Emma Butt is a Dubbing Mixer, Sound Editor and ADR recordist with over 10 years experience in post production sound on a variety of projects such as Game of Thrones, Vikings, Rebellion, Ripper Street, Swipe Right for Murder, the movie “Frank” starring Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and most recently, Doctor Who.
As a mentor with the Media Trust, Emma is helping to support the next generation of film makers and creative talent and is also on the council of Association of Motion picture Sound Engineers.
As well as being nominated for several IFTA awards, Emma has received a certificate of merit from The Emmys for her ADR work on Game of Thrones.
Jenny Dyke from Jeppstones asks Emma about her career journey so far, her current projects and gets a behind the scenes look at The Tech Behind her highly-acclaimed output.
Early Days
When did you first become interested in sound and what drew you to it?
When I was in school I used to sing in choirs, I was part of a drama club and I took music as a subject in school. I always wanted to be a singer but didn’t think I was talented enough to pursue it as a career so I started looking at other options I could do instead. One day when I was about 15, our school choir was recording an album for charity and this sound engineer came along with all his kit to record us on the day and I was hooked. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen so I started looking into Uni’s that taught it. That’s when I found Pulse Recording College in Dublin City Centre. To get into Pulse you had to go for an interview and if they thought you had what it took to be a sound engineer they let you in and lucky for me they obviously saw something in me. At the time I wanted to be a live sound engineer working with bands and travelling the country, I quickly learned I was not suited to that life when I did work experience in a venue for a year. I hope it’s changed but live sound was without a doubt the most sexist atmosphere I’ve come across and the hours are even more unsociable than post! But as part of the course we had to learn about all areas of sound from radio, to live sound, post production and music recording. My best areas were always post and live sound, I really disliked music recording sessions but post and live sound I always felt comfortable. Some of the projects we had to do were take a small old Tom and Jerry animation and redo the sound design or take a scene from a movie called “The Fifth Element” and again work on the sound design in that scene. I found it fascinating how much work was involved in post sound. We learned how to use different software like Ableton, Reason and a few more than I’ve honestly forgotten but the focus was always on Pro Tools. We had to sit our Pro Tools 210M and 210P exams as part of the course which were a bugger to pass. They might have changed now but you needed about 80% to pass it then. Trent Reznor used to do this incredible thing where he would release session files of all his latest songs so students like myself could play around and remix them and in a way help us learn how to use the software. He always released it in Garage band, Pro Tools and I think Ableton format and I always found that so helpful for learning my routing of tracks.
What was your first professional sound job?
Three months before my Uni course was coming to an end I had a panic about how I was going to get a job so I applied to all the studios and post houses in Dublin applying for runners positions and lucky for me Screen Scene Post Production were looking for runners at the time. I went and interviewed and was told I’d hear by the end of the week and when I didn’t hear anything I dropped them a mail to just check in as I had loved the place and really wanted the job. They asked me to come in the following Monday on a trial week. I ended up finishing my Uni course part time and working in Screen Scene full time for those last 3 months. What I later learned is that they had already hired someone instead of me as they thought at the time I was too nice for the job and couldn’t handle it as a runner but the girl they hired hated the job and left on her first day during her lunch break so I was in. They loved the fact that I had followed up when I hadn’t heard anything, the client service manager said it showed how much I actually wanted the job.
Screen Scene ended up being my first proper sound job. I started there as a runner and loved it, it felt like home. I was a runner for about 5 months before they moved me to reception and as a junior post producer for the audio short form department so the clients could get to know me and after a few months there I was moved into audio as an audio assistant for short form. I didn’t stay in short form for long, it wasn’t for me. I had pretty much decided I wanted to be a Re-Recording Mixer for longform work so I constantly tried to sit in with the mixers from the longform department around my usual work and I made sure I was vocal and let my MD know exactly what I wanted to do career wise.
