Interview with Sound Designer Dan Newman

By Veronica Delgado & Elpida Chremou

We had the pleasure of speaking with super talented Sound Designer Dan Newman. With a career spanning over two decades, Dan has worked on a diverse range of projects across film, television, and digital media, bringing stories to life through immersive soundscapes. His unique approach to sound design has earned him a reputation as one of the industry's most sought-after creatives, blending technical mastery with a deep understanding of narrative.

What is your role in the post-production process?

I am basically a turnkey audio post production specialist, I do everything from Editorial to sound design, recording, mixing, the whole thing. I also happen to be a composer and songwriter, anything involving music and sound. I'm a music editor as well.

How did you become an audio engineer and what initially drew you to the field?

I've wanted to be a composer since I was a child. My career decisions were based on practicality, but my heart was always in music. After I got my computer science and electrical engineering degrees, I went to recording engineering school in Orlando at a place called the Full Sail Center for the Recording Arts, which is now Full Sail University. It never occurred to me that people spend their careers making sound effects and things like that. I learned how all that worked, and when I finished, I asked the vice president of the school if he had any advice on where I might apply for a job locally in a studio to get practical experience before I eventually moved out to LA, which was always my goal. He said, “You should try Soundelux.”

It turns out Soundelux was one of the leading post-production sound companies in the country. They worked on Hollywood features, and it was a union house. They happened to have an office in Orlando where they did theme park attractions, post-production, and sound and music for rides.?

They took one look at my resume and asked if I’d be interested in working with their systems integration group. Within three years, I was their Director of Engineering, and within four years, I was the Vice President of Design and Business Development.?

I worked there for seven years, and there was nowhere to go unless I knocked off my boss. I realized the only way to move up was to move out. I spent a year working for a tech company that failed (which was happening frequently in 2001.)

I reached out to Lon Bender, one of the owners of Soundelux Hollywood and an overall fantastic human being. I asked if he could help me get an opportunity as a music editor, though ultimately, my goal was composing. He explained that it was all union work, and I wouldn’t be able to just jump into it, but he offered me an internship at Modern Music, their music editing division, and I accepted.

One opportunity I had was on a temp score for a Denzel Washington movie where the director couldn’t find a piece of music he liked. I wrote something overnight and submitted it as an option. The director loved it, and they used it in the temp.?

Later, one of the other music editors, who was also an actor, needed ADR recording for a short film he was in. I had never done ADR before, but I said, 'Sure, no problem.' I set up a makeshift booth in my walk-in closet with fiberglass insulation and bed sheets, and it worked perfectly. Afterward, the editor of the short was editing a feature and asked if I’d do the sound mix.?

That led to my first paid post-production sound job, and from there, the work started flowing.

Can you please describe your workflow?

The process usually starts with a phone call from the producer. Once we’ve signed a deal memo, they send me the materials I’ll need, a high-resolution version of the entire movie and an audio export from the edit session, typically in AAF format.?

Next, we have a spotting session, usually with just the director, though sometimes the producer joins. We watch the film in bits and pieces and talk through the environments. What’s the sound supposed to convey? How many people are around? Are there any distant sounds that give more context to the environment? For example, when I worked with Damian on Across the Rails, he used the sound of a train to indicate the level of poverty in different areas. The closer the train sounded, the more impoverished the location.

Every director has their own level of thought put into these details. The best directors, in my experience, think about every aspect of their movie in extraordinary detail. While we’re spotting, I take pages of notes. Then I focus on the dialogue.

If I’m handling everything (which happens often on lower-budget projects,) the first task is a dialogue pass. This involves noise reduction, smoothing everything out, and making it as clean as possible. Then we go through ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement,) if necessary. ADR is used when there are recording issues—maybe a generator was too close, or a loud noise interfered with a line. Almost every project I’ve worked on required ADR, whether television or film. Some required extensive amounts, as the productions didn’t invest enough in good production sound. Whomever coined the term, “We’ll fix it in post” underestimated the time and cost of doing so.

Sometimes getting actors for ADR can be a challenge if they’re on set in another city or country. In those cases, we might need to send the materials to a studio near them and record remotely. I’ve had to do this with actors in Chicago and New York, for instance. However, usually, actors come to my studio. During ADR, color correction often happens in parallel, which can cause scheduling conflicts. Directors have varying preferences—some want to be present for ADR sessions, while others avoid it entirely, leaving it in my hands.?

Once ADR is done, we move on to editing the backgrounds, cutting hard effects (like car doors, gunshots, and punches,) and doing a Foley pass. Foley includes recording footsteps, hand pats, cloth movement, and other small interactions. Most Foley work is done in a studio with different surfaces and shoes to match the scenes. Then there’s sound design, which involves creating any surreal or non-literal sounds.

