In post production, many people will tell you “when you get stumped, get up and get some fresh air.” It’s good advice- forcefully taking your mind off something you’ve been hyper focused on for hours can help freshen up your perspective.  But perhaps even more important is taking a giant step away for a few days or even a week.

I just returned from a week long journey across France after many months of frequent late work nights and tight deadlines. Naturally, the trip was re-energizing, but perhaps even more importantly it provided some unique opportunities for real world sound monitoring.

What does a downtown Paris street sound like during a rainy afternoon?

How about an abandoned chateau on the French country side?

Or various hallways in the Louvre on a busy day?

All intriguing questions that lack real world, specific answers if you haven’t actually been to France.  Sure, you could dig through libraries and imagine it, using what’s available on YouTube for reference…. but many details will surely be missed if you want it to sound accurate and, perhaps more importantly, your own.

Here are a few things I noticed by being there in the flesh:

– More than half the vehicles there are manufactured by French car companies many Americans have never heard of.  They are also primarily manual transmissions.

– There are tons of scooters, vespas and motorcycles- way more than in US metropolitan areas.

– Church bells reverberate through rural areas and small towns throughout the day.

– Many birds, while the same species as birds in the US (i.e. seagulls), sound VERY different there.  If you simply heard calls without seeing them, you might think they were some other exotic birds.

– There’s an incredibly old, island fortress cathedral called Mont Saint Michel.  Think Alcatraz but instead of a prison, a much older stone castle that shoots into the sky.  As I walked inside the various impressive rooms, everything was drowned in eerie, endless reverb.

– Around Memorial day and the anniversary of D-Day each year, many modern military planes fly overhead on the beaches of Normandy. They made for some excellent plane by recordings!

Those are just from a few days around France.  Imagine how much could be learned by visiting just a few more cities worldwide.

Granted, it can be exceedingly difficult to break away from work on a regular basis, especially when things are busy. But to learn and improve at any craft, it’s important to remember that we need to face new experiences.  It’s easy to burn out in such a demanding field, so open your door and go see what’s out there!
Pro tip:  Bring a Zoom recorder to record some of the sounds for your growing library.  It sort of makes it a business trip, right? ;-)

– Eric

It’s been quite the busy 2016 for us already!  Some of our work has finally gone live and we’re happy to share those videos on our home page.  Head on over to see new commercials, feature film promos and episodic TV content.  Some highlights are:

Independence Day Resurgence – The War of 1996

NFL Next – Virtual Reality / Oculus Rift

Old Spice Legendary Commercial

Rusnak Audi Commercial

Grace and Frankie – Season 2 Promo (Netflix)

Deadbeat – Season 3 Episodes (Hulu)

Which projects are your favorites?  Drop us a line at [email protected] to let us know what you think!

And there’s a lot more in store soon- exciting video game trailers, blu ray movie featurettes and brand new TV shows.  They’ve all been really exciting to work on and we can’t wait to share them with you.

– Eric

We wanted to share that a project we worked on last year is a finalist for a 2016 AICE Award!  We did some sound design work for Madden: The Movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eVF9uBbuqc

Here’s some information about AICE:

http://www.aice.org/?section=about/about_aice/

I was recently interviewed by Beta Boys Media about Sound Mixing and Design work for film and games.  Ever wonder how sounds can help tell a story?  Or how a sound is created and implemented by teams of people on large productions?  Load this up on your phone and take a listen on your commute to work:

iTunes:

https://goo.gl/mE8cqJ

SoundCloud (best for Android, Desktops):

https://soundcloud.com/beta-block-304832095/the-beta-block-interview-special-sound-design-with-eric-marks-mpse

– Eric

– Eric

Week one is in the books.  Thank you so much for all of the feedback about the new studio.  So many of you have reached out to congratulate us, and we really appreciate it!!

We’ve got a lot of projects in the works- most of which we unfortunately can’t talk about until they’re released.  What we can share is that our studio is already quite busy, and we are excited to share more project-related news as we can.  You can stay tuned here on our blog as well as on our social media channels for updates.

If you’re interested in swinging by to see the mixing studio (even if you’re not necessarily working on a project that needs sound love), send us a request on the “Book a Project” page and we’ll set up a time for you to come by!

Your Friendly Neighborhood Mixer,