When I started out I was constantly making mistakes. I tell everyone I mentor now that in your career you will make at least one giant mistake where you wish the ground would swallow you up whole and you could pretend it didn’t happen. I know so far I’ve made small ones and I’ve made decisions in what direction to take my career which probably have not been the right move but the great thing about mistakes is that you learn from them, grow as a person and move on. One of my worse technical mistakes was when R128 was first introduced. I was mixing a kids animation for Cbeebies which had little to no dialogue and trying to get to -23 on the meter was tough, I was always too quiet. For the first few eps I used a loudness corrector plug in on my mixes. Big mistake! What I hadn’t realised was that the plug in was completely changing the dynamics of my mix and the clients panicked when they heard it in the online. It made the mix sound completely different to how they had heard it in the studio with me. I ended up having to remix those first few eps and haven’t used a loudness corrector plug in since. I just try get it spot on the first time round.
I will never have a bad word to say about the audio department in Screen Scene or my first MD as they taught me so much not just on a technical level but also about client services, about how at the end of the day whatever job I am mixing or working on, it is not my job. It’s the client project that they have worked very hard to complete and I am just there to help create their vision not enforce my own on it. Anyone who’s starting out now will have to take a similar route that I took and start as a runner and the best advice I can give is always show how passionate you are about sound. Show that you really want to do that job and no matter how tired you are, put the hours in, stay late sitting in with the engineers and learning from them and never ever assume coming out of Uni that you know everything already. You don’t. I was exactly the same when I left my course but no matter how good your course is, it will never teach you the most important skill you need as an engineer, which is people skills and how to handle a room full of clients when everything is going wrong. That you only learn from experience.
You have been nominated for several IFTA awards and have received a Certificate of Merit from The Emmys for your recent work on “Game of Thrones”. How does it feel to be recognised by such prestigious organisations for your professional work?
It’s a bit surreal to be honest. I have terrible confidence when it comes to my work, I am my own worst critic and I always feel my work is never good enough which was and still is in part to do with people in senior positions putting me down or being discouraging, so to get the IFTA nominations was amazing. Anyone can submit but to get shortlisted it has to be voted for by the jury and most of the jury are peers of mine that I highly respect. Knowing that they had acknowledge I had done a good job helped my confidence no end especially when I was in the early days of my career. The Emmy cert without a doubt always means the most because it’s partly personal. I had worked on Game of Thrones as an ADR recordist while working in Dublin over the first 5 seasons of the show with an incredibly talented ADR supervisor called Tim Hands. Tim is a close friend to me now and I owe him a lot. Season 5 was my last season to work on before my move to the UK which I was terrified about and Tim made sure I was one of the team that year that got a cert to acknowledge the hard work I had put in over the 5 seasons. Tim is highly regarded and incredibly talented at what he does so for the cert to come from him just gave me the confidence I needed to know I was making the right move coming here to the UK.
Sound Terminology
It is often said that Automated Dialog Replacement (ADR) isn’t really a good description of what it actually is. How would you describe it?
The acronym ADR is still known as Automated Dialogue Replacement or Additional Dialogue replacement and yes that is part of what is involved with ADR but none of the process is automated. It involves an actor, engineer and ADR supervisor and director manually and in real time repeating a line over and over again in time to picture until it is in sync, the correct pitch, tone and performance or at least close enough in sync that a dialogue editor can then work their magic to make it appear flawless. The room must be a good size and height, the correct mics used and the boom mic at the perfect distance so the takes do not sound like voice over.
You are replacing lines of dialogue that have been recorded on set for reasons such as technical issues (too much background noise, if it’s a period drama and set outdoors the last thing you need is the sound of a plane flying over head when they weren’t even invented in the year you’re trying to portray, faulty mics etc etc) but the reasons it is required have evolved over the years. I always feel that additional dialogue replacement best describes the process. Lines are now sometimes just changed more so than replaced. A line of dialogue may no longer make sense in the context of the story once the director is at picture edit stage so in order for it to work they must add in an extra line into a speech given by a character. We may also ADR a character purely for breaths and efforts to give them a bit more presence in a scene. Sometimes ADR can be done to fix an accent an actor has used. Their natural accent might be breaking through in scenes and in order to keep the performance consistent ADR is needed.
