Our Creative Director, Mike Zarin, recently had the privilege of being interviewed on the "Behind the Music Business" podcast, hosted by Bridgette Devin. During the episode, they had a conversation about the work we do at Sencit and our commitment to providing top-notch sound solutions for our clients. They explored the influence of sound in different industries, discussing how it can elevate storytelling and create memorable experiences. <a href="https://behind-music.captivate.fm/episode/how-mike-zarin-of-sencit-is-delivering-high-caliber-sound-solutions-to-their-clients">Listen to the podcast </a>to discover more about our journey and the exciting projects we've been involved in.

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Our Interview on Behind the Music Podcast

Between Two Speakers: Eric Archer Q&amp;A
Welcome to our new series, Between Two Speakers, where we chat with editors and creators who are breaking boundaries in trailer audio and redefining the rules of entertainment advertising. We’re bridging the gap between the artists who craft and compose audio and the editors who use their work to build award-winning, game-changing trailers.
 
How do you tell a story in 2.5 minutes without using dialogue? Or music? That was the challenge creative director/editor Eric Archer faced in 2018 when he and editor Dave Herrera began cutting on a limited-budget, little-hyped horror movie entitled A Quiet Place. Three years and one sequel later, Archer has accrued numerous awards for his work on the franchise, including the Golden Trailer Best in Show for the A Quiet Place Part II trailer. On the eve of the release of The Card Counter – for which he cut a trailer and TV spots – we sat down with the man behind some of the most revolutionary sound design to hit trailers in recent years.
 
How did you get into cutting trailers?
 
Before trailers, I was in the feature world. And I could see how the union-sanctioned path to actually cutting a feature, which is what I wanted to do, was very long and laborious. I needed a job, and I had a college buddy who was working at a place called Hammer Films, which is still around. I hated trailers, this was the 90’s and I thought a lot of them were hard sell. But I did notice that there were editors at Hammer who were doing whatever the **** they wanted. Sure it was marketing, but they were in a room by themselves. So I kind of stumbled into it and then eventually fell in love with it, because I’m still cutting and I’ve been doing it for 25 years.
The thing about our industry is that it’s still such a young industry. There’s no “go to this position and then be promoted here, and then suddenly you’re a partner at the law firm.” There isn't a set path for someone to become an editor or a graphic designer. So much of it is mentorship.
 
When it comes to sound design were you yourself mentored or did you just figure it out on your own? 
 
Sound design has evolved so much in the 25 years that I've been cutting. I mean, it's really just you. Along the way you are being unconsciously mentored by your competitors and peers. I had worked at mid to larger shops, and there's a lot of project-swapping. You see what someone is doing, and you're inspired by it. When I got to Ignition in 2008, Doug Brandt was there. And he was very innovative in his use of sound design, most of which he was coming up with on his own. So I was taking a lot of cues from him and what he was doing.
 
 
How has trailer audio evolved during the time you’ve been cutting?
 
I mean, honestly, when I got started, the aesthetic was comparatively simple: Find a song-- there's no such thing as stems most of the time-- and the extent of your sound design was very simple, like Swish booms. And now it’s so sophisticated. Trailer audio now actually blurs the boundary between sound and music. I used to have to hide bad music, like “let me see if I can cut an explosion in there.” It’s not that way anymore, to the point that it’s almost cart before the horse. Now you have to let sound and soundscape dictate the way you're going to tell your story, rather than the other way around.
 
 
 
Was there a specific moment when you realized that things were shifting?
 
I think Doug’s work on things like the Transformers Campaign, as well as Steve Harris’ contributions to that campaign (who is now at The Hive) really changed things for me. That campaign was so sound design-forward. You’re using sound design to tell the story, sounds of things transforming, which is germane to the material because the movie’s obviously about five transforming robots. I'm thinking specifically of certain pieces that used music in an unconventional sense, where rhythm is created by the editor using different sounds. So, the editor kind of becomes a DJ in a way. That's when I really started to notice “oh, we’re not just taking a song and cutting to it anymore.” As things change, you have to change the way you do things. That’s true of music and sound as much as anything during the time I’ve been cutting.
 
 
Do you think these changes have something to do with the audience evolving and expecting more from trailers?
 
Yeah! I have two teenage daughters and they're a pretty good litmus test. When we go to the movies there’s a quick review of each trailer and they see through bullshit right away, especially when they’re the intended audience. The attention span thing is definitely a thing, because they're watching trailers on their phones and this is nothing new. I mean, I'm guilty too; if I come across a trailer on Instagram or something, it better grab me within the first few seconds or I’m gonna go look at my friend's baby pictures instead.
 
Do you think that phone experience is affecting how editors like you layer and edit sounds?
 
