In the end, it depends on how good and talented your composer is.

For someone who has already made films, I'm surprised you're asking the music levels question.

Oh well I feel I didn't invest enough in the music area before on past projects and wanted to invest more in it.

The snag seems to be Ryan that you never notice things until it's pointed out, then it's a surprise and you will sort it next time - but ask yourself why you didn't notice the dialogue was hiding behind the over loud music? You didn't spot the change in the room noise (which oddly was considerable) was it the air conditioning? The audio wasn't recorded very cleanly?

I wonder if you have the feel for what the music is doing? You asked about the climb up the stairs with the bats. You wanted it silent. That's a valid point. So not having music can be a dramatic point - but silence is never silent. You needed at that point absolute silence - a silence so silent we sit up and notice, interspersed with perhaps just little bits of sound - so maybe we needed a footstep squeaking on the turn, or the sound of the bat catching the wall, and the shot of the woman hiding around the corner - maybe we needed to hear her being silent - as in her breathing, her trying too be quiet. It didn't sound right - so what was your directorial purpose? What should we have heard or not heard, because it just sounded like people going upstairs and there wasn't the tension there should have been - personally that would have been a music cue for me, not silence. However the cue would have been very, very quiet - a subliminal awkwardness and breath holding moment. I didn't;t understand the music at the disturbing end scene at all - I personally don't think it fitted at all. Did it have a brief to the composer - as in write me music that is .................?

Oh okay, what do you mean did it have a brief to the composer?

As for the sound mix, well the sound mixer I hired worked on it while I wasn't there in his own studio. I noticed the finished product when he was done, but I didn't want to have to pay him to redo all the things. I was already going over the audio budget I had for the mix. What should I do next time to avoid having to pay more if there are things like that wrong with the sound mix? I did notice the abrubt change in the room noise. It was a computer mainframe in the next room, we were not allowed to turn off while shooting unfortunetly. The location was an emergency switch, since the first location became unavailable that was already planned. But I didn't have to time to get a new location other than this one. However, as for the change in room noise, I assume it's one when it goes from one scene to another? I left the audio mixing to the post sound mixer, since he knows about those things more than me.

And the reason why the music didn't fit at the end scene at all, was because the composer worked on it without me being there either, and I didn't get it till after. The music was not the type of music I described and thought I should be more specific for next time. So what do I do instead then, in that case, to avoid that from happening?

Should I work more closer to the sound mixer and composer, next time, and tell them I want the music less loud here, or the room noise, not so abrupt in change here, etc? But as for the music not fitting, that is what I meant when I said in past projects the music did not fit at all. So how do I get the music that fits, without having to be too specific and therefore micromanaging the composer?

I'm surprised that you weren't there for the sound mix.

Didn't the composer have a copy of the film that they could work to for their timings?

You should be aware of the sound requirements for the final mix, Have all the spot effects and room atmos in the appropriate tracks. It's easy to do these days, Walter Murch uses Premiere Pro, so you've got the same tools.

Oh well, am not a post production sound mixer so I thought it was best to hire someone else for it. I gave him all the room tone and sound effects. I could have more sound effects for next time if that's better.

The sound mixer could only work on it at certain times, but those times were during my day job, so I left him to it. Should I be there while the sound mixer is working?

But I thought it was said before that doing this is micromanaging if I stick around the whole process. So is it then? Yes the composer did have a copy of the movie to work with.

Actually the composer brought something interesting to my intention. A couple of the sounds I said I wanted in a couple of clips are the contrabass instruments and the concert bass drum. But he says that most people will not hear those instruments because they are inaudible on most people's speakers, since they watch movies on their computers and cell phone speakers. Is that true though, that it's not worth having low bass instruments because most people will not be able to hear them though?

Ryan. This is what happens when you make your decisions based on shaky rules in your book. This is not the place to teach you about sound recording. Most studios since the 70s have two sets of loudspeakers. One full range and often very expensive, and another pair more similar to cheap hifi speakers. You mix on the full range, and check on the cheap ones. If you mix on the cheap ones it often sounds wrong on the others.