One part that is always forgotten about when discussing ADR is group or “loop group”. In shows or movies with huge battle scenes, those huge crowds are generally created using visual effects , the crowd on the day being much smaller. In order for the sound to have the same big feel as the scene looks, a sfx editor will layer up tracks of stock crowd but also get in a group of actors to a booth for ADR to make it feel more real. In a battle scene you might see an additional character near the front of the screen dying or fighting so to make the mixture of stock sfx and ADR sound realistic a loop group or crowd actor will voice that additional foreground character who probably wasn’t mic’d on the day.
ADR is less about technical skill and more about people skills. Yes what an engineer is required to do on the desk is stressful but the hardest part of the job is knowing how to control a room. Actors and directors hate ADR usually because they’ve had bad experiences and the ADR in some of their previous projects just hasn’t worked. The hardest part of the job is making the actor and director feel relaxed and calm from the moment they walk into the room. The technical skill always comes second place to that.
Can you also describe the distinctions between ADR and your other two disciplines; Dubbing and Sound Editing?
Sound editing can be divided into two different roles. Usually sound engineers tend to pick either dialogue editing or sound effects editing. Within factual and entertainment shows generally one person will do both jobs as budgets and times are tight. Sound editing involves laying in sound effects to help make a scene and the story come more to life. If there was a shot in a movie of someone walking along a beach with a roaring sea in the background, automatically your mind thinks of the sound of huge, deep sounding rolling waves, maybe some seagulls over head and the crunch of the sand under foot as the person walks. But what if that shot was recorded mute or the sound quality from the day was just awful. The sound editor will re create those sounds you expect to hear to bring that shot to life and make it feel more real.
A dialogue editor will take all the sound rushes from a shoot and clean up the dialogue so little to no background noise, mouth clicks, mic pops or any other unwanted noise exists. If a dialogue take used in a scene is un usable they will go through all of the alternative takes from the shoot of that particular line and find one that will fit for performance and use their skills to make it fit in sync. They organise if actors need to come in for ADR if they can’t find an alternative take to work. They sort out the the timings, scripts and how many lines will be required from each character (actor). Personally, if I have to edit this is my favourite part of the process. There is something really satisfying when you get a terrible quality piece of dialogue and you can clean it up enough to be useable.
The Dubbing Mixer or Re-Recording Mixer takes all the separate elements, dialogue, ADR, SFX, foley and music and blends them and balances them together to create the final mix. They adjust pans, add reverbs, delays and any other effects required to make the dialogue and sfx sit in the mix and feel natural in the scene. They do any other additional dialogue clean up needed and if there is any ADR they match the eq and reverb to the original dialogue so that viewers never know it’s ADR at all. Much like ADR, the mixer needs to know how to handle a room. During the final mix stage you can have a directors, multiple producers and a sound supervisor all in the room with you, with different opinions on how the mix should sound and wanting you to try different things all at the same time, it is not an easy job but it is one of my favourite parts of the process. Usually clients have worked months if not a year or so on these projects and the sound mix is generally the last stage in the process. It’s where they finally get to see the project they have worked so hard for, come to life and you get to be there to help them do it. It is an incredible feeling when a director and producer leaves at the end of a final mix and tells you how happy they are with the work done.
Some people suggest getting ADR completed as soon as possible after a shot to take advantage of the actors still being in character. Is this always achievable?
This isn’t always achievable but it’s always desirable. It has a big effect on the actors performances and helps make the ADR sit better in a scene. The problem with ADR is that it usually occurs months after production has wrapped this can be down to technical issues not being discovered until the edit stage or additional lines need to be added due to continuity issues. The actor has usually moved onto another project at this stage, a new character and even a new accent. You are asking them to come into a sound proofed room, get into the mindset of a character they portrayed months ago but not give them their costume, set or fellow actors around them to play off and it is a hugely isolating experience for them and a very difficult task to ask of them.
Back in Ireland, the show Vikings is shot near Ardmore studios which was part of the company I worked for. Although the actors never came into the studio in costume they did come straight from set a lot of the time for their ADR sessions. This meant they were still in their character’s headspace. The difference this makes to their performance is huge. You are still asking them to do a really tough job but at least they have not gone on to play a new character yet and forgotten completely how they might have felt in a particular scene we need to ADR.