You can't really do slow burn openings to trailers anymore. When I'm cutting, even if it's a drama, there has to be a hook at the top. You used to be able to take your time with it, especially when you have an audience in theaters. Now you need to get to them quicker or they’ll turn away. You need that hook.
 
What are some other trends in trailer audio you’ve noticed in the last 5 to 10 years?
 
It feels like everything is customized-- sometimes radically, sometimes subtly -- but it's very rare that you hear a piece of music that's unadulterated from beginning to end. But, that's great, because then you can give it dynamics that maybe aren't already built into the song. Which brings me back to my earlier point about music and design blurring together. The full realization of the alchemy. With so many big action and horror trailers, sound design is really at the forefront. It all becomes part of the same universe, and it’s just very sophisticated. Which is why I think stems are a must for every piece of music now. Even if I'm working with a composer on a 100% custom piece, I still want to be able to manipulate all of the moving parts while I’m cutting. I think different levels of customization are totally key to what we do. If you don’t have stems you don’t have the control you want.
 
 
Can you talk more about your process in working with composers and synch houses?
 
Whoever I’m working with, we have to agree on a reference. Then we’ll try to get on the same page about big issues. You know, here’s what the trailer is going for. And as soon as we agree on a BPM, I’ll start cutting to a click track, sometimes with no music at all. Then I can send what I’m working on to a composer, and keep cutting to the same click track while they’re doing their thing. And when I get the draft back from the composer, I can just drop it right into the cut, and it’s usually about 75% there; and then it’s just a matter of adjusting.
 
 That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of editors cutting to a click track.
 
It allows me to work in parallel with a composer. Also, if a song gets killed, we still have our BPM and it’s really just a matter of finding a replacement that can be customized to the same BPM. There are always large structural changes, but if you have an agreed BPM, it becomes easier to move things around within the same song.
 
 
You’re probably most known for your work on A Quiet Place, and A Quiet Place II. Can you take us inside the process of working on those trailers?
 
For the first piece I was at Ignition. I was Creative Director and the editor was Dave Herrera. Right off the bat, it was a cool challenge: no one can talk, and it definitely didn’t seem like a music-driven proposition. Dave, the editor, gave the music department great direction. He’s like, “I need sound that gives the impression of silence.” And Dave himself was the one who found the Alien Covenant track that has become a big part of the brand. It was very textural, full of those signature subtle, high sounds. So the first half of the teaser for the first movie was all of the alien covenant stuff, eerie textures, and stretches of quiet. It's like dead quiet, and then the little boy knocks over the lantern and you hear this unearthly echo in the distance, but it all had to play in that room - they’re trapped - you’re just on their faces the whole time. These aliens are on the roof, so we’re panning the sound, from left to right, as they cross over, to match their eye line. It was fun because you don’t usually get to sit in a scene like that in trailers. Then there’s the last little run of bombastic music and shrieking to close it out.
 
 
The trailer for the second movie is equally revered for its use of sound design.
 
There's a sequence after the opening where they're walking through this open field, and they have to get through this chain link fence that's got a hole in it. So we used elements in the music that seem like the noises a fence makes. It’s that thing again where you can’t tell what elements are part of the music, and what elements are part of the sound design. And yet, it doesn’t even have to be noticeable to the viewer; what matters is that they feel the quiet of the world of the film, which is setting them up for a scare.
 
So you’re using sound design to invite the audience into the world of the film. That’s really important in an age of streaming and video games where the viewer needs to feel like more than a passive spectator.
 
Great point. I think trailers have evolved to be more immersive for the viewer-- despite the fact we're on phones or laptops-- and so much of that is about music and sound. Then there’s also the marketing side of things, and sometimes what a trailer needs is a famous song that might feel outside the movie, but if it’s the right song and combines with the footage in just the right way, it can inspire something in the viewer. You want to promise something new and fresh every time, but there has to be one element that feels familiar. I think about watching the trailer for Lamb, and I’m like,I want to watch that shit because it just looks crazy to me, I don’t know what to focus on. That’s where the strategy of a well-worn song makes sense. The Beach Boys song we all know, but used in a way to evoke irony. But you can’t keep doing the same shit every time because people will feel like what you’re offering isn’t new enough.
 
You also worked on The Card Counter trailer, which is phenomenal in the way it feels like a Paul Schrader movie from the Golden 70’s, but there’s also something incredibly modern in its presentation.
 
If you know Paul Schrader’s work, I don't think there's any surprise that this film is not very commercial. He goes to dark places. So the idea was to try to make the trailer inviting without bastardizing the movie. The first third of the trailer uses a voice over against the film score. Then the back third, we were tasked with cutting to a song from the movie. The song works in the movie, but it didn’t feel like marketing. So we did a customization on it for the trailer. For the middle, the challenge was finding a vibe that doesn’t exist in the movie. A little bit of swagger. But not like Scorsese rock n’ roll swag. So we found it in a library cue by Rob Deer.
 