After all this, we do a pre-mix, where all parts (dialogue, backgrounds, effects and music) are balanced. On larger projects, there’s usually a team handling different elements, like dialogue leveling or sound effects. Everything is then passed to the mixer for pre-mixing or dubbing, on a calibrated stage or in a dubbing room that replicates the final environment. It’s not unusual for music to arrive last and get integrated during the final mix, as usually the composer is not given a generous amount of time to produce quite a lot of music.

Once the pre-mix is done, we play it for the director. The final dub can take anywhere from a week to several months, depending on the budget. For major studio films, they might spend months on a huge stage, but you can do a reasonably good mix in about 10 days. Typically, we mix one reel a day, then review it with producers, the editor, and sometimes the composer. Everyone takes notes on what’s too loud, too soft, or unclear, and we make adjustments.

After the final review, we create the print master and deliver it to the editorial house. They marry the sound to the picture, and it goes to QC.

Once QC is done, the movie is ready for release. At the cast and crew screening, you always notice something you wish you’d done differently, but if the director is happy, then I’m happy.

How do you approach collaborating with directors, producers, and other members of the creative team during the process?

The editorial process is fundamentally about storytelling, and the director will have strong opinions throughout, as even a small change can have a cascading effect on the film, especially with sound. Unlike the editorial, sound typically follows a more straightforward process after the spotting session, with fewer strong opinions from directors about background elements, aside from occasional specifics like "too many birds" or "is that a kid laughing?"?

It's common for an assistant sound editor to be in an adjacent room during mixing, while the director and recording mixer are on the dub stage. The assistant will receive texts from the mixer, like, "We need a train sound at this timecode" or "The director wants a bigger splash when the car hits the puddle." The assistant will then cut in new effects, export a new session, and network it to the dub stage for the mixer to play back for the director. This is mostly on larger budget projects; typically smaller shows can’t afford the luxury of an assistant.

It’s also not unusual to throw in a line of dialogue during the mix. I’ve set up a mic next to the mixing console, muted the room, and recorded wild lines off-camera. In one scene [in Across the Rails] where people were watching a football game, Damian suggested adding TV commentary like "He’s at the 40!? The 30!" So, I got up and recorded that line right there on the stage, added some filters to make it sound like it came from the TV speakers, and it worked perfectly.

These moments in the mix process are the most fun—when you get to contribute creatively, and the best directors are always open to input from their team.

What is the difference between a bad audio mix and a good one?

A bad mix is when you watch a movie and notice the sound. Sometimes there’s no obvious reason why, but a good sound mix is seamless. Maybe the scene was recorded in a large room, and they didn’t take any steps to reduce the reverb, so the dialogue sounds overly reverberant. In this case, they should’ve used ADR to clean it up, but they didn’t, so the result feels amateurish, almost like someone shot the scene with a handheld camera and didn’t care about the sound quality. Maybe a sound effect sticks out because it’s just too loud or doesn’t seem to fit with the visual. Maybe there are significant differences in quality between the dialog of different actors in a scene. If the viewer notices it, the sound mix isn’t doing its job properly.

In my experience, and that of many sound professionals I’ve worked with, the easiest way to tell if a project didn’t have a decent budget is by the sound. You’ll notice inconsistent dialogue quality—two people talking in the same space might sound like they’re in completely different rooms, or you’ll hear a generator running in the background of an outdoor scene where no generator should be.?

A good mix, on the other hand, is one you don’t notice. If you’re not thinking about the sound, and you stay focused on the story, then it means the sound team did a good job. That’s the goal, in my opinion.

People tend to be more accepting—maybe not forgiving, but at least accepting—of visual elements that are different or experimental. For instance, if a director wants a scene to look washed out or grainy, viewers will usually accept that as part of the creative vision. But when something is wrong with the sound, it’s a different story. Viewers won’t chalk it up to artistic choice; they’ll just think the sound wasn’t done well.

Where is the art in the technical?

That’s a tough one. If it’s sound design—meaning you’re inventing sounds for things that don’t exist in reality—it’s one of the more creative aspects of sound work. The last movie I worked on was a sci-fi film, a futuristic mixed martial arts movie with advanced technology and devices that don’t exist. We had to come up with sounds that made sense for those things. For example, there was an AI voice—how should that sound? How do you take a piece of dialogue and make it sound like it’s coming from a computer? In this case, it was a voice assistant in a futuristic hotel room, handling things like room service orders or enabling and disabling security systems.?

When you’re working on a movie with a more literal setting, there isn’t as much room for creativity in that sense. But even then, creating sound is an art because you can’t just drop in any random recording and expect it to fit. Let’s say you’re working on a scene set in a suburban park in North Carolina with kids playing and dogs barking. You have to consider the native wildlife in the region and make sure the sound reflects that accurately. I worked on a project that had a "Hunger Games"-type vibe, set in the Appalachians, and the director was really focused on making the wildlife sound authentic to that area.

When mixing, you want the audience to feel like the sound is moving in 3D space, so they sense that a sound is coming from behind them and moving across the scene.