Here in the UK an amazing new creation has come out called “Space Crate”. It is an on set ADR sound proofed room and is being used a lot on feature films like Justice League and Tomb Raider. Actors can walk straight from the set into the space, get mic’d up and ADR lines, still in costume never mind the correct headspace, and it helps so much with their performance. Any ADR lines for technical reasons, a lot of the time, can be flagged pretty much from on set. If there is a wind machine being used for a scene you know you will need to do ADR. Again, if it’s a period piece and you are shooting an exterior scene near a busy road or flight path again you know you will need ADR. In these cases recording it straight away to a very, very rough cut, will help in getting the best performance from an actor possible. I honestly can’t answer why this isn’t being done more on sets now and my only assumption can be that not enough post supervisors know that this exists.
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones is a worldwide phenomenon and has a legion of fans. How did the opportunity come about?
That was all thanks to the MD of Screen Scene at the time, Jim Duggan. He heard HBO were scouting locations for a new series to shoot in Ireland. I don’t know how he did it but he convinced the producers to do the full post production for series 1 in Screen Scene. Some of the sound team was flown over from the UK to work on it and some of the staff at Screen Scene worked on it. After series 1 was such a huge success they decided to bring most of the post back to the states but some of the VFX work stayed at Screen Scene along with ADR for all the Irish actors who needed to be recorded so really it was all down to Jim.
How does it feel to be part of such an iconic TV show?
Game of Thrones was a dream to work on not because of how big the show was or who it was for but because who I got to learn from. Tim Hands flew to Dublin for nearly all of the ADR sessions and I learned so much about how to work with actors and directors from him and the ADR super from Vikings, Dale Sheldrake. I can honestly say I would be terrible at ADR if it wasn’t for all the knowledge those two have passed on to me over the years so for that I will always be forever grateful to GOT and Vikings for the opportunities they both gave me.
Was there anything unique or challenging on your work on GoT?
For ADR our hardest part was making sure peoples accents were consistent throughout takes so the ADR wouldn’t stand out when it was mixed in.
Sound Recording
Having worked on such high-profile projects you must get to use some highly specialised kit. Is there kit that is common across studios and what are some of the most unique or rare items you have come across?
Generally for ADR you always try and match the microphones that were used on set in order to get the best possible match in sound. I tend to favour the MKH 50 Boom mic and a DPA lav mic or else a Seinnheiser 416 Boom mic and a Sanken Cos-11 mic. I am almost always requested to use them when recording.
What “streaming” or “cueing” system is used generally varies from studio to studio. I tend to favour the Colin Broad box which I know some people will find odd. I like Sound in Syncs Edicue system but last time I used it, it knocked out the function of being able to press record using 3 on the numeric keypad which is what I constantly use so it did put me off using the software. The other software that I will be using soon is called “Streamers” which I have heard is grand but I’ve yet to play around with.
Desk wise I always prefer to have an Avid desk as opposed to a DFC console but again this varies from studio to studio. I’ve definitely found in the UK the DFC is more common place in ADR studios.
Plugins are rarely used but I always have a reverb and EQ set up in my session template and do prefer to have something like Alti-Verb if it’s available otherwise I’ll use Waves R-verb.
A number of recent TV productions have been criticised for the quality of audio dialogue with the term “muffled dialogue” being used. What do you think are some of the causes of this?
This is a bit of a twofold problem. Part of the problem is that on set actors are mumbling or not projecting enough and unfortunately they are surrounded by boom ops, directors, AD’s who all know the script inside out so they instinctively know what the actors are saying and therefore don’t notice or flag the issue. The problem arises when someone, like the dialogue editor and picture editor, who are listening to the recordings for the first time and don’t know the script as well as people on set flag it. By then the shoot has usually wrapped and that’s when we have to start entering into ADR.