Gun to your head, what’s the best needle drop in the history of movie trailers?
 
Beethoven’s Ninth in the Die Hard teaser, which is kind of cliché now, but at the time was like holy shit! Babu O’Reilly in the American Beauty trailer. the Confessions of a Dangerous Mind trailer that uses “Who Are You” by The Who.
 
 
 What are your general thoughts about the state of movie trailers?
 
The trailer is an old form of marketing and it’s as viable now as it’s ever been. It's a miracle that there's still no viable alternative to trailers. Why do trailers still exist in an environment where it's possible to offer snippets of entertainment of varying lengths? So many things about the aesthetics of trailers have changed, but the format itself remains the same: that familiar green band, then a 2.5 minute editorial thing. That's why I feel that we’re an industry at the top of its form. Trailers are so sophisticated and elegant now. And because of the internet and streaming, trailers can potentially be such a huge part of the cultural zeitgeist, which is a power trailers never had before. Like the Die Hardteaser in Beethoven's Ninth is iconic, but it still didn't have the global reach that the last Spider Man trailer had, where 6% of the world watched it. That is crazy.
 
All that said, the mission remains the same: tell me a story and give me some meat on the bone. I want to feel and I want to be in it. I want to know what I mean. As long as you give the audience that, they’re going to want to hear the story.
 
 
 
About The Speaker
Eric Archer
Creative Director &amp; Editor 
 
With a background in the feature world, Eric Archer wanted a creative path but didn’t know if the long and laborious one to cutting features was for him. A friend from college suggested he check out Hammer Creative, an entertainment marketing and trailer creative agency. Originally not a huge fan of trailers, Eric was persuaded by the interesting approach he saw editors taking at Hammer. Twenty five years later, he’s fallen in love with the work and has cut on franchises like A Quiet Place, The Card Counter, and more.

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Between Two Speakers: Eric Archer

Just as horror movies have become less formulaic and more experimental in recent years, so too have the teasers and trailers we use to sell them. Meet Patricio Hoter, the editor/producer behind some of the decade’s boldest horror trailers, as well as award-winning campaigns for prestige series like Watchmen, His Dark Materials, and Lovecraft Country. We recently sat down with Patricio for our series, Between Two Speakers, to talk trailers and trends. Read his interview below or listen to it <a href="https://youtu.be/vyxmRnpRKnE" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here.</a>

Can you talk about how the BOND model works when it comes to music and sound design?
There’s the old model where you put a request for something, whether it is for music or copy or graphics. You receive some form of what you requested, but there are many layers in between that you don’t get to participate in. But at Bond, we are very hands on.
In the case of music, we have Brian Murphy, who has really carved out something truly unique in his role as Director of Music at Bond. I can’t imagine being at a different place and working with a different music supervisor who isn’t Murph. Not only have I worked six years with him at Bond, but also four years at Ant Farm. I don’t even need to put words to what I’m looking for, because he just gets it at this point.

What does it take these days to cut a great horror trailer?
It needs to be unique. You have to keep an eye on what’s current and what’s rote. When we were working on Split or Insidious it was all about “plucks,” everyone was doing sound design that stemmed from 50’s horror. But The Third Day was a completely different campaign. It wasn’t supposed to be a tentpole, it was more abstract, almost indie. It had this weird culty island thing going on. So the question was, “What vibe do you give this so it doesn’t feel like it recycles Midsommar?” I’d go through older library cues on the server, while Brian would pull from his channels, and we’d meet in the middle. We found a piece of music that was so abstract, purely vocal-based. And we worked and worked on that piece and sort of built into it. Next thing we know we’ve finished the piece for the trailer, and there are library cues that are starting to reference our work on The Third Day. That’s what I mean by uniqueness. It’s all about creating something that’s not en vogue, but offsets expectations so well it becomes en vogue.


What do you think is en vogue right now in trailer music and sound?
We’re seeing a lot of orchestral stuff right now. Classical music with boosted hits, as a way to communicate “big” and “elegant.” For all the His Dark Materials campaigns, we went full classical from the very beginning. The footage is beautiful, it’s in Oxford, it’s begging for classical, but we couldn’t just do that. That would be too expected. So we found a violin piece, where the violinist is playing so fast it takes on this supernatural feeling, almost like the violinist is breaking every string as he’s playing. That became the signature piece. Every asset after that used a similar trope. Then for the trailer, we took that element and we injected big female vocals. After the second season, we knew what worked, but we have to figure out how to evolve that. What works doesn’t need to be reinvented, but there are always ways to be bold and unique, and when you do that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.


