Overview of the role
A supervising sound editor heads the audio post-production team. They bring together and manage the sound editors and in some cases the re-recording mixers and their team. An SSE supports production with the day to day managing of the audio schedule and budget.
Core responsibilities
These core responsibilities are provided as a guide and are not exhaustive. The exact responsibilities in a particular job will vary depending on the scale / budget band / genre of the production.
- Working with production, an supervising sound editor will be invited to work on and present the audio budget assessing the time needed by the various members of the audio team against the budget and ‘vision’ from the director and or producer/s.
- An supervising sound editor might have had a close working connection with production in some capacity from the past, or production has reached out to a particular supervising sound editor on the basis of their experience and credits.
- Having now settled on a budget/ time allowance, the supervising sound editor will oversee the creative sound tracklay, and bring their, and facilitate productions creative vision, to the project.
- The audio crew use for non-scripted varies considerably, so a supervising sound editor has to select and contract the appropriate sound editors as needed.
- The supervising sound editor might be asked to organise and create audio assets that help the picture editors in producing viewing material/ ‘cuts’, before ‘final lock’.
- Sometimes the supervising sound editor may also be the re-recording mixer and therefore will in some cases hire the necessary audio facility for finishing the audio work. This will entail finding and booking the appropriate mixing studio/ theatre for the budgeted amount of time to create the final mixes/ Printmasters.
- The project will also require audio ‘deliverables’ - these are audio mixes that the client and or their production partners require for sales, home and international, theatrical (for cinema) or broadcast (terrestrial and streamers). The supervising sound editor will often oversee the completion of deliverables, again making sure they are completed correctly and within the overall audio budget.
Skills
Check out role specific skills, transferable skills and attributes for the role of supervising sound editor.
- Technical: a supervising sound editor will have a full understanding of the technical aspects associated with not only the equipment/ software used but the full audio technical overview of the project. Knowing the latest information/ advancements in software such as AI, will help shape the creative aspects of the projects and the assessment of the budget and time needed.
- Creative: the supervising sound editor by the very nature of the role will be a highly creative professional. They will probably have a strong film credit list that defines their creative knowledge and experience. A supervising sound editor will be well versed across the ‘tracklay’ creative disciplines and indeed they might work as a member of the audio team, maybe as a dialogue editor rather than SFX or visa versa. The supervising sound editor will work very closely with the re-recording mixer, or indeed step into that creative role, balancing the sound elements producing the client approved signed off soundscape.
- Experience: although a supervising sound editor will be well versed across the ‘tracklay’ disciplines they might prefer to work on dialogue rather than SFX or visa versa, whilst on a project and managing the entire audio team.
- Planning: a supervising sound editor has to be able to plan in detail including budgets and schedules. They must bring in the budget and full audio requirements for a project on time.
- Team work: the supervising sound editor has to work with many roles that make up the smooth running of a production. That can vary in size depending on scale. Not only that but the supervising sound editor needs to run a tight well organised audio team. Again, the size of team varies with the type of project. There also needs to be an understanding of the teams associated with the project such as the picture/ edit team. There’s a very strong connection between the editing team and the sound team. And at the end of the process there’s the deliverables team to work with. The supervising sound editor must understand and help with the smooth running of that process.
- Problem solving: time scales and schedules may suddenly change so the supervising sound editor has to be able to problem solve very quickly. Moving assets, date changing, edit updates - these are just some of the areas that the supervising sound editor needs to be able to handle quickly and efficiently.
- Financial skills: numeracy is an advantage, and a basic understanding of accounts would help. A supervising sound editor will create schedules and timescales that work within budgets, perhaps numerous times for some projects.
- A supervising sound editor is highly creative, and needs an understanding and interest in the technology that supports that process.
- You need to be able to communicate with all departments of the film making process, sometimes from its pre production stage through to the project’s completion and handover of audio assets. A supervising sound editor should be able to understand/ interpret/ action ideas and requests from production.
- Reliability, work ethic, leadership - the full post audio process relies on that from a supervising sound editor.
- Flexibility of thought, creative ideas and execution is a must from the supervising sound editor allowing for a strong creative working relationship with the audio team and with production.
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