I’m working at The Farm West Post Production for a month doing freelance cover for the in-house Edit Assistant who has been given some video editing work on a program that’s in. Edit Assistant work is what I do to pay the bills until sound editing can do it for me. It’s cool being surrounded by creative people and getting to see the workings of professional post-production facilities. This place is different to the rest of the post houses I’ve worked at as it’s quite a small team so as the Edit Assistant you are responsible for all 6 edits from ingesting to delivery.
Something that has surprised me is the lack of a sound editor. For the more “format” programs that run through here, the workflow has simply been to use the location mix in the final delivery and run it through Nugen to meet the ITU standards. This would be the perfect opportunity for a ‘trainee’ or ‘assistant’ sound editor to come in and work for a lower fee but get experience. It is almost impossible to find a junior sound editor role which makes so many people give up on the sound dream (or just get in to a video editing/project management role..). Dont get me wrong, all credit to the facility to offer an all in one service to clients who so often put pressure on wanting the cheapest deal or they’ll go elsewhere.
I just find it interesting how there seems to be scarcely ‘lower rung of the ladder’ jobs for sound editors where there could be. Still, I’m not settling for an admin role.
Jason Pinches 