Can you talk about the ways the trailer audience has changed over the years?
Each year attention spans get shorter and shorter—that’s what bumpers are for. No one likes bumpers, but they were made for a reason. If you’re targeting YouTube you have about 6 seconds to grab their attention. For a TV spot, it’s much less. I have 2 seconds to stop you from getting up and grabbing a beer during the commercial break. The beginning has to have a hook - first comes the buy in, then everything else. The end needs to be open ended, if you give a sense of closure you’ve just given a summary of a film, not a trailer.

There’s a thin line between art and marketing. While it has to be artful it also has to have purpose. Every shot has to be handpicked for a reason. So the reason I strive to create something unique, to continually reinvent myself as an editor, isn’t just artistic. It’s also driven by marketing. I’m trying to do something so unique that the viewer drops everything they’re doing and say, “what is THAT?!” It’s a way of hooking the audience.

Rules are very important. They are absolutely key. But if you know how to break the rules you’ll find the gold that lies underneath them. 
Can you think of a trailer you worked on where breaking the rules actually took the campaign to the next level?
When I was at Ant Farm I put together a teaser for Blair Witch. While a lot of people like found-footage movies, a lot of people are turned off by it in marketing. So how do you get around that? I took the parts of the found footage that looked the best and I filled in the gaps with lots of stock footage for a sense of scope. But the real game changer was the way we re-recorded the song which everyone knows. We said, “What if the concept is that there’s a girl all alone in the idle of the woods, singing this song to herself?” Simone, who at the time was running the Ant Farm music department, said we’ve got all the tools we need to do this right here. We even had a woman in the department named Taylor who had an amazing voice, so she sang the vocals. Instead of adding music and orchestra we added the sounds of the woods so it would truly feel like she was walking through the forest singing to herself. So, you’ve got these big scopey stock shots, and there’s this soundbed composed of winds swirling and building, and it all comes together to create a sense of unexpected chaos and terror. It turns a movie that’s a little small into something that feels like a huge theatrical release.

A couple years ago we did Watchmen, which was interesting because we only had access to dailies. One of them was the famous scene from the show where the characters are all saying, “Tick Tock” which triggered the idea of building a bed of different clock sounds, creating rhythm and chaos, and we synched up a machine to follow the same pattern as the clocks. When you add up all those pieces and everything starts reverberating together, suddenly you’ve created something from nothing. If you’re able to pair a story both visually and narratively, then you have something really unique.


What’s your process when you’re creating a soundbed?
Editorially, I start by watching the film or show as an audience member. I’m trying to disconnect my brain as much as I can to give myself the chance to just enjoy it. That’s when you catch your true reactions, and that’s what speaks volumes. Then I watch again through the analytical marketing lens, what works, what doesn’t. When you start thinking like that, you have to have a sense of purpose.

But when it comes to sound design it’s 100% different every time. It’s the novelty of feeling like you’re starting fresh that inspires me. I have a “ping” I use in almost every trailer, it’s sort of my easter egg. Other than that, I love the challenge of breaking the mold every time.

Most of my work is in horror or at least darker material. Timing is key. The moment you become predictable or set up a cadence that people can follow is the moment you lose your audience. You have to get people to really feel the fear. With horror it comes down to constantly reimagining what you’ve done, and then abandoning that completely so you can bring something so new you offset people’s expectations. Unexpected is key. I love sound designing. If you can create a cadence the audience can follow, and then offset it, there’s a lot of reward in that. I love minimalism, it really is a game of precision at that point.

Do you find yourself using bespoke services quite a bit?
Definitely. There was a time early in my career where you’d find the right library cue and go with that. Now we’re in a place where 99% of the time, we take a sound that’s a great starting point; then we re-interpret and give it the DNA of what we’re going for. Or we take a stem that is almost there and we cut it up, sort of mapping an idea we’re going for. Once you have that skeleton you can go back to the composer and inject the DNA that’s missing for the particular project you’re working on. It’s a process that’s very time consuming, but it’s very rewarding. It’s all about creation.


What’s the best needle drop in the history of movie trailers?
Baby Driver has that great in-film song mixed with sound design. And I would definitely highlight the usage of “Downtown” on the new Last Night in Soho trailer. Minimalistic and beautiful. Then again I would also highlight Bad Times at El Royal with “This Old Heart of Mine.” Too many to choose from.


About The Speaker
Patricio Hoter,
Creative Director/Editor/Producer at BOND

Born in Argentina, Patricio Hoter started his creative career at Orphanage in the Bay area where he focused on VFX and animation. After his time at Skywalker Ranch working for ILM, a George Lucas company, he made his way to LA-based Fitness company, BeachBody as Head of Graphics. During his time at Beach Body, he started video editing. While he began expanding his editing portfolio on the side - taking jobs through Craigslist - he was approached by Darren Lynn Bousman, director of the Saw films, to cut a trailer. From there, he was hooked. Patricio was introduced to Ignition and eventually transitioned to Ant Farm. Now, Patricio is Editor and Creative Director, where he started as the company’s 12th employee in their AV department. To Patricio, BOND’s newly-formed AV department presented itself as a startup with very strong pillars dedicated to building a pool of unique talent and editors. Drawn to their roundtable style collaboration, he works directly with clients to deliver their needs and create a seamless experience.