Your bass flute may well go unheard on phones. This is what happens when film makers spend time and money on things that onl6 theatrical release reveals, or people at home with decent sound systems. However, just because the folk at home throw your efforts away on small displays with weedy sound it’s not something you should change because a phone sound product means it’s flawed. Strive for the best you can, but remember the idiots, and what they’ll be missing.

Most people watching your videos do NOT have a calibrated colour monitor. You spend all this time on your grading and a few get what you want. Most have their tv saturation turned up far too much, but don’t know or care.

You gave your sound man room tone? You mean you got him to add IN what we heard? Surely not? In my studio, now with my new spectral layers I’d be getting rid of the air con, not adding it.

Are you sure you understood room sound when you gave it to him. Clearly it went very wrong because we noticed it.

During the sound mix, the junk loudspeaker is handy for checking what people won't hear.

I made a drama that was going be put onto 16mm optical sound. It was a pretty complex sound track and the mixer and I had to be careful about how it was going to sound on optical sound. It worked out pretty well, although it was case of the sound sounding better on the video and pictures looking better on the 16mm print.

Ryan. This is what happens when you make your decisions based on shaky rules in your book. This is not the place to teach you about sound recording. Most studios since the 70s have two sets of loudspeakers. One full range and often very expensive, and another pair more similar to cheap hifi speakers. You mix on the full range, and check on the cheap ones. If you mix on the cheap ones it often sounds wrong on the others.

Your bass flute may well go unheard on phones. This is what happens when film makers spend time and money on things that onl6 theatrical release reveals, or people at home with decent sound systems. However, just because the folk at home throw your efforts away on small displays with weedy sound it’s not something you should change because a phone sound product means it’s flawed. Strive for the best you can, but remember the idiots, and what they’ll be missing.

Most people watching your videos do NOT have a calibrated colour monitor. You spend all this time on your grading and a few get what you want. Most have their tv saturation turned up far too much, but don’t know or care.

You gave your sound man room tone? You mean you got him to add IN what we heard? Surely not? In my studio, now with my new spectral layers I’d be getting rid of the air con, not adding it.

Are you sure you understood room sound when you gave it to him. Clearly it went very wrong because we noticed it.

Oh okay thanks for the advice there on the mixing and music. What I did with the sound mixer, is he asked for all the sounds on all the channels to be put on an OMF container.

When I shot the movie, I recorded a minute of room tone for each scene and then put those layers of room tone, under their scenes on the editing timeline. I then exported it all in an OMF container for the sound mixer to mix. Should I not have given him the room tone then, or should I not have put the room tone on the timeline?

You should put the room tones and the effects etc in the appropriate time audio tracks, OMF is an interchange file format.

Okay thanks. That's what I did. But maybe the sound mixer did not mix them the right way then maybe after?

When the clips already have an excess of background noise, as they appear to have - he cannot mix more in, so room tone - which is used to cover the absence of recorded sound, is no help is it!

If people want files as OMF, or just as wavs, flags, aifs or even mp3s - it's no big deal. I suspect something went a bit adrift with the audio editing and mixing stage. One common trick with room noise intrusion when you do have a room sound track, is to pop a gate on the audio so when they finish speaking, it quickly mutes, but have the room tone sound running in the background - so the gaps between words are filled with the constant, correct sound, to hide the silence. I'm surprised he didn't try this if he had the room tone tracks?

Oh okay thanks, but I thought he did do this, because isn't the room tone track running constantly during the dialogue, or no?

The room noise changes with each change of camera angle - the louder aircon in one shot suddenly going quieter which reveals the fact that the sound track is chopped up, and not continuous. Kind of give a subliminal lurch each time - normally you would not have this audible.

I can tell that and I know what you mean. I guess this was a choice on the post production mixer then. I gave him all the audio clips and he had a minute of room tone to work with, when blending from one scene to another, so maybe it's just the way he mixed it then?

