For this weeks lecture we had a visit from a post production sound engineer Lucy Johnstone who has worked on shows such as Eastenders as a dubbing mixer and sound editor. This lecture was heavily focused around the steps Lucy takes as a freelance sound editor, her relationship between her and the other members and staff and so on. I really liked the lecture as it was a great insight into whats it’s like to be a sound editor and she said some great stuff including when she was talking about how to deal with recording ADR. I’d Like to get into sound editing but for anime films and tv series. She also suggested that some of the good ways to improve the overall sonic qualities of voice overs was to use VO trim, remove breaths and to remove lip smacks. Lucy also spoke to us about some of the other aspects of her job SFX, ambience and tracklaying/organization. For ambience, she recommended that it’s best to have them in stereo so they can immerse the viewer, never use the beginning of an ambience track, use different takes and clips for background sounds to prevent them from sounding repetitive and that Izotope RX can be a great tool to help match different takes and ambiences. Lucy mentioned the importance of conducting yourself in front of directors and respecting their wishes even if you don’t always agree. As Lucy has worked for both a company and as a freelancer, her insight into both worlds was very interesting.

 

I feel Lucy left a lot for me to think about when I came down to thinking about what exactly I want to do when I leave university.