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Between Two Speakers: Patricio Hoter

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Between Two Speakers: Dave Rosenthal

Welcome to our new series, Between Two Speakers, where we chat with editors who are breaking boundaries in trailer audio and redefining the rules of entertainment advertising. We’re bridging the gap between the artists who craft and compose audio and the editors who use their work to build award-winning, game-changing trailers.
How do you tell a story with music and visuals in just a few minutes? Trailer editor Aaron Blum shares how it all comes to life. With the pandemic and the rise of streaming, Aaron talks trailer trends and elements that he thinks are here to stay. Read his interview below or listen to it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve2dQqjbU8s&amp;t=3s">here</a>. How would you describe the shift that’s happened with music and <a href="https://www.sencit.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sound design</a> for trailers over the last few decades?
When you look at trailers from 20 years ago, their music and sound design wasn’t as intensive. Music has always been a big part of it, but I think that there's definitely more experienced experimentation going on with the way that music and sound design can be used for trailer's over the past year 5-10 years. One that really stuck out to me was the Mad Max: Fury Road trailer. I remember when it came out, the sound design really resonated and I thought it was very unique. And, of course, every few years, you have a trailer that makes a big impact, and then you have a bunch of other trailers trying to do the same thing or build off of that. You start to see these shifts and how it’s becoming more about sound design Is there a particular project you've worked on where you feel like the music and sound choices you made defined the course for the trailer?
I always really like working with music in general. The music was the thing that pulled me into this business. I try to make it pretty pivotal with any project that I’m working on. Especially with trailers. When I’m working with an existing song or something like that, I’m always trying to pick it apart and see what element of a song can be used in a way that you wouldn’t have originally thought of. Whether it’s a certain melody that’s in there, an instrumental, or stems, I’ll use that to loop it or build on top of it in a way that’s totally unique. When you're creating a trailer, are you thinking about the music budget when you're selecting music and sound design or do you start with the creative vision?
Yeah, I let the <a href="https://www.sencit.net/services/music-supervision">music supervisor</a> work that stuff out. I don’t usually have any concept of most of the budgets. I usually go with whatever feels good. As far as the actual cues and sound design, I’ll pull that; but for certain songs I’ll work with the music supervisor to pull some things and we’ll figure it out. Do you find that, in terms of the music you're going for, you're always collaborating with the music supervisor? At least in your most recent experience, in the last eight years?
Yeah, if I like the direction of a song but feel like it needs to be bigger, the music supervisor figures out how to do a custom mix on it or something. And we work together to figure out what’s the best cue for the project. Have you ever been in a scenario where they're not available, and you have to do that on your own?
Not necessarily. Sometimes if I have an idea, I’ll start pulling stuff myself and start cutting with it. Then I might ask them if we can do something with it. But it’s usually pretty collaborative. Do you feel like you're seeing more bespoke and custom work in trailers these days? Or do you think the industry is reverting back to more manicured, original music?
It seems like it's just evolving. A few years ago, the soft piano covers were the big thing, and that’s definitely come down a little bit. But there’s still custom versions of songs still being done. I think it is just constantly evolving to fit the current trends and whatever project it is. I think there's a mix of both though, depending on the project and if it feels like it warrants something extra versus the unadulterated version. Do you think the industry is leaning towards recognizable songs? Whether it's a cover of a song, trailerized or not, is that a trend?
I'm not personally concerned about whether or not the song is recognizable. I’m just going for feeling; whatever feels right for the project. If that happens to be something that's not super recognizable, that’s cool, but it’s not necessarily something I’m looking for when I start a project. I’m looking for the best thing to fit the mood. If there’s a certain lyric, melody, or beat that feels right. Have you seen a decrease in production library queues finishing in major trailers? Do you feel like we're moving away from that?