I just don't know Ryan - it's not right, whatever the reason. Odd it was left like that?

I get the feeling Ryan either cannot afford good people or doenst know how to evaluate the skills of these folks, probably both.

Yeah I know it's not right. But this is what I mean, in how I want to work closer with people in post for next time, and have much more specific requests. But it was said before if I do that then that's micromanaging. So what can I do to make sure things are being done well such as sound and music, since I was told it was odd before? If I cannot supervise the process, because it's micromanaging, then what can I do?

It seems to me that we have covered ... and re-covered ... a lot of basics here. Every so often a specific question pops into my head. Ryan has told us more than once that he took a film course (or courses). This makes me wonder about what specific classes he took and what was (or was not) covered.

Also, speaking of questions, and given the badness of that mix, I can't help wondering what experience the sound mixer had, and what communications went on between him and Ryan. e.g. the mixer might have known better than to do what he did, but maybe some miscommunication he thought he was following Ryan's peculiar instructions.

I didn't give him any specific instructions on what to do with the room tone and music volume. I just said I wanted it to sound like a movie more so, but should I give specifics on room tone and volume, or just leave it up to them?

What I took in film school was mostly on producing and directing specifically, but not much audio. I guess I just find some of the basics to be contradictory or paradoxical because I am told not to supervise or make a lot of decision in the process, because that is micromanaging, and they know more than I do, but at the same time, if you leave them to it, you don't want know what is going to come out in the end when it comes to sound mixing, or music, etc.

The advice in the past was to leave them along and do not work with them and the music and sound will turn out better than I would think. I was just posting a short film example, of how I was not satisfied with the music and sound, after it was finished, after I had left them to it. So I feel the advice is not working for me so far, and maybe another approach is better?

The idea is that you hand it off to people who KNOW WHAT THEYRE DOING. How are you finding these folks? How are you evaluating them? Do you look at reels or samples of the finished products they've worked on? How much do you pay them?

The issue of music volume could perhaps be said to be somewhat subjective. I certainly agree that it overpowers the dialog in some places. Let's skip over that and talk about the room tone, which is much less subjective.

I can't imagine any time when that change in room tone would be acceptable. I would hope the mixer at least knows that the final result sounds bad. Without hearing the actual tracks you gave him, I can't entirely place the blame on him, because you might not have given him the material he needs to make it better. Just saying you "gave him room tone" doesn't help; that's a broad term (like "celeste" is a broad term).

Ideally you would have an experienced mixer with a good ear, and then you would not micromanage him; he would just give you a good track. I, at least, can't say with 100% certainty what went wrong with that track. Maybe he's not the world's best mixer. Or maybe you gave him inadequate material to work with. Or maybe there was some communications issue (your communication is, IMHO, often very bad).

But why does the final release sound like that? If he handed you that mix, and if you could tell it was bad, why not have him fix it? Or did you not hear that it was bad? But the fact that you are willing to release it when it sounds that bad says something about your judgement. No explanations or excuses will change that.

Oh okay. Well I gave him a minute of room tone to work with so couldn't he just have repeated the room tone track if he needed more, and just use the same room tone track over and over for the whole scene if he needed more?

I did let him know that there were problems, but he said it would cost more for him to work on it more, and I was already going over budget somewhat, so I couldn't go over anymore with that one.

I am beginning to realise that while we know Ryan has trouble getting decent actors, and finding decent locations, but what we actually have are people who all are not professionals. I don't like commenting directly on people not involved in the discussion why can't defend themselves, but this surely must be the blind leading the blind.

If you have competent people, they do NOT need supervising, and even if they did, Ryan clearly doesn't;t have the role dependent skills to do that supervising. He has his own likes and dislikes but they are just an amateurs view of the world.

