OT: little help here

[Munxcub]

i'm trying to get a job at a post-prod studio, but they are giving me some hints that i should go to school for a year or so... this isnt necessary, i know how to run the program and anything i dont know would take little to no time to learn. are there any short courses available, like about 8 weeks long or something, or even some textbooks i could work through that might put my potential employers at ease? any help here would be great.

thanks

[BradLyons]

If you're trying to get into a good studio, then yes they are going to want to see a track record that you either have worked at other known studios or you have been to a recording school. It's a comfort level that they want to know your experience rather than based on what you think you might know. As far as a school, I strongly encourage THE RECORDING WORKSHOP in Chillicothe, OH. IT's a serious but short course that you dive into it fast and furious, affordable, but most importantly.... you really do learn there. They have several studios that you work on real-world equipment with real bands and such.....

[Freeheel]

Hi Munx, I assume when you say post prod, you mean for film and tv? A good, though slightly out of date book is Tomlinson Holman's Sound for Film and television. It provides info for every step of the process. Due to it's publication date of 1997, it's non-linear editing section is far too brief, but it's still a decent overview. Other than that, I would suggest that you find a few student films and do sound for them, thats all the film schools really do anyway. (I'm also sure there are more up to date books, I haven't been looking lately) Oh yeah, read up on film technique and theory, if you know how film works, it will make you a better sound person.

[Chompers]

Sounds like they are giving hints that they dont want to hire you.
Go somewhere else.
All the good jobs are filled by people who have shown they can do the job in a real situation.
ie...Internship.

[Mr T]

"i know how to run the program and anything i dont know would take little to no time to learn. are there any short courses available"

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't know about school. My personnal experience was to enter a studio as assistant (I was already working in the semi-pro music area as a "musician-engineer" at that time). As an assistant I've learned a lot of valuable technical stuffs from older free lances but the main thing I've learned (by watching and earing) is how to deal with a post prod° session in general.
It's a strange mixture of time management, weird technical problems understanding and solving (...), and (one of the hardest part in my opinion) clients management .
I've seen many great engineers (in term of technical knowledge) just loosing it during post prod sessions->some were too slow (they wanted everything to be perfect...), some were unable to deal with most of the "no brain" clients you have to deal with, some were unable to understand what they were asked to do (you get all kind of strange demands-> some will imply that you work in the opposite way audio rules would recommand), some simply didn't know the soft used well enough (but were certainly great users of other softs).

My point, don't over value your skill, don't under value the difficulty to work in post-prod°. The technical knowledge required in that field is certainly lower than it is in music or cinema but it requires all kind of different skills that ain't required in those two last fields.
It took me 6 month of learning as an assistant (shuting my mouth and watching) to get ready to run my first session alone (I had already done some small sessions without the clients being present). I remember it ...big big sweat !
And it took me one more year of daily work (sessions), mistakes, big sweat, etc... to finally be able to quit and decide to go Free Lance.
And I can tell you my main mentor (I had the chance to have one among the older Free lances, we became friends) thought I made it in an amazingly short time. Not saying I'm a genious, just saying some other assistants I've known NEVER made it-> too shy in front of the clients, lack of confidence, loosing control everytime a technical problem happened, no musical background, etc etc...
No short courses available here in my opinion!
Just the same course anyone has to go through...at different speed and with different results. I would highly recommand starting as an assistant.
Stay humble. I've also watched too many engineers and assistants failing because they were too confident in themselves.
One last thing: in the wild area of post prod°, you'll rarely get a second chance. Once you've screwed up, you're done...and engineers reputations generally travel faster from studios to studios than the engineers themselves...
"It's a wild wild world"...

[Freeheel]

yah, I'll second that emotion.

[Munxcub]

So would you say that the majority of large studios are looking for a the little piece of paper saying you completed a course? or are they more interested in real world experience, your "portfolio" of work you've done?

[Bastiaan]

Munxcub,

Not to discourage you, but i work at a large postproductioncompany for tv in the netherlands as an online video-editor, and i dont feel illiturate on ptle, but i was given one lesson on a TDM-system by an engineer who uses it daily to edit and mix audio for tv. He was fast!!!!!!!! I think he was 3 times as fast as i was. This is the problem if you think you master a skill. You probably do, but since its not yet your job you dont do it like they do....and thats why its a good idea to get additional training. I also experienced stuff like this when i started working as a video-editor. I could do the job, but they were soooooo fast, and knew all the tricks and all. For video-editing i am one of "them now, but with protools i know for myself i have a lot to lear....heck...i even learned a lot in that 1 morning session....

Also i have to say MrT is very very rigjht when he says its important how to handle clients. Its a balance of confidence and obedience. A balance of perfection and speed. A balance of your opinions and theirs....and so on. Its a compromise....and you must be up to deal with it. When you are working, you dont always realize the clients are paying something like $300 an hour to work there(as a video-editor). They dont mind paying that, but you have to be quick, creative and meeting their needs.......

[Mr T]

"So would you say that the majority of large studios are looking for a the little piece of paper saying you completed a course? or are they more interested in real world experience, your "portfolio" of work you've done?"

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Most of them won't give a damn about any piece of paper. It's not how it works. Once you've started working in one studio and prove that you can handle a session on your own (actually it will take more than just ONE session...), you should be able to work in many other studios from then. I don't know how it works in other countries, but I'm pretty sure it works pretty much the same as in France. Some client (might be the ad.agency, the "direct" client, or a post prod° manager) will be happy with your work and will ask you if you're available next week for another session in another studio, a production manager will notice your work one way or another and will ask you if you wanna work for him, etc etc...
That's how reputation gets built.
No paper or port folio or demos needed in most cases...
Just my humble experience.