There are all these small, creative decisions you can make along the way.?

Can you describe a specific scene or moment in your work where sound design played a crucial role in shaping the audience’s experience? Was that created in the post-production process or scripted?

It happens both ways. Some directors are incredibly thorough and conscientious. They plan everything in advance. So when they come into your ADR spotting session, they’ll say, “I want this line here,” even if it’s not currently on camera. They’ll tell you, “I want this actor to say this,” or “I want that actor to say that.” They’ll often have a list prepared for you.

Other times, these decisions happen during the session itself. You’ll have a dialogue, and someone might suggest, “What if this character said this here?” and you’ll make decisions in the moment. And then there are occasions when it comes up further along in the process. It’s not always possible to do that, of course, as an actor’s face might be visible so dialog can’t be added or changed. But opportunities can often be found. Unlocking the picture, however, to change the edit and allow for dialog to be added, is not generally an option.

What does it take to be a good audio mixer? What skills/traits do you think are most important in sound design?

Patience.

A positive attitude. Flexibility.

Open-mindedness. A thick skin.

A collaborative nature.

Strong computer skills. Because everything is about computers now.

I would say having decent ears is important, but you don’t need fantastic hearing to be a good sound designer or editor—not even necessarily to be a good mixer. That said, some of the best mixers have outrageously sharp hearing.?

When you’re trying to match the sound of ADR recorded with one microphone to dialogue recorded on set with another mic, and blend them seamlessly in the same scene, that takes some incredible hearing and a lot of skill. That’s probably one of the most common failures in post-production sound—when ADR isn’t mixed properly.?

Even someone without a trained ear can notice when a line of dialogue sounds off.?

Can you discuss any specific tools or software programs that you find particularly useful in your workflow?

Software plugins can handle things like noise reduction to an extent, and with AI emerging, I think automating these processes will happen sooner rather than later. That both excites and worries me. On the one hand, I love the idea because it would save time and make life easier by automating a part of the job that’s not particularly creative. It’s all about hearing, matching sounds, and turning dials. On the other hand, I don’t want anyone to lose their job because of it.

What I’ve noticed is that more and more editors are doing sound design themselves, trying to get their projects more polished before they hit the final mix stage. They’re using tools built into software like Premiere and Avid that perform some of the tasks a sound mixer would typically do, such as noise reduction. This can be a good or bad thing, though, because the tools don’t always do a great job. If an editor has processed a track poorly, I either have to fix what they’ve done or ask them to send me the original tracks.

Not everything has changed drastically in terms of quality, but I remember sound editing a documentary over 15 years ago, and the director recently came back wanting to put it online. He said the sound mix needed a lot of work, and when I listened to it, I was shocked. The dialogue was all over the place, and I couldn’t tell if I’d actually mixed it or just edited it. It sounded horrible. The director wanted to try using Adobe Premiere’s new AI-based noise reduction and dialogue leveling tool, and I have to admit, it dramatically improved the quality of a really poor mix.

So yes, AI is helpful to an extent. The real question is whether it will ever reach the point where it can operate without a sound specialist at the controls. A director can give direction, but there are subjective choices that a computer just can’t make. For example, a computer can’t listen to a background track and determine if it sounds like a park in Los Feliz or a park in Okeechobee. That level of nuance still requires a human touch. For now, at least. But someone will develop that type of AI sound recognition sooner or later.

AI will regurgitate information, but it won’t truly innovate. However, if AI can handle the technical parts of the job—like noise reduction—that would be fantastic. Noise reduction is one of the most tedious aspects of my job, and I strongly believe that within the next few years, AI will be able to do it flawlessly. Beyond that, I’m unsure.

If you were to go back in time what advice would you give to your rookie self?

In hindsight, if I could do things over again, I would have moved to L.A. right out of college and tried to get an internship at a major post-production house. If you’re in that environment, you can move up and work on high-end studio features. If you start off doing low-budget indie films, you might end up staying in that world for the rest of your career because there’s little crossover between the two. I would also have joined the Editor’s Guild as early as possible.

Do whatever it takes to prove yourself, build relationships, and network. Starting from the bottom of a large pond and working your way up is, in my opinion, much more effective than trying to break in at a high level later on.

As you work your way up, you’ll build a network that can help you move forward if you hit a ceiling in your current role. If you begin working on projects that are below the level you ultimately want to reach, you risk getting stuck in that niche. It’s better to aim high from the start and be prepared to work hard and perhaps for little pay initially.

Forming relationships and proving your worth to those who are already in the positions you want to reach is crucial. Look at someone like Kathleen Kennedy; she started as Steven Spielberg's secretary, and because she had the aptitude and drive, and the right connection, she grew to become one of the most influential producers in Hollywood. By starting at the bottom and working with someone influential, you can ride their coattails, learn from them, and network through their connections. This approach can help you grow into the role you aspire to achieve.