I don't think so. I think that library cues still have a place. I still use them regularly on stuff I'm working on, whether it be TVs or trailers. It just depends on what the emotion is that you're going for. It depends on if you’re trying to hit a certain feeling or need it to accentuate what’s happening in the story and in the trailer itself. Each has their place, it just depends on the needs of the cut. As you're building that out and getting the feel, you mentioned that you like to pull your own sound design. Do you have a particular method of approaching sound design and creating that bed? Do you have a particular way to go about finding the sounds and figuring out what works?
I’ll dig through and start mining some past projects that I've done or go through our music library. There’s sound design that I know of that I’ll pull from. If there’s a certain sound where I’m looking for something different, I’ll go to the music supervisor and ask if they have a certain effect that I might need. When you're not on a project, do you use that time to expand that?
Yeah, for sure. I’ll look through libraries, just seeing if there's anything new that sticks out, that could be good to have on hand. I’ll casually see what’s out there. What do you think the pros and cons are of editing trailers in the age of streaming?
I tackle a streaming project the same way that I would a theatrical project. It doesn't really make a difference. Where it’s being released doesn’t really affect me. That said, a streaming project doesn’t quite get the same outreach or attention that it would if it was theatrical. You don’t have the captive theater audience that you had previously. I know personally, my attention has been even more drawn back in the last year. I haven’t seen nearly as many trailers as I did before the pandemic. With that dwindling awareness, I think a lot of the smaller movies get sidelined now. Could you imagine a marketing scenario in the future where the trailer becomes something different, since we don’t have as many people traditionally watching them in a theater? 
It's kind of hard to predict. It seemed like things were getting ready to completely open back up and then the Delta variant happened. And who knows what else is coming down the pipeline. I think it’ll be interesting to see over the next year if things adjust and if we get back to a state of normalcy. Even though I feel like I haven’t seen as many trailers over the last year, we are starting to find a groove in how to market the stuff. In the first few months of the pandemic you didn’t see a lot of lead up for certain things. But there’s a little more going on now. Do you think about how someone will watch your trailer? Like the fact that it could be coming out of a little phone speaker and not some big Dolby speakers?
Not really. That's definitely relevant, but at the same time, we were already starting to go that way anyway. Even though there were still trailers being shown in theaters, a good majority of people were watching trailers on YouTube. The new Spider Man trailer had something like 20 million views in the first 24 hours or something crazy like that? So that’s how a lot of people are watching this stuff to begin with anyway. Do you have a lot of experience creating bespoke or working with libraries like Sencit to customize an audio bed? Or are you mostly giving feedback?
My music supervisor is more in contact with the libraries and actually handles that. But he and I will sit down and build out a rough bed and discuss what we think it needs. He’ll then pass that along to the companies with his own feedback. We’ll go back and forth until we feel like we have something that fits our needs. I do like the intermediary, that’s the only way I’ve done it. I value his opinion and enjoy the discussion. It helps filter it a bit. As a music lover, do you have a genre of music that you gravitate towards as an editor? Or do you have a genre of movie or TV show that you tend to specialize in, and do the two things have anything to do with each other?
Not necessarily. I’m definitely more into alternative indie music, but I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve been able to work on a variety of genres and stuff. Like animation, comedy, drama, rom-coms. I’ve been able to get a spectrum of things. We have music and cues that I would listen to on my own, and that’s cool, but if it fits the project, I’m able to get excited about it regardless of the genre. If it’s good, it’s good. If it’s able to give me chills, it doesn’t matter what genre it is. If it elevates the story and the trailer, I’ll get hyped for that. Is there a trailer in history that best resonates as the best use of a song, or needle drop of any piece of music?
The Social Network teaser is definitely one that still gives me chills. There were a lot of elements there that started a wave of similar music and sound design. It’s the same thing with the Inception trailer, where it was very iconic and ground breaking at the time and then everyone else was trying to do something similar.
 
