WRITTEN BY KATE FINAN, CO-OWNER OF BOOM BOX POST
In early 2020, Women’s Audio Mission reached out to ask if Boom Box Post would be interested in giving a workshop on sound design for television and film for their Los Angeles pop-up. But then COVID hit, all in-person activities suddenly ceased, and the workshop was postponed and then ultimately reshaped into a virtual Zoom class. This brought it to a much wider audience (126 Zoom attendees + over 800 views on YouTube!), but it was still missing the in-person connection and ability for attendees to get their hands physically on the gear that we had hoped for.
By the beginning of this year, Boom Box Post had fully moved into our new facility with three Atmos mix stages, three 5.1 mix suites, eight sound design/editorial suites, and full client amenities. So, when Women’s Audio Mission reached out to revisit the idea of having an in-person workshop focused on sound for television and film that would meet the needs of their Los Angeles membership base, we had the perfect space to accommodate it.
If you have not heard of the Women’s Audio Mission, they are an amazing non-profit organization whose purpose is to “change the face of sound.” In order to do that, they are focused on addressing two important issues:
Fewer than 5% of the people creating the sounds, music, and media in the daily soundtrack of our lives are women or gender-expansive individuals
There has been an alarming 70% decline in women/gender-expansive students enrolling in college STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) programs since the year 2000.
If you have ever been in the post-production sound environment, you know that this is true in our segment of the audio industry. There is seldomly more than one woman/gender non-conforming individual audio professional in the room at one time (and often there are none). Even more often, there’s not more than one in any given department or company. WAM tackles on this inequity by supplying hands-on technical training to build skills and confidence in both youth and adults with an interest in audio.
At Boom Box Post, we are also committed to moving our post-production sound industry toward a professional makeup that matches the diverse mosaic of modern life, with a special focus on 50/50 men to women and gender non-conforming individuals on our team. We have achieved that ratio from day one of our business (for eight years!) through two practices:
Making sure that our hiring pool is always 50/50 and then hiring the best candidate with no special consideration of their gender
Maintaining a vibrant apprenticeship program which places an equal number of highly trained female and male entry-level professionals with extensive hands-on experience into the post-production audio hiring pool
Because our missions are so closely aligned, it was a no-brainer for Boom Box Post and Women’s Audio Mission to team up to present a Los Angeles-based workshop.
I met with Terri Winston, the founder and executive director of WAM, and Christina Ayala, their director of education. Together we crafted a workshop that we felt would be as inclusive, informational, and hands-on as possible covering both sound design and mixing for film and television. The workshop was also supported by Naike Swai, WAM’s education coordinator and instructor.
Women’s Audio Mission posted the workshop to Eventbrite, and it quickly filled up! The interest was keen, and I knew that we needed to deliver a world-class experience to help these women and non-binary individuals gain the hands-on job training that they needed to feel confident to pursue their post-production dreams.
The Workshop
The event began with a short mixer with Boom Box Post sound professionals. This was a time for WAM members and students to network and get career advice from both WAM and Boom Box staff, as well as network with other participants. The workshop then split into two smaller groups to allow as much hands-on experience as possible. One group attended a workshop on sound design led by our supervising sound editor, Tess Fournier MPSE. The other group attended a workshop on mixing led by myself, Kate Finan MPSE CAS, co-owner, supervising sound editor, and re-recording mixer here at Boom Box Post.
Tess’s workshop on sound design started by explaining the key members of the post-production sound team and what their function is. Then, she outlined the full post–production sound process from start to finish. After that, Tess led the workshop in several interactive sound design exercises where she encouraged participants to help her use keywords to search our extensive sound effects library and choose what and how to layer sounds to create sound design builds in real time.
My workshop on re-recording mixing first covered mixing ideology, overall goals, and the technical tools that I use to achieve those goals. Then, we moved into the interactive portion where we mixed a short clip together. We used an additive process where we started by mixing the dialogue and then successively mixed in backgrounds, music, foley, and then FX. Before we mixed each layer, I laid out our technical and story-crafting goals. Then, I invited a participant up to the mixing board where they mixed the elements themselves under my direction. The outcome was a mix truly created by the group that all of us could enjoy.
Both Tess and I ended our workshops with a Q&A. Then, we took a short break, the attendees switched rooms, and we gave each workshop again for a new audience! This allowed us to serve a much greater number of attendees while keeping the class size small so everyone had a chance to participate and also attend both sessions.
At the end, the audience expressed how invigorated they were by all of the new information and by the accessibility that they now felt surrounding post-production sound. Attendees spanned many backgrounds, such as entry-level sound design professionals, music producers interested in a career change, college students and recent grads, and even an executive producer looking for increased understanding of the post–production sound process.
The night was equally invigorating for Tess and me. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to volunteer our time and space to help so many people with a passion for sound. Their passion and drive were truly contagious.
To learn more about Women’s Audio Mission, please visit their website. They are a true gem! If you attended and want to share your experience, or if you have any ideas for future workshops, please comment below!