If you have a costume designer - you give them a budget and they do their thing. The sound people seem to have done a poor job of capturing the original sound, they didn't notice the background noise, and then the person doing the balance clearly could not process the audio to a standard where it becomes transparent. Ryan handed over room tone - but we have no idea what that actually was? Maybe it was equally unusable - we don't know. The composer seems to have produced something totally mismatched to the visuals and not produced music that would have worked mood wise. Ryan got hung up on silence, but suspense silence is rarely silent - it's normally quiet subliminal suspense sounds - not a tune, not a melody, not music, but something to make you move closer to the edge of your chair. In a way it's often quiet enough to almost be room tone.

Ryan - you specifically mention re-using the room tone. Of course he could, he didn't and perhaps he should, but it was your job to say "Stop - what has happened here - I can hear the joins?" As the commissioner and the final judge of quality, you do not need to know how to do everything, but it's your product so your quality standard. I don't know why you didn't sort it - it really is obvious. A question - why didn't you turn the aircon off when you heard it humming away?

The original location become unavailable so I found another one for shooting in time. Their was a computer mainframe room down the hall, from the room we shot in. The computers were doing the humming. But we were not allowed to turn off the computers. I will make try to make sure of that for next time.

But if I am to leave the people along in post and let them work and not check back until they are finished, what if they want more money, to fix the issues, going over budget then? I new that the audio and music had the errors in it that were mentioned already, but for next time, when I get them back and they have errors in, what do I do? Or do I work with them, and catch the music and sound issues during the process more so? Or do I wait till it's done, show it to a test audience, and wait for their notes, if my judgment is not the best? What do I do to fix the errors for next time?

I think the whole just hope it comes back good because the people working in a vaccuum are that good, is just kind of too risky, and there needs to be a different approach? I don't mean to blame anyone I worked with or make it sound that way. I was just saying I felt disappointed with the music and audio and felt I could have done more myself when working with them, and blame myself.

It was said before to just leave them do their thing and wait for a finished product without supervising the process. I have done that before, and was not satisfied in the past, such as in this example. So isn't this example a case in point, on how that is risky, and could end up not working?

You should always attend the sound mix. The director should go or at least the editor, the sound is 50% of the film has George Lucas is well known for saying.

Find a day when you're available or make a day available by taking a day off work.

Okay sure I can do that. How come I should atttend the sound mix but not the music creation though?

If you're not a musician it may be a distraction, like sitting over the shoulder of a writer. However, it's not unusual at the later stages, as in the the recording studio - the equivalent of the sound mixing.

Unfortunately, you seem to suffer from the equivalent of falling in love with the temp tracks. Which can get in the way..

It was said before to just leave them do their thing and wait for a finished product without supervising the process. I have done that before, and was not satisfied in the past, such as in this example. So isn't this example a case in point, on how that is risky, and could end up not working?

We've discussed that point over and over again. You have an excuse for every problem.

Excuse: There was a server room down the hall. Is your sound man deaf? Can he hear the server noise on his headphones? If he can't hear it, you need a new sound man. If he can hear it, then obviously he should mic differently. Use lavs if necessary. Don't have lavs? Get some?

Excuse: You heard the mix, it was bad, but the mixer said it would cost more money to fix it. Do you want your film to have good sound? Then spend the money. Don't have the money, then find a less expensive hobby. OR, if the mixer said he couldn't make a good mix from the tracks you gave him, then get another mixer to listen to them.

Etc.

My god, man, what is your role here? Chief whiner and excuse-maker? Or director?

If you feel that film has an important story to tell, then re-doing that film becomes your *next* film. Get a better mixer. Let him hear the raw tracks (pre-music). Ask him if he can do a better mix from those tracks. *IF* he says the raw tracks are hopeless, then you're out of luck. *IF* he says he can do a better mix, then let him try, and evaluate it when he's done. Once you get past that point, then you can re-think the music.

Watch some local films. Get some names of people who captured good dialog tracks, who did a good mix, who wrote a good score. Hire those people next time. If you can't afford them, then be prepared to end up with a disappointing (most polite word I can think of) end result. Or find a less expensive hobby.

