Audio Post Production: For Film and Television

Learn the essential skills to enter the audio post-production industry. This book offers a broad coverage of audio post production, including the four basic elements: dialogue, music, sound effects, and Foley effects. You will learn strategies for working with composers, music supervisors, and dialogue and sound effect editors, and explore techniques on how to edit songs to fit a scene, record dialogue replacement, cue Foley effects for a scene, as well as many more. In addition, you will learn how to prepare for a pre-dub or temp mix (to group and sub-mix tracks into stems for the final dub), create the final dub, and prepare the mix for foreign distribution and final delivery.

By learning the tools and strategies used by working professionals, you will have an advantage to participate effectively in this fast-paced environment, as well as applying these skills to independent projects.

You will learn to:

• Use professional standards, procedures, and terminology for commercial film and television audio post production
• Navigate through the post-production process, including how the different types of audio engineers coordinate their work, and communicate with the director, post-production supervisor, and others involved with the project
• Identify the gear and types of studios used in audio post production
• Coordinate and assemble different dimensions of a film's audio: dialogue, sound effects, music, and Foley, into a natural-sounding final mix
• Integrate dialogue from different sources, such as location sound and ADR sessions, and prepare the mix for final domestic and international distribution
• Organize, deliver, and archive audio files, and create reusable templates to make the post-production process more efficient

Mark Cross is an award-winning producer, composer, mixer, engineer, author, and educator with an extensive career in audio post production that spans over two decades. His credits include The Last Comic Standing, American Idol, The CBS Evening News, Wow Wow Wubbzy, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Cars, ER, and many others. He teaches audio post production at Berklee College of Music's online continuing education division, Berkleemusic.

"Mark Cross has masterfully captured the key learning points and technical aspects of the craft in his book Audio Post Production. The book serves as a comprehensive and valuable tool for both beginners and professionals. I would not only recommend this book to anyone looking to make a career out of audio post production but also to anyone with a passion for audio."

—Frank Morrone, Emmy Award Winning Re-Recording Mixer: Lost, The Kennedy's, Cider House Rules

"Beautifully written and informative. I sure wish I had a book like this when I started out in my career. This is a must for anyone interested in the world of post production."

—Dennis Sands, Oscar-Nominated Scoring Mixer (Finding Nemo, Castaway, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption)

"Audio Post Production by Mark Cross is a clear, comprehensive, and enjoyable overview of the multi-dimensional world of post-production audio. For the sound department, there are thousands of hours of teamwork that go on between the time the director yells 'Action!' and the picture rolls on the screen. This book details the role of each segment of that team and will be an excellent primer for anyone interested in one of the many career opportunities behind the scenes of our favorite art form."

—Bruno Coon, Award-Winning Music Editor, Composer, and Producer (Toy Story 3, True Blood, Meet the Fockers, Monsters, Inc.)

"The information contained within these pages is informative and valuable for anyone wishing to work in post production sound. In this book Mark has detailed a complicated and little known process in simple easy to understand terms. His real world examples show how the mixing process deals with a variety of challenging audio needs."

—Richard Weingart, Emmy Award Winning Re-Recording Mixer (Heroes, Crossing Jordan, House M.D., Rescue Me, The Blair Witch Project)