James H.
About me
| James H. | |
| Theatre, Film and Television | |
| Postproduction with Specialisation in Sound Design | |
| Undergraduate | |
| 2008 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| ADR Engineer | |
| De Lane Lea | |
| United Kingdom | |
| 2010 |
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A day in the life of a ADR Engineer in the United Kingdom
Where I hope to be in 5 years
I aim to continue training towards ADR mixer and eventually working my own studio.
My advice to students considering work
Working in a Post Production studio is a client-based job, so on top of your technical competency, you must also be very good at dealing with people. From my experience at University, there were many great technicians who maybe lacked the personal skills that studios might be looking for. Contact as many studios as you can during University holidays to try and gain work experience, even if you're just assisting runners. When I left University, I like many resented that I'd have to start in a studio as "just a runner". However from the inside it is much more apparent why this process exists. This period of time allows the studio management to learn to trust you in professional scenarios and also gives you time to explore the industry and focus your career aspirations/training towards a particular direction.
My advice about working in my industry
The Film & TV industry is certainly not easy to break into (unless you have family contacts on the inside...) and this doesn't look like it will change. Many more people want to work for film studios than there are jobs, so you will need patience and tenacity until you get your break. You will need that bit of luck to get noticed, but if you keep working hard then you should get it. Plenty will give up, many who get in and then decide to walk away, but this is just a screening process of sorts to ensure those who make it really do deserve their position.
What I do
My role involves working in an ADR studio of a post production facility, re-recording dialogue with actors to replace poor quality recordings from location filming, adding new dialogue, altering theatrical performance, recording crowds and so on. My job specifically is to run the Pro Tools recording software while the ADR Mixer concentrates on the quality of the audio recording. I am currently in training to move up to ADR Mixer in the near future.
Skills I use and how I developed them
My undergraduate degree at York (Electronic Engineering & Music Technology) gave me a great grounding in the aspects of working in a studio. This directly lead to me training and working at BH Media music studios in York, providing crucial experience when I decided to move towards Film & TV Postproduction. My Masters degree in this subject provided specific industry knowledge, contacts and confidence that have all been imperative to get where I wanted to be.
Extracurricular skills:
My time training and working at BH Media music studios provided important real-world knowledge and confidence in engineering recording sessions both as a team and individually. University degrees can only teach you so much and real world scenarios can be very diverse, intense and testing!
What I like most
Every day is different, each session with different actors/directors/editors provides a dynamic that keeps the job interesting.
What I like least
Having to commute into the centre of London every day? It's not that bad really...
What would I change? I would like improved pay for entry level studio engineer contracts.