The other problem is how we as viewers are watching TV these days. Years ago when watching a show our first point of focus was what was on the TV now I think most of us can safely say we have our phone in hands, scrolling through Twitter or Instagram and our attention is divided. We are not giving the show we are watching our full attention and therefore sometimes we just miss some of what is being said. TV set designs have also changed. New TVs often have the speakers on the back, are placed usually near a wall so the sound automatically becomes muffled and unclear to a viewer who’s attention is already divided.
I think it’s important to note that viewers need to stop blaming the Re-Recording mixers on these shows. Screen Scene worked on series 2 of Ripper Street which was affected by the “mumble gate” reports. Viewers went onto the BBC online forums and basically named and shamed the mixers who had worked on the show when it had nothing to do with them. They had mixed the show to the highest standard and unfortunately until someone invents a “de mumble” plugin there was only so much they could do to help that dialogue be clear.
What are the major advancements in technology that you have seen during your career that you wished had been available when you started?
Izotope have just made life a lot easier for sound editors and mixers with the introduction of plugins like the RX-De noise bundle which helps you remove background noise, mouth clicks, pops and a lot more. They have also introduced a great feature called Ambience match which is so helpful to fitting in ADR lines by analysing the background ambience in the dialogue within a scene and allowing you to create a loop of just that ambience to create your fill track. The RX bundle was the first bundle of plugins I knew I needed to have when I went freelance.
Sound Radix have also just released a new plugin called Auto Align which phases matches multiple mics in one click. This is one I’m excited to start using a bit more because I know it will just save me so much time on any multi mic shows I need to mix.
Waves also have the WNS noise suppressor. Cedar was the plugin for cleaning up dialogue when I started but it was really expensive. The WNS is a fraction of the price and does, from my point of view, the same job.
I guess the biggest one though is Source Connect. One of the worse parts of recording ADR is when you had to do a remote session using the ISDN box which was a box that used telephone lines in your respective countries to link you to a studio in another country and sync up using timecode. If the actor was in LA and the director was in London, the ADR could still go ahead without a flight being booked. Honestly it was the biggest pain in the arse. It constantly dropped out or didn’t sync up correctly and if both studios didn’t have the same settings or compatible boxes it just wouldn’t work. Source Connect totally changed all that. It uses your internet connection and compatibility isn’t really an issue anymore. Once you both have the plugin or stand-alone software you can generally connect without much difficulty. They also created a feature where Source Connect generates it’s own Timecode. It meant you no longer had to patch up timecode from Pro Tools but instead could do everything within the plugin. Like everything it has some flaws but generally I think it’s a really clever invention that solved a big problem and I am happy to report one of the creators is a woman!
Industry Support
You are a keen advocate for bringing more females into sound. What can be done to attract more women into this field?
This is a really important issue to me. I feel that there are 3 main areas we need to make changes in order to encourage and retain women in sound.
School level is really where the root of the problem occurs. I mentor with a charity called the Media Trust and through the young kids I’ve met through that I’ve learned most of them did not know that jobs such as sound designer, grader, picture editor or VFX artist even exist. Schools put emphasis on “safe” jobs like accountant, doctors and anything business/ finance related. They are not educated or guided towards careers in the creative industries. Charities like “Inspiring the Future” and “Speakers for Schools” are helping with that but it’s not enough. More needs to be done to teach kids that alternative jobs are out there if they want them.
Women returners is where we have another issue. A lot of the women who are in sound that I speak to worry about when they have kids and how or even if they will be able to return to work. The hours all crew are expecting to work in film and TV are sometimes ridiculous and unsociable. I’ve seen quite a few women leave the industry completely after having a child as there is no support structure in place to help them when they return to work. Childcare is expensive and from my limited knowledge, is restrictive on the hours you can avail of their services. Women are expected to go straight back into working unsociable hours and god forbid they ask to leave on time to be with their family. This is an area where I think employers need to start doing more. There needs to be more understanding about women and in fairness men too, that need to leave at a reasonable time to be with their families. At the end of the day we’re making TV shows and films not doing open heart surgery. No one is going to die if a mother needs to leave on time to be with her child.
