What It’s Like Adding Music & A Final Sound Mix To A Short Film?

It’s finally setting in. My grant funds had run out. After a few minutes of gathering my thoughts, I responded back to the grantor’s email letting him know that it was completely fine and that I’d take care of the film’s fees moving forward. I received another email from the grantor informing me that he’d like to assist with funding seven film festival submissions and I graciously accepted. Then, I turn my thoughts back to the task at hand, how would I be able to budget out the music composer’s fee from my monthly income?

My answer was to first, focus on figuring out how to get the 50% down payment. Luckily, I’d already been stashing away chunks of money from my paychecks for film contingencies, so I’d already had 67% of the 50% upfront fee saved up. Then I decided to get the remaining 33% from my next paycheck. Things would be tight for a few weeks but at least the composer would already be working on the project, and I’d figure out the remaining 50% later.

I sent the music composer his upfront fee and the work began. I also sent him the current final cut of the film, the film’s script, and mood board. He gave me some homework that involved listening to the soundtracks of three popular TV shows that he thought the film’s mood resembled. After listening to them I chose the soundtrack that had a very serious cinematic vibe to it. Then, he began working on some cues.

Two weeks later, the composer sent over his first draft of music composition. The director and I really enjoyed it – we only had a few feedback notes. Within a week the changes were made and he nailed it. Afterwards, I texted the director asking when she would be available to go over plans to start getting the film out to the public. She responded with the following question, “Would I be doing a final sound mix?”

Huh? What is that? Goodness. Are we ever going to finish? (My thoughts were saying)

She lets me know that the final sound mix would give the film a final clean polish and that sending the film out in its current state wouldn’t be a good idea. I hemmed and hawed for a long time but eventually I agreed. I decided to ask the music composer if he had any recommendations. He immediately led me to a woman who just graduated from Berklee College of Music. (Fantastic). I met up with her via zoom and brought her on board.

She asked if I could send her all the actual audio files via an OMF export. (Huh?) If an OMF export wasn’t possible, an export via Adobe Premiere would work just fine. (Whew. Adobe. I can work with that). But Adobe Premiere wouldn’t accept my files. I watched all the videos I could find on the internet and after two days nothing worked. (OMG!). I got so incredibly fed up and asked the music composer for help. He then advised the final sound mixer to extract the audio from the current final cut of the film and the issue was solved. (Whew).

Three weeks later, the final sound mixer sends her first cut of the film. Everything was perfect except for one scene. The volumes / sound levels of the actors’ lines weren’t matching. Finally, the sound mixer lets me know that to fix the problem, I would have to gather the actors in that scene back together again and re-record their lines so she could perform ADR (automatic dialogue replacement).

Okay. Don’t explode Gia. Please don’t explode.

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• How Editing Tests Your Character In Film?

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