Hiring bad craftsmen and then micro-managing them is not going to solve your problem. The fact that you do not really understand music and you don't understand sound will work against you as long as you try to direct. Perhaps you should accumulate some more basic knowledge and skills, before you try managing other people who obviously haven't done stellar work on this past film.

It's too bad you can't serve an apprenticeship, or otherwise sit in on some local productions by some known better directors. Just to see how things are normally done, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel and being so seemingly clueless about the details.

You are asking how to make a good film, shooting in bad locations, recording bad audio, making a bad mix from that audio and bad music, while working with an insufficient budget ... well, Ryan, that's an unrealistic question. Going around in circles here ad infinitum is not going to solve your problem.

We've discussed that point over and over again. You have an excuse for every problem.

Excuse: There was a server room down the hall. Is your sound man deaf? Can he hear the server noise on his headphones? If he can't hear it, you need a new sound man. If he can hear it, then obviously he should mic differently. Use lavs if necessary. Don't have lavs? Get some?

Excuse: You heard the mix, it was bad, but the mixer said it would cost more money to fix it. Do you want your film to have good sound? Then spend the money. Don't have the money, then find a less expensive hobby. OR, if the mixer said he couldn't make a good mix from the tracks you gave him, then get another mixer to listen to them.

Etc.

My god, man, what is your role here? Chief whiner and excuse-maker? Or director?

If you feel that film has an important story to tell, then re-doing that film becomes your *next* film. Get a better mixer. Let him hear the raw tracks (pre-music). Ask him if he can do a better mix from those tracks. *IF* he says the raw tracks are hopeless, then you're out of luck. *IF* he says he can do a better mix, then let him try, and evaluate it when he's done. Once you get past that point, then you can re-think the music.

Watch some local films. Get some names of people who captured good dialog tracks, who did a good mix, who wrote a good score. Hire those people next time. If you can't afford them, then be prepared to end up with a disappointing (most polite word I can think of) end result. Or find a less expensive hobby.

Hiring bad craftsmen and then micro-managing them is not going to solve your problem. The fact that you do not really understand music and you don't understand sound will work against you as long as you try to direct. Perhaps you should accumulate some more basic knowledge and skills, before you try managing other people who obviously haven't done stellar work on this past film.

You are asking how to make a good film, shooting in bad locations, recording bad audio, making a bad mix from that audio and bad music, while working with an insufficient budget ... well, Ryan, that's an unrealistic question. Going around in circles here ad infinitum is not going to solve your problem.

Oh okay he said lavs were picking up more of it, so we used the hypercarioid mic, since the hyper was picking up the least of it. The thing about mics is they always hear what the human ear will hear and if the human ear can hear a computer mainframe down the hall, than every mic will pick it up. Unless there is actually a mic that can truly cancel out things like that fully? I don't think there is, and I the lav was doing a worse job than the hyper. As for paying more for more sound mixing, I just didn't have the budget for more at the time, so it was just one of those things, when it comes to microbudget.

I didn't think I was making excuses. I still made the short film. I still directed it. It was said before that I need to learn to make the best of what I have with real locations so can I not do that hear, with realistic location sound and just make the best of it, since that is what I have? I just was asking what to do better for next time in post, but still be able to supervise the process more, before it's too late, if that makes sense.

If you're not a musician it may be a distraction, like sitting over the shoulder of a writer. However, it's not unusual at the later stages, as in the the recording studio - the equivalent of the sound mixing.

Unfortunately, you seem to suffer from the equivalent of falling in love with the temp tracks. Which can get in the way..

When you say the later stages, you mean after the composer has created a rough draft of the whole score, so to speak?

In your case yes.

The important part isn't the instruments, but is the music communicating the emotions etc to the audience? If an actor's performance is weak, is the music helping to convey what's going on that character's head at that moment?

