I thought it might be a good idea to cut together several different short reels for different purposes — not everyone’s going to be interested in my sound design or implementation if they’re looking for help with a radio spot or cleanup on a speech-only PSA. Sometimes, they may only want to see a selection of what I do.
The latest of these reels is meant to highlight some of the shorts I’ve done Dialog Editing or Mixing on, and it’s below.
I found it pretty tough to find good cuts from my products that would ‘showcase’ dialog work, as usually it’s the type of thing that slips into the background when done well. It’s not really meant to be noticed. And so while the general public is still semi-clueless as to what goes on in post-production audio, I think there’s a special lack of understanding around dialog work. If you tell someone you that cut sound effects on Transformers, they might stop and realize that Optimus Prime, as a CG construct, didn’t make all those crazy transforming noises by himself. But tell them that you smoothed tone transitions between cuts on the production track or cleaned up unwanted movement/mouth noise, and you’d probably get a blank stare .
I think that the examples I chose for this reel and the way I structured it may help to show even the unfamiliar viewer what a Dialog Editor / Mixer typically does — and to those of you already familiar with it, I hope you like what you hear.
As always, thoughts and comments are welcome!