Lesson Instructions and Requirements

Introduction

Every single session you will ever do in your life will fit a set of criteria established by the studio you work for, a sound supervisor, a client, or anyone you may be hired by. As a post production audio expert you will receive raw unmixed material and be expected to return it as a finished final product or what I call, a set of deliverables. These deliverables are always some sort of full mix and split tracks, comprised of different file formats and even bit rates. As you go through the sessions, I'll try to keep you on your toes by changing deliverables slightly. Remember, it doesn't matter how great your mix is if the deliverables are wrong. Pay attention and take each session seriously. As seriously as if you are delivering to an actual client.

Requirements; Pro Tools Studio (or above)

Avid Pro Tools Studio or above is required for the APCA. There are lots of other DAW's... excellent DAW's that are even more superior to Pro Tools (IMHO), but like it or not, you MUST know Pro Tools to make it in the industry. If you don't have Pro Tools yet, get it. You'll be investing in yourself. Also, you'll be able to get the most out of this course. As the course continues to evolve, I may do a few lessons about Nuendo or Davinci Resolve's Fairlight, but for now, make a commitment to PT if you have not already. Purchase a good set of headphones. I will be doing a considerable amount of live webinars for you, you'll need good headphones to appreciate what's going on. I use DT 770 Pro headphones by Beyer Dynamic.

Lesson Format

Session Brief / Deliverables / Backup

Session Brief

Each session will have a description of what needs to be done. I call this the Session Brief. I'll try to give you a typical scenario or back story of why you are doing the session and what you need to accomplish.

Deliverables

Every session will have its own set of deliverables. These are the files you would be sending out to your client or delivering to a sound supervisor. Most of the time it will be full-mix plus stems (splits). Sometimes I'll ask for additional files and break outs. This is not hard stuff, but follow through on them... no session is done until the files are made, labeled, and sent to the client.

File naming is done differently at every studio I've worked at. I think I've found the best way to do it, so I will share it with you now. It goes like this;

Year, Month, Day_Client_Project_notes (episode numbers, versions, etc....)

2023 07 18_Warner Brothers_TV Show_EP101

This format will sort perfectly in a folder structure. Every other way I've done it turns out to be a mess. Whatever you decide, stick to it and make it your Standard Ops! (Standard Operating Procedure). Do it the same way every single time. Keep in mind, wherever you get a job, they may ask you to do it differently. In fact, some clients will specify certain ways to do it. This is just the way I do it for my company. The lesson here is for you to stay consistent and organized.

Here's an example of some file names, add an extra section if you need to, separated by an underline;

2023 07 18_Warner Brothers_TV Show_EP101_Full Mix

2023 07 18_Warner Brothers_TV Show_EP101_Dial Only

2023 07 18_Warner Brothers_TV Show_EP101_Music Only

2023 07 18_Warner Brothers_TV Show_EP101_Sfx Only

Again, I've seen this 100 different ways. When you get a job at a real audio post house, more than likely they'll ask you to conform to their standard ops, but for now, create your own and stick to it.

Backing Up

I don't expect you to back up all of these sessions, but if you have the hard drive space, I want you to get in the habit of a good standard operating procedure for backing up. I will change this up from lesson to lesson.

I can remember back to when I was in my twenties. My studio manager was always after me to make sure I was backing up my sessions. Not a good look! Always, always back up your work. Remember, a back up is not a back up unless it's in 3 places. Preferably one of those places is off site. Again, I don't expect you to go through the expense to back up these sessions to 3 places, but I would suggest keeping a folder on a drive (name it APCA Backups) where you can get into the habit of copying sessions to it. Media management and archiving jobs is one of the entry level tasks you would have at a real studio, so get the practice and good habit building now. Keep in mind that in bigger facilities there are big servers and raid arrays that keep your data backed up automatically. But on the other hand, smaller studios may still do hard drive back ups! I just want you to create good habits. Remember, if you are doing a short film for someone, your audio is very important. If it cost the director 100 thousand dollars to do a film and you lose the audio and set the production back, you could face legal ramifications. Audio post is not all fun and games... it's big business.

*Please note; if you decide to purchase the APCA before you are finished with the free content, you must "Complete and Continue" all the lessons in the free week to move onto the paid Week 01 content. After that, new content drops on a weekly basis for 40 weeks.