In this special edition of The Rough Cut we tour the world of sound editing and the new advancements that are taking place in audio post.  Our guides for this tour are sound editors Justin Webster, Jess Parks and Kami Asgar.

We begin our journey in Wellington, NZ to visit with sound editor AND software developer Justin Webster. Justin’s career got off to a slow start as an assistant sound editor on a little film called The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King.  Apparently Peter Jackson liked what he heard because Justin would return as sound effects editor for all three films for The Hobbit . Along the way he wore many hats as dialogue editor, sound designer, re-recording mixer, foley artist; including being the dialogue editor on a truly unique film and awesome movie called District 9.  In response to the shortcomings he was finding in the tools and processes in audio post, Justin began developing software tools to address these needs with his company, The Cargo Cult.  Recently he introduced a new product called Matchbox that simplifies the common yet complicated problem of change management between not only picture editing and audio post, but also picture editing and VFX.

Our next stop is with LA-based sound editors Kami Asgar and Jess Parks, who are working with Sony R&D on what could be some game changing technology that they’re using for the upcoming films, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.  The technology is called the 360 Virtual Mixing Environment and it enables you to reproduce the sound field of a real-life studio or sound stage through headphones.  Kami has been working as a sound editor in film and television for many years on just about every type of project you can imagine, but Jess Parks has a bit of a different story.  She began her journey as a sound editor, but soon had a very successful career as a post-production supervisor on some pretty big movies.  Recently she came to the realization that working in sound is what she truly loves and has since returned to that path.

Visit ExtremeMusic for all your production audio needs

Try Matchbox and other sound tools at The Cargo Cult

Check out Jess and Kami in action at Boundless By Sony

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