You could have all the instruments you wanted, but if the music fails in this it's not working for the film. On the other hand, it could have all the instruments you don't want, but the music really engages with the film and all the emotions.and works on every level with the film itself and lifts it to another level.

A good director will recognize this and understand what the composer has given them.

Now I'm older, I don't mind so much any more sitting with a client while I compose. Years ago I hated it, because they interfere destructively. From a musical perspective, the most creative time for me was always on my own, I got things done quicker and I suspect I didn't want people to see me try things and then scrap them because they reached dead ends. Now, my work gets split into two client groups. Those that trust me to work from what they give me as a brief and perhaps video and audio files. I do it, and invoice them. That job is done. With others, the difficulty of explaining in words means sitting with me is more efficient, and actually is more lucrative for me.

My best clients ask for X minutes of music, give me the steer and ask how much, and I might figure it will be a day - that happened yesterday. It took about 6 hours, including lots of coffee/thinking/revue breaks. Invoiced last night when they emailed to say it's great.

When you have a client with you it's different because they see it emerge, and offer suggestions. How about when that movement starts, we remove all the rhythm stuff and have a twinkly sound. You save v4 (because you know you might need it again) and start twinkles. Three hours later you have it sorted and then they change their mind. You ask where they'd like to go back to and load up v4 again - 4a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l are scrapped. evening falls maybe at v13. next day you pick up but they've had overnight ideas. Maybe stupid ones, but they are the client. It's soul destroying writing things you know they will hate in an hour. 3 minutes could be 6 hours work. 3 minutes could also be 4 days work, and the clock is ticking and their budget vanishing. Sometimes you know they will run out of money before its done. I hate that. One client kept it up for two weeks before deciding it didn't work, and left me alone for another day to start again from nothing and liked it. Now they do one or two a year and never come to the studio. They finally realised it wastes money.

However, one client always wants to be there because his ideas are often better than mine. every suggestion is a good one and we rattle through it. I have even asked him to play something I have in my head but cannot get my fingers to do - he'll take my seat = play it, then we swap again.

This is actually odd in the paperwork, because in the UK copyright system, this gives him a performer credit, so I get the composer, arranger and contracted performer credit and he gets the featured performer credit, which is funny when I give him the six pounds 20 pence it generated a year later!

On one film, I was in with the composer for a couple of hours as he worked. He asked what I thought should be next in the piece, I gave my suggestion. I don't know if he was seriously asking me or just testing me.

Oh okay, well the instruments I wanted were in the example tracks, which is why I wanted instruments like that, so the tracks could be similar to what I wanted. I could just tell the composer I want those sounds, similar to in the example tracks done in the same context if that's better. I just don't want the composer to make it sound too different like I had before, so I feel like I need to be more specific, rather than describe general feeling I want, in a general way only as a case in point with the music in the short film I posted.

Or I could just describe to the composer what I want but only have him come up with some of the tracks, just a little bit, that way I can make sure the music is on the right track, before composing all of it?

The main problem may be that you're unlikely to get a great, distinctive musical soundtrack for your film by working that way.

Ryan - being honest, you just want the credits to say everything done by Ryan Wray. The idea of giving ownership of any component to somebody else is something that clearly pains you because you don't trust any of these people, and you feel your opinion out-trumps theirs every time.

I don't think you mean to, but you seem to have an overwhelming need to micro-manage, yet you cannot see it at all. You genuinely believe that your opinions are the most sound, but need to have us and others tell you you are right. Often we cannot do this. We know you're wrong. You dismiss our comments continually, or ask us if we mean ...... when usually, no we don't.

Perhaps you should try to do these things yourself, and learn - all you do is moan about people doing things you don't like. It is ALWAYS their fault when it goes wrong, and when it goes right, it was, of course, your input. Your excuses are sometimes like you get from a child - totally unreasonable and often quite funny! You seem to give sound to somebody who cannot hear bad edits, you have a composer who is a bit gutless and doesn't tell you that you're wrong, just says "OK Ryan". Your recce of the location didn't reveal the noise problem and you didn't;t put anything in place to sort it, just carried on, hoping to fix it in post - which clearly didn't happen.