The other area I feel we have a problem is not enough Producers, Directors, Post Supers, Production Managers and in some cases Post houses employing more women. I think in most cases this is honestly an unconscious thing people do. For so long the industry was just white middle aged men but that is now slowly starting to change. More women are starting to enter into the industry but the problem is they struggle to get any good opportunities to help their career. The people in charge of hiring, when it comes to freelancers, have their favourites that they have used for years and years, have developed a good relationship with and know they can trust them. I have zero problem with that, but how are women meant to progress and gain more experience if no one will help give them an opportunity?
I had a chat with the chair of Directors UK recently and he told me that female directors find it difficult to get onto directing drama series as the people hiring directors want someone with experience of directing a drama. Well how are you meant to get experience directing a drama if no one will give you an opportunity in the first place? The same goes for sound. How are women meant to progress from working on shorts and micro budget films unless someone gives them a chance? As one of my friends more eloquently put it, how can young women aspire to be something they cannot see. We need more women in senior roles, as sound supervisors and as Re-Recording mixers on the big budget projects.
Having women on a team makes a team more balanced, it changes the dynamic but for the better. It gives a different point of view on how maybe a workflow should be done or how a sound scape might be shaped. Film and TV shows reflect all different ways of life, different stories and different points of view. The crew involved in making those stories should reflect that too.
How did it feel to be chosen for WFTV 2017 mentoring scheme?
When I moved to the UK no one knew really who I was. My client base was mostly all in Ireland and I found it difficult to get people in the industry here to take notice and take me seriously. My confidence was completely knocked. I also moved here with very little support system in place. Most of my Irish friends who had once lived here had long moved back home and the majority of my family was back in Ireland too so the first few months were honestly quite scary and a bit isolating. I still remember the day I applied. I was having an awful day at work, regretting the move and felt like I had completely ruined my career which had been going really well. I even called up my old MD in Ireland and asked if I could just come home (thankfully he said no and encouraged me to stay) and that’s when I spotted the applications were open for the scheme. I applied thinking I’d never get it, I wasn’t experienced enough but I got an interview and next thing I knew I was accepted. That scheme saved my confidence. Having a mentor I think is hugely important and mine was incredible. I needed a sounding board, someone to give me impartial advice and tell me out straight when I was making a good or bad decision and I needed someone who I felt believed in me which she did. Through the scheme I met some other incredible women and we all helped and encouraged each other to push forward and get what we wanted from our careers no matter who or what stood in our way. I am still a long way off from where I want to be in my career but I will be forever grateful to the opportunities the scheme gave me and the mentor I now have.
You are a Council Member of The Association of Motion Picture Sound. Can you explain to us their work?
AMPS is a craft guild made up of highly experienced people working across film, TV and game sound. The aim of the organisation is to create a place where members can exchange information, we also offer talks and demonstrations, film screenings and we have our own award ceremony to recognise excellence in sound. I joined AMPS council this year and my aim was always to try and make AMPS a more diverse organisation to reflect the current state of the industry. We recently secured a link up with Film Powered in the states which is now branching out internationally and is a networking and skill sharing tool for women in the industry. A link to our members directory can now be found on Women and Hollywood’s website so anyone looking for UK based female sound crew know exactly where to look which will hopefully lead to more jobs for our female members. I’m also helping our chair secure another potential link up that will hopefully be incredibly beneficial to our members.
Back when he was on council, David Lascelles set up the mentoring scheme but it had a bit of a loose structure and wasn’t nearly promoted enough within the organisation. I asked David if I could help run it so I restructured it and relaunched it this year and so far I think it’s going well. The scheme lasts for 1 year with each mentee getting one hour per month with their mentor.
I love mentoring. I think everyone who is lucky enough to get anywhere in this industry can afford and should give up some of their time to help a young person reach their goals and get started in the industry. Most of these young kids just want some reassurance and guidance nothing more. This industry can be very closed off and guarded. It’s often a case of who you know that helps you progress and that shouldn’t be the case. A persons talent and passion should be what helps them move forward.
Can you give us some insight to what the “BAFTA Crew” is? What does it mean to you to be a part of it?
