My passion has always been stories. Growing-up I was (and still am) a voracious reader. I love getting lost in the worlds that authors create, bonding with their characters and letting the emotions of a story take over.

I didn’t really start watching TV / Movies until middle school, but I was quickly hooked. Here the stories weren’t just on the page, they were brought to life in front of me. At the time, I didn’t have an appreciation for all the different crafts that went into making these shows, I just experienced them and loved them. That’s the magic that I want to be a part of now working in post sound. Creating a story that captivates audiences, that teaches us something about human nature and above all makes us feel.

Sound is a massive part of the storytelling experience in television and movies, however it is also quite a subtle art and when done well often goes unnoticed. This is primarily because sight is by far our most dominant and conscious sense. We understand when we are seeing things how they are affecting us. A lot of filmmakers are visual storytellers first. There is focus on creating the right frame, the lighting, costuming, production design etc. So much so that it is easy to forget about sound, or at least not emphasize it as much. That’s where sound professionals come in.

The Production Sound team makes sure to capture the actors’ performances clearly. They advocate for better recording conditions because they know we need those real performances. Tone of voice, breaths, efforts, pronunciation, all of these things are not just technical needs to match picture, but storytelling moments from the actors, just as much as a hand movement or a facial expression.

Dialogue sound editorial further enhances the storytelling by making sure what was recorded on set shines and filling in where needed with ADR. Sound effects and group build out the world, immersing the audience into the physical and emotional spaces our characters inhabit. Foley combines with sound effects to highlight movements and fill in missing pieces that make the world feel alive.

Re-recording Mixing then combines all these elements, along with music, and blends them in a way that emphasizes emotion and story beats. The quality of sounds, how loud they are, what things we do and do not hear all pull the audience into the story in a often subtle, but effective manner. We play with reality, over emphasizing certain sounds to draw the audience’s attention or downplaying things to push us more into a character’s head. Sometimes we want everything to feel straight and ‘real,’ sometimes we want nothing to be real at all. Sometimes music soars and sometimes it supports. All of these are done not because they ‘sound cool’ or just because we can, but because these choices are made specifically to tell the story in the best way possible. When I mix I always ask myself, what is this moment about? What are we trying to do here? The sounds we hear and how we hear them always have to go back to those primary questions.