Hence my regret for paying $5,000 when I could have mixed it myself since it was only a few theatre showings and the vast majority of views on my film have been online.
This is an extremely important point, one which I have mentioned numerous times in many of my responses here on indietalk and one which is generally either scoffed at or more commonly just ignored! A fundamental responsibility of the Producer is to identify the type of product being made, provide the director with the resources to make that product and then of course ensure that is the product which is actually made. An online product is very different from a theatrical product, they are two different products, with different resource requirements. Most commonly, hobbyist filmmakers simply make a film and when they're finished, THEN try to figure out where to distribute it. Virtually without exception, they are limited to low tier festivals and self distribution because that is the product they have unwittingly made. Trying to turn their film into a different product after it's already been made, compromises the quality which could have been achieved. It's an extremely inefficient use of resources and therefore the exact opposite of the mantra of no/nano budget filmmaking: "
doing the best you can with what you've got"!
In your example, the product you seemed to really want/need, was a self distributed online product. How much better (and/or more successful) of an online product could you have made with an $11k budget as opposed to the product you made for $6k? Or, would it have made more sense to put the $5k towards the next project? Presumably these questions are why you regret spending the extra $5k. The lesson from this, as I see it, is not to learn to become your own audio post team but a more fundamental lesson of learning to fulfil the responsibilities of the Producer, or of engaging someone who can.
The guy who mixed my feature won an Emmy for Modern Family, but for the amount I paid him and the amount of time he had, he could only do so much.
In context of what I've just said, this is a serious, multi-part failure by your film's Producer: 1. Failure to know the requirements for theatrical presentation, 2. Failure to identify the resources needed to achieve those requirements and 3. Failure to provide those resources to the director. In the case of #2 and 3, I'm not specifically talking about budget but about the resources the budget can procure. For example, it is possible (under extraordinary circumstances) that a producer could acquire the required audio post resources (personnel and facilities) for $5k but without extraordinary circumstances a figure many times higher than $5k would be realistic. The producer should have either budgeted the going/realistic rate or redefined the product being made. Not only should your producer have sorted this all out in pre-prod but s/he also missed the obvious red flags when they did eventually acquire audio post resources. For example, an Emmy is a TV award and TV is a different product again from a theatrical product (or a self-distributed online product). A producer should not only be aware of this but also be aware of the consequences. For example, the equipment/facilities required for a theatrical mix generally cost around 10-50 times more (to buy) than those required for TV. That's not to say that an Emmy Award winning audio post specialist can't produce a good theatrical mix but to do so requires identifying the issues which will limit their ability (theatrical experience, time and facilities), accounting for these issues and/or planning around them, none of which appear to have occurred in your example.
It's been a growing trend over the last decade or so for people to give themselves the title of what they would like to be, rather than of what they actually are. It seems to me that in the amateur world, the vast majority of those who call themselves a Producer don't even know what the responsibilities of a Producer are, let alone have the basic knowledge necessary to stand a chance of fulfilling those responsibilities. Obviously we've all got to start somewhere but IMHO, the role of producer is one of, if not,
the most difficult to learn purely through the self-taught route. As demonstrated by intelligent and otherwise talented filmmakers making the same mistake time after time (by not being aware of or considering those responsibilities).
I think a filmmaker should at least possess the skills to do a simple stereo mix for a 15 minute short that doesn't sound like garbage. Chances are he/she learned how to use the camera, learned how to use the editing software, so why would they get lazy now with the sound?
Possibly. It's a considerable expenditure of time and effort to learn to create a basic, acceptable stereo mix. From a filmmaking perspective, this time and effort is in exchange for the option of a (zero cost) DIY mix suitable for low tier fests and/or self distribution type products. For filmmakers aspiring to make different products, say higher tier fests, more commercial or ultimately professional films, this time and effort is largely wasted.
The process/es of professional audio post are quite different to those employed by DIY filmmakers and therefore there's not much to be gained in terms of knowledge which will be useful further down the road, except possibly a few absolute basics.
If you decide to pay someone else to do your sound (and this may very well be the smarter option), you are splurging.
Agreed, but ONLY if you're talking about making a product for low tier fests/self distribution! In this thread we're talking about a different product and, not just a theatrical product but a theatrical short capable of
showcasing one's theatrical product making skills. In this scenario, outsourcing the audio post is not "splurging" but a bare minimum starting point!
G
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