You really must learn to be assertive and pro-active. If you have poor actors they need sorting first because they are vital. Then you need to look to your team, and cull anyone who is below par. Your script needs honing and the locations secured. You have shown that you are very bad with plan B decisions, and often get forced into them because your Plan A was faulty.

If you have poor actors they need sorting first because they are vital.

I very nearly said that the only benefit to the bad music and sound was that it distracted from the bad acting on everyone's part. ;-) In all fairness I should add that the "best friend" is the best of the lot. Unlike everyone else, her delivery sounds natural and she is fairly believable.

You really must learn to be assertive and pro-active.

I'll bet you a quarter (or shilling or whatever you use over there) that Ryan will say he sees that as a license to micro-manage even more!

No I don't want the credits to say everything done by me. The only thing that's going to be done by me is the directing and editing, and some of the producing I think and then everything else like the music and sound mixing goes to those people in credits.

well when it comes to being more assertive and proactive I feel I need to be more persuasive too. Like for example if a location or canceled their location on you for the day, how do you be more persuasive and persuade them to change their mind?

That's where people skills come in. Since we don't know the background and the causes of the locations dropping out, we can't say. However, it's unusual for locations etc to drop out on a regular basis.

Maybe I could use a production manager, because I hear they are good at schmoozing people when it comes to locations, or someone of that sort.

Production Managers are not location scouts, and as locations require contracts, they probably wont be on the team at that point. They’re good for keeping the parties amicable once you are there, but you are not good a delegation, so like the composer and mixer, they work with trust and power. They are your most senior representative on site in your producer capacity. They frequently out rank directors, telling them they can or cannot do thinks. When you, as director say, one more, they will be the one whispering in your ear, saying no.

Use whatever works for you, on your budget level they will probably be multi tasking, since you probably won't have a large enough crew for specialists like location managers. As Paul says, there's power dynamics going on and the director isn't always the most powerful person around, so there's a balancing act going on.

I'm not very good with tact and diplomacy - but one of my jobs as I mentioned, is telling the Director he cannot do something, but via a whisper or a gentle eye contact and head shake, so s/he can retain their authority over the team. You get the producer talking to you in one ear wanting 'extras' and the producers in the other telling you to stop them getting any! One producer said to me "you will have our backing, whatever you decide to do" - it would be me to fire the person with their face on the huge posters, or not them. Faced with this, they can become in private, very humble, then they let everyone know THEY have given the production one more chance to get sorted. That's actually a part of my job I enjoy. Firing people is the worst thing you can do to them - at any level in the heirachy.

I once had to fire the producer on a project in development (it was my production company, so I'd hired them). A nice enough person, but I began to realize that they didn't understand the story, its main character or probably the genre.

It's a lot worse firing someone than not hiring them for certain types of projects.

Oh okay, another filmmaker told me that they would use a production manager when it came to dealing with location owners, not on the scout, but afterwards and just keeping the locations secured. But if that's not their job that I can maybe use someone else to do it.

As for the location, it was said before when I wanted to paint the locations and could not, to just live with the imperfections of the location and make due, so wouldn't that go for audio imperfections with the location as well, or should I try to find better locations for audio and visuals?

Always look for for the best locations, go through the full list of options. Then make the decision, many film locations are empty buildings awaiting redevelopment, they may look comfortable but in reality they're cold and damp.

Ryan - you have odd priorities. You happily accept, and not worry about poor sound, yet spend time agonising about the colour of the walls. Have you considered the possibility that maybe you need to reprioritise things? People might well be looking a the acting and the sound rather than the tint of a wall?

I didn't happy accept poor sound, I just went with what I could and was trying not to be perfect, and just tried to face the reality of it. I didn't mean to imply that I accept it happily. As for empty buildings I have looked for those before, but they are hard to find as every building where I live seems to be in use. I can keep looking.