Balancing quality and speed in audio post-production can be a tightrope walk, but it's essential for your team's success.
Balancing quality and speed in audio post-production can be a tightrope walk, but it's essential for your team's success.
When your audio post-production team is torn between quality and speed, achieving balance is key. Here's how to ensure everyone wins:
- Establish clear standards for both quality and speed, and communicate them to the team.
- Implement a review process that allows for quick feedback loops.
- Encourage open dialogue about concerns and suggestions from team members.
How do you strike the right balance in your own projects? Your insights are invaluable.
The old adage saying "High quality, Quick turnaround, Low price: Pick any two", applies here. Obviously you want to do the very best job you can in the time allotted, but an unrealistic deadline coupled with a demand for first rate work can only mean working more hours in a fixed number of days. You must be compensated for that extra effort. Sound is usually one of the last parts of a project. Picture must be locked, especially if it is time-sensitive. The other adage that "*excrement* rolls downhill" often means that sound editors and mixers experience unrealistic, sometimes untenable project deadlines. That's when you grit your teeth, do what you must, and promise to yourself (once again) that this is the last time you'll do this.
In this day and age, with the amazing addition of so many plug-ins and presets, I think you can have speed as well as quality. I have several templates I use depending on what is needed and recall with all the plug-ins in place with presets to the way that the client wants is fast and easy. I am also a very fast editor, on Pro Tools, so I can get done very quickly. I do feel sometimes that with all the plug-ins and presets take away from the creativity of being an engineer.....but hey, its still fun.
Collabs: Interestingly it’s very difficult, & alot more difficult. Than composeing a trak. On ur own, When you are in the moment the process to eliminate, the wrong noteationals is the most important, than the notational which would be used in the second/third selection to the sound design. Or effect. This is what would make or break. A sound design or trak. The reason why is: Collabs / time & money. Business is business.
Your team has nothing to do with it. You make the decision. It's your responsibility to accomplish quality at the best possible speed. If you don't do it based on your knowledge and experience, how will your team ever learn to do it properly?
Cohesive alignment is paramount for *any* team to be successful in any sort of sustainable way. Moreso for a creative team working to create quality product. Where does one draw the line between speed and quality? It largely depends on the product, timeline, and capacities of your team. If releasing a film, that line will be wildly different than that of a weekly podcast. So I would simply say that: as a team, decide *what* your product is, what the schedule is for that product, and *then* decide what it is you can do to make that a sustainable workflow. There will always be compromise in quality to meet deadlines; documenting what you can/can't tolerate can make the difference between a successful team, and dysfunctional one.