The Motion Picture Sound Editing Process

Although I am fully pleased with the information I have discovered throughout the year, and that I have shared it with you throughout the process, I realized I have strayed a bit from the true topic of audio post-production. While doing some research on the subject, I came across the website for Motion Picture Sound Editors, or MPSE, as you will often see credited at the end of an editor’s name in a film. What I like about this particular website is that it isn’t written by people interested in the field, or just a random author, but it is written by motion picture sound editors Bruce Nazarian and Scott Haller.

The editors broke down the audio post responsibilities as “production dialogue editing, ADR, sound effects design / editing, foley mixing / editing, music composition and editing, and mixing.” For those of you interested in learning about any of these, the editors go on to fully describe each of these processes. As I have stated in previous posts, my interest is mainly in music editing. This is the person in charge of designating when, in the film, music is played, which songs or compositions, and which parts of those selections are used for the set amount of time.

Although I have studied quite a bit about the general process of audio post-production, Nazarian and Haller offered numerous tips I haven’t heard of during the making of the film. For one, they suggest, before anything, to hire a high-quality production dialogue mixer so most of the dialogue work will be close to, if not already, finished, leaving little to no editing to be done. This sounds like fantastic timesaving advice. Another thing they wrote about is the term “locked cut.” A locked cut is basically the ending film product. It’s not until the locked cut is made that the audio post crew can spot for ADR, sound effects, foley, and design.

The MPSE site goes on to describe numerous other helpful terms and processes of audio post production. If you are really interested, there is an entire Education tab where you can learn all kinds of things, as well as read interviews from award-winning editors.