BAFTA crew is a network for people within craft roles in the film and TV industry that helps us network and provides access to talks by highly respected and more senior members of the industry. I’ve found BAFTA crew to be one of the most useful organisations to be a member of and it has given me the opportunity to meet people I might not have otherwise met. The highlight so far has been getting to attend both a talk and a smaller round table discussion with the incredibly talked Walter Murch.
The Future
Is there any technology, kit or sound studio that you haven’t worked with yet but would like to?
I think anyone in sound would always say The Skywalker Ranch in the States would be a dream place to work even for one day. I’d also love a day at the Formosa Groups studios but that’s mainly so I could sit in and pester Chris Navarro who’s an ADR mixer that I would love to learn from, his credit list is amazing and it’s definitely something I aspire to.
What are your next projects in the pipeline to be released?
I’ve just been a dialogue assistant on a new Liam Neeson movie called Hard Powder thanks to my friend Jo Jackson recommending me for the job which has still to get a release date. I’m also about to start all audio post on a low budget horror movie which I’m really excited about. The team are incredible and they have shot and edited the movie to a really high standard so it should be a fun project. I’ve just finished mixing a nature documentary series with the lovely Andrew Wilson of Red Six LTD which I would love to do more of as they are so beautiful and I’ve a good few bookings coming up for ADR recording sessions but I never find out exactly what the job is until the last minute. I’ve also been editing a podcast series called Men in Therapy which should be released soon. The aim of the podcast is to get more men talking about mental health and to show that there is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. The two presenters have recorded their own Therapy sessions which I thought was a unique approach to the subject. Having lost someone close to me to suicide this has probably been the most important project I’ve worked on.
I’ve also been asked to give a talk in York through AES UK section which I am still blown away to be asked to do and slightly terrified about. Pro Tools expert have also kindly asked me to write an article for them which I’m hoping to get done and published soon.
Advice
For anyone wanting to start in sound, what would you advise?
Learn Pro Tools and please learn your shortcuts, learn how to route a session correctly from scratch and not using someone else’s template and learn how to use a compressor properly. Find out about all the sound related organisations in your area and see if you can join them at any level. If you’ve watched a show that you particularly loved the sound on, try to reach out to the people who worked on it. Ask them questions and for tips and if possible if you can shadow them. You never stop learning in this job. I am constantly learning new tips and tricks every day and you should always be trying to better your skills and understanding of sound.
How do you go about getting noticed?
I’ve seen so many runners in post houses come straight out of Uni and wonder why they aren’t already mixing the next series of Blue Planet or working on Game of Thrones and instead they are making someones tea and coffee. We all had to start at the bottom and work our backsides off to get to where we are. Uni courses are great but they do not teach you everything. Listen and learn from the more experienced people around you and recognise, if you are starting out as a runner, how lucky you are to be there in the first place and make the most of the experience. Being a runner is tough, I’ve done it and it’s zero craic but it’s only awful if you let it be. When I was a runner I was sitting in with the engineers on every lunch break. I stayed back if I was on an early shift to sit and learn with them. I asked for small projects like just cleaning up a VO and asked for feedback and I asked to use the rooms in my spare time to improve my skills. I know that doing all of that helped me progress much quicker than just sitting around and moaning about how tough it is to be a runner. Only you can put the effort in and make your career progress.
What are you doing now that you didn’t at the beginning that has made the filmmaking better/easier to make?
I’ve taken my own advice and started listening more to those around me who give me new tips of suggestions on a workflow I might not have thought of or a plugin that might be better for me to try. Networking is also the other big thing. I never networked, I was like most other people and hated it but now I absolutely love getting to meet new directors or producers that I can potentially collaborate with and it means I get a better choice of the projects I actually want to work on.
Emma is talking about her work and career at the Audio Engineering Society of Britain in York on September 24th 2018. Click here to book tickets.
Links
You can view all of Emma’s credits on IMDb here
Here is Emma’s website.
You can follow Emma on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/EmmaButtSound
You can connect to Emma on LinkedIn here: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ebutt
