Doug sez, "Sound is half of your dang project, so wake up and smell the air molecules vibrating, you light and color lovin' luminaries!!. Color temperature!!??!! Saturate this, you phreaky photon gathering gamut!!" Then he calmed down and opened his heart to those people who experience the world more through their eyes than their ears. "Perhaps we can live in peace and harmony if I stick to what I'm good at and help those framers of bright and shadow do the same."
The first very step to a great sounding film or video is planning! It usually doesn't take very long. We'll talk about your shooting style, your editor's working style, your schedule, your equipment, and your locations. I can even let you know what to expect from specific locations during the scouting process. I can help you figure out what you need to worry about and what you don't need to worry about.
OR - leave all your sound in my hands, don't worry about anything, and get the consultation free. Use my 30 years of audio experience to get your project started off right.
I typically work as a one man sound crew on modern sound-to-camera productions. But for larger, more complex projects, I can operate as part of a larger crew: sound mixer, boom op, or cable utility, with your people or mine.
I am highly sensitive to the sound being captured and the trade-offs between "the perfect take" and "schedule constraints". Because I do a lot of post-production audio, I am able to assess fairly quickly on location whether that "perfectly delivered line with the jackhammer in the distance" can be cleaned up in post or needs to be re-shot.
Capturing great production sound is more a function of the engineer than the equipment, but my standard sound kit, listed below, consists of high quality, reliable, industry standard components, and works great for most projects. For more complex projects, I can also help you put together a more complex equipment list.
Making Good Sound Great: I can tackle your entire project's Sound Design from start to finish, applying the art and technology of sound to help you tell your story with the greatest emotional impact. All the usual suspects are involved: Dialog Cleanup, Foley, FX, EQ, leveling, background blending, reverb, and most important: good taste and judgement!
Making Bad Sound Good: I can tackle those nasty, problematic little chunks of sound and dialog that your editor is struggling with that didn't turn out quite the way you'd hoped during production. Don't give up on that favorite performance just yet! I can't work miracles, but you'd be surprised what a good engineer with modern tools can clean up: steady state noise removal, broadband noise removal, impulse noise removal, clipping repair, background blending, EQ problems, transient problems, and, if all else fails, ADR recording. I love to solve audio problems! Show me your problem and I'll let you know if I can fix it.
And of course it would just be wrong not to hire me as your score composer!!
See some of our previous projects (many of the film sound credits toward the bottom).
See Doug's production resume.