Dialogue Editing

44 THE SOUND DEPARTMENT
subordinate to the supervising sound editor who were called in to make the
sound for extraordinary scenes or to create specifi c moods—like the mood
of a spaceship passing a black hole—beyond the scope of the normal sound
team. These days, there is a blurring between sound designers and supervising
sound editors. For some reason, the term “designer” carries a swagger
lacking in the clerklike “supervisor.”
Assistant Sound Editor
Essential in the sprocketed world, the fi rst assistant sound editor is increasingly
hard to fi nd in budget sound cutting rooms. Her role, far less defi ned
than in the past, ranges from obtaining and preparing all necessary material
from the picture department (a hugely important task) to setting up and
managing the cutting room, locating alternate takes, and fending off the
world. A good assistant is worth her weight in gold, but it’s ever harder to
convince an independent producer to spring for the extra salary. Fight to have
an assistant, even if only part time.
Apprentice
In nonunion work you’ll almost certainly have to do without an apprentice
—nowadays often called “intern,” perhaps to avoid payment. Apprentices are
there to learn—cutting room techniques, protocol, and discipline—and to
erase lots of fantasies about sound postproduction. They help the sound
editors by loading and archiving sound materials, transcribing scenes, and
performing similar tasks.
Sound Effects Editors
On action fi lms it’s easy to understand what the sound effects (SFX) editors
do. A helicopter crash, or a motorcycle chase, or the USS Enterprise zooming
away from an exploding star are obvious examples of sound effects editing,
and are usually the kind that win awards. But most of the miracles performed
by SFX editors go unnoticed by the public. Every scene, even the quietest
middle-of-the-night conversation between two people, will be populated
with small “background” sound effects that aid the dialogue, infl uence the
mood, create a rhythm, and motivate characters’ actions. Sound effects editors
often specialize in certain types of action (cars, fi ghts, gunfi re, etc.) and may
be called to a project for specifi c scenes. On smaller fi lms, it’s common for
the supervising sound editor or sound designer to do at least some of the
sound effects editing. On miniscule fi lms, the supervising sound editor is the
sound effects editor.