About The Speaker 
Aaron Blum Editor Transit
 
With a background in cinema and television arts, Aaron Blum started his creative career wanting to direct music videos. He was drawn to short-form storytelling and was pleasantly surprised when trailer editing offered him the same opportunity. A family friend turned him on to it and helped him land a job as an Assistant Editor at Transit. From there, he worked his way up to his current position as an Editor, overseeing a host of TV spots and trailers including The Fault in Our Stars, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and more.

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Between Two Speakers: Aaron Blum

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Between Two Speakers: Joel Salsburey

Welcome to our new series, Between Two Speakers, where we chat with creatives who are breaking boundaries in trailer audio and redefining the rules of entertainment advertising. We’re bridging the gap between the artists who craft and compose audio and the editors who use their work to build award-winning, game-changing trailers.
Finding the right track for your project can feel like a journey with no map. Andrea McDowell, a seasoned editor, who has worked for NBC and the Hive at Disney, navigates creativity (and libraries) with her music-first approach. Read her interview below or listen to it <a href="https://youtu.be/nrP3EZBtOWk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>. 
Can you share some thoughts on how you approach music and <a href="https://www.sencit.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sound design</a>? What's your process regarding music, and what does music mean to you, as a creative editor?
I'm sure you hear this a lot, but for me, the music is number one. It’s the key, more than anything else—dialogue, picture, anything. It's what gets my ideas going. I have always loved music and had varied tastes in music, and I'd like to think I have good taste in music. Bottom line I've just always been somebody who's very music-oriented. What I tend to do with a project is I'll string out some dialogue lines that I think could work. Then I’ll loosely put them on a string. Next I’ll go through the bin of music that the <a href="https://www.sencit.net/services/music-supervision" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">music supervisor</a> has provided for us—they're like selects for this particular project. I'll pick my favorites, then from my favorites, I'll place them under the dialogue string that I've laid out. I’ll start listening, and usually for me, that is what helps choose the music. All day long, I can go, “oh, this song is perfect.This song is great,” but I'll put it under the dialogue and it's like, “oh, that's not keying off for me.” I cannot necessarily predict it until I hear it against the media itself. So, I throw a bunch in, and then all of a sudden, something clicks. I can tell, because when I find the right song, it's like, my heart kind of starts racing, and I get a little excited. And it's like, “oh, oh, oh!” and then ideas start happening. So, for me, the music is when the ideas start happening.
 
When you're doing that, are you just doing it from a creative perspective? Are you ever thinking about the budget of the project? 
Nope, I never think about that because as far as I'm concerned, if they put it in a bin, they said I can use it. It’s good to go. On the lower budget projects, you do notice quite a difference in music selection. And it's like, “Oh, Lord.” So then, at that point, it does become about choosing the least painful cue. 
 
So, in either case, you're pulling your music from a pre-set selection of music instead of stepping out into the world and finding the music? 
When I was at NBC, I had to go out in the world and find my own music. When I was there, I did have to be much more aware of the budget, but my method was always to pick a song, even if it cost a bunch of money. So, that way, if I play it for people and they love it, then they'll be more likely to pay for it. But, yeah, so I did have to be a little conscious of that at NBC and I did have to go do my own searches at NBC, which is tough. As you know, libraries are always adding so much stuff, so keeping up can be difficult. In the theatrical world, or at least at this job, we have a music supervisor who cultivates a bunch of cues that they think would be applicable to a certain project. Once in a while, if I don't like the pulse that they've done or want something different, I will branch out and go listen to some stuff on my own. 
 
Do you ever get into custom pieces or bespoke stuff to take a cue to the next level or trailerize something that maybe just isn't bringing quite enough energy? We do. It didn't finish but I worked on a teaser and a trailer for Cruella and we had a cool Tina Turner song. We sent it out to have it trailerized. We do that fairly often. Or, it'll be a cue that we're, like, “This is a dope cue, but we need more of a backend.” We need another next level at the end. We'll send it back to the library and say, “Hey, can you add onto this?”
 
Do you interface with the music company directly or does that always go through your music supervisor?
It's a little bit of both. It usually goes through our music supervisor but sometimes he will have us interact as well. If I have specific ideas, then it's easier for me to just explain it to someone. I personally am terrible with that, that's its own skill. I think editors who have a music background, like musicians or people who at one time were musicians, have quite an advantage. They have a certain vocabulary, and they’re able to talk to libraries in a much clearer way. For me, it's really hard sometimes to put it into words. A lot of times, I rely on other people to have those conversations, because I don’t want to be vague. 
 
 
Was NBC the only job where you didn't have support on that?
Yeah. It was the only job I had where I had to do my own searching and stuff. And it’s hard keeping up. 
 
Do you have any good stories about a project you worked on where music proved to be the most pivotal component?
Back at NBC, I worked on a show called Shades of Blue. We had this idea to use Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence, which I guess evidently never clears. It's a thing—they don't ever let people use it in <a href="https://www.sencit.net/">marketing</a>. But I cut a spot to a cover of it, and they pushed it and somehow got it cleared. It's a pretty cool spot. The whole thing was about the song. Same with a trailer I cut for Emerald City, that was another one we spent weeks agonizing over the song. Once we found that song, the whole thing came together, and it was awesome. The footage was really slow and kind of plodding, but it's amazing how you can show a shot of somebody walking into a hall, and it can be the most boring shot of all time. But if you put the right cue behind it all of a sudden, it’s interesting. Mysterious. It changes everything. 
 
Is it safe to say that music is the answer every time? 
For me, yes. I don't know if other editors are less reliant on it, but for me, absolutely. It's sort of the key to unlock. I'll have a vague idea of how I want to do something, and it all changes when I pick a song. Especially now, because I use stems a lot more. I didn't used to at NBC because we were churning things out. But now, when we have time to craft something using stems, that really can key off a lot of ideas I wouldn't normally have had if I start listening to things individually, because you'll find a pulse or something that's on its own. You're like, “that is dope, how can I make a whole section just to highlight that pulse.” I’ll rework everything in the trailer because I want to use that one section of that pulse. 
 
