I worked hard before coming out to LA for my last semester and managed to get a good internship at RCP. While there, I made some cool great connections, using the MPSE and CAS directories to my advantage I connected to some talented re-recording mixers and sound supervisors that I wanted to start building relationships with, to pick their brains as to what and how I could be of service to them and to learn and grow from the wisdom they had. That early phase of my LA career was tough. A lot of it was building that thick skin some would say is so important for professional growth, especially with people telling me that I wasn't fit for the industry. I worked my butt off and scraping by on budgets and rates that I laugh at now looking back at what I would be asking as a freelancer sound editor and at that time to be doing production sound, too. Through my college film program, I got connected with re-recording mixer Marc Fishman, who has become a mentor, and many others too that I connected with. As I started to get used to the avenues of the industry, life was a whirlwind then, but some of my early mentors or mixers that I reached out to and kept in contact with have now been a huge impact in my understanding and seeing that I am fit for LA. One year, I was going through a gear avid DUC page and came across Charles Maynes. He helped me learn how to cut a little bit and I helped him with a small indie film with Ryan Cota. It was a fun little project to help me learn to take my, young fresh out of school, edits to my next level. As I kept hustling and learning and refining how to do things more properly, I slowly started to recognize my skills growing. When I was done with a project, I was sometimes worried about what my next film was. Around that time, I had also interviewed once at Keywords with Scott Gershin. Scott and I had a mutual friend who went to Berkeley College of Music, who played guitar and mixed at my church. That was a moment in my career of seeing the small circles and connections that were naturally "I connected to some talented re-recording mixers and sound supervisors that I wanted to start building relationships with, to pick their brains as to what and how I could be of service to them and to learn and grow from the wisdom they had."