Does sound design impact your process in the same way as music, or does it come at a different time in your flow? Sound design is something that I'm consistently working on. I would say it's probably one of my biggest weaknesses. I can get by with what I do with sound design, but I don't think I’m particularly innovative with sound design. Usually I build out the music, the dialogue, and some video, and then I layer on sound design after. The most I'll do early on is if there's a really great hit I like, or something that goes well with the song, I'll start putting it in spots in the song so I can hear where the hit points are so I can work my video around that. That really helps me. I appreciate sound so much when other people use it in a really original, unique way. It’s really one of the main things I'm working on as an editor, is expanding that more. It can just be intimidating and overwhelming when you spend hours finding the right hit for a particular song. 
 
As a solution to feeling overwhelmed, do you look to music supervisors to put together packages for you? Or do you dig back through what you’ve already used before? Yeah. I think most editors are a slave to their favorites. Most editors have access to endless cool new stuff, but everything I use is from my favorites bin. Then in the comments, I've been trying to note if it's low, mid, high, fast, slow, long, you know, like ring out. Then I can look and know if something is going to work without listening to it over and over again. I was like, how are editors organizing their sound effects in a way where they don't spend hours listening to things, just to find the right hit for a certain moment?
Check out Sencit’s reorganized <a href="https://www.sencit.net/packets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sound library and packets</a>, built for easy browsing.
Whenever you have little downtime between projects do you use that to explore new sounds and update your personal soundbank?
I do, I should do it more. One of our music supervisors sends updates every couple weeks with new albums from different libraries, and it gives a brief description of them. Which again, is so helpful. I'll go through his emails and look at what he has sent, and find some stuff that could work for future projects. So I use that as a guideline, because if I go into a shared folder, it's hundreds and hundreds of bins. It's totally overwhelming.
Have you noticed any trends that are happening in terms of music and sound design? Or can you see any trends coming through the pipeline that you feel will become full blown?
I am personally getting fatigued with the very predictable rhythmic cutting style that's been happening for a while. The drums are hitting, and it's like ‘punch punch punch’ and while it’s cool —I do it—I am starting to get fatigued because it's starting to become predictable. I don't know how to break out of that, but I’m curious if that's going to shift because I feel like it's becoming a little too predominant. I'm trying to focus more on instances where you don't need as much sound. It doesn’t have as much impact if you’ve inundated the audience. Have you guys heard of Steve Harris? He’s an old-school trailer editor, he works at Disney, he's been doing it for a long time. Most editors in the industry, if it’s a sound thing, they think Steve Harris. He’s the guy. What I think is most interesting about Steve is he never uses expensive sound design, he uses free stuff. He uses random stuff, I mean, he's innovative. I watched something he did a while ago, it didn't finish, it was a trailer. And it opened, really minimal, really quiet, letting the song play, letting the moments play. There was a sound that was happening as the song was playing, and at a really quiet part of the song, there was this sound, I couldn't place what it was, but something about it was just kind of keeping the rhythm going, and I looked at his sequence. He had taken the sound of an industrial fan from a free library. It’s not a sound design piece. It's just an actual, industrial fan sound and he had layered that to create this whole atmosphere and urgency. That's the kind of stuff he does. He uses really out of the box sounds, and creates pads and moments. 
Can you talk generally, about the pros and cons of editing trailers, and streaming versus theatrical?
I would say one of the pros is sometimes there is less competition in the streaming world. So, that can be motivating because you have more of a chance of something finishing. But that isn’t always the case. Some of the smaller streaming projects I've gotten to work on don't put a ton of people on and that's really cool, and also just all around cool films. Not much difference though, it’s pretty similar in my world. There’s a lot more branding
What’s one of your favorite uses of music in a movie trailer? That movie Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez. I don't know if you guys have watched the trailer for that recently, but I think it was a Cardi B Song. It’s a super basic Cardi B song, and they cut the crap out of it and it is such a cool trailer. You always know when it's a good cue for me. If it's a good trailer and a good cue, and I'm watching it for the first time, I get teary every time. You'd think by now I’d be jaded and wouldn't do that, but I do. 
About The Speaker 
Andrea McDowell Trailer Editor The Walt Disney Studios
 
Andrea McDowell’s career is a testament to the fact there is no set path. She didn’t have a college degree and was a high school dropout, but found her passion in the entertainment industry. Her first gig was at a local news station where she was exposed to all kinds of jobs with the camera, teleprompters, and cutting. The editing side of the work was always her favorite. She moved to LA and reached out to some contacts she had in the industry, which led her to her next role as an Editor at Trailer Park. Andrea felt an instant connection with the work, having always had a passion for music and cinema. From there she spent time at Universal Pictures and NBC as an Editor, and now focuses primarily on family and animation content as an Editor at <a href="https://www.andreaedits.com/">Tiny Girl Creative</a>.

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