Costs for post Sound Mix?

[Christopher Barrett]

Trying to gauge the cost of the sound mix for our new short. 20 minutes, narrative, nothing special. Can you guys give me any sort of ballpark on what that ought to cost me for the post production sound mix?

Much Appreciated!
CB

 

[Björn Benckert]

It's all depending what studio you turn to.. And what kind of mix you need/want. if you want to sit with a talented person in a decent studio you need to calculate about 3000USD/day.. for a 20 minute short I would calculate about 4 days. Then if you want a compositor making music, or if you buy music rights and or have an agent buying the rights for you... then the actual studio / sound designer fee is just the a reference for where it all starts. So for a short with tight budget I suggest that you find a studio that needs some work for their reel and / or that you provide with more lucrative work at other times. The good thing with sound is that it's now very much international... you can upload sound files and a quicktime ref and then they can work anywhare on the planet and you can follow thw work tough skype connection or web downloads etc.. it's not so data heavy as online picture work or such.

In other words find a sound guy that want to be you future work mate and ask for a freebee

 

[Nick Morrison]

Chris, I would say a reasonable rate for a personal project is anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000. Especially if they mix it unsupped and just send you quicktimes to listen to and review.

If you have a friend who's a mixer and can help you do this as a favor, obviously that's always an option. However, w/out an established relationship, if you can be introduced to a mixer who wants to get into narrative I'd say the rates I gave you are reasonable.

This does not include composing music however. As mentioned by the OP, music is a whole other ball of wax.

 

[Christopher Barrett]

Thanks guys, that really helps. The score is underway and is an entirely separate expenditure.

Turns out... making movies is damn expensive!

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Send me a PM. I will try to hook you up.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I think a lot depends on expectations, the nature of the production dialog, the complexity of the effects tracks, the amount of ADR expected, processing and fixes needed, and the amount of music. You didn't specify a stereo mix or a 5.1 surround mix, but that can also have an effect on the final budget. Number of cuts and degree of difficulty are also big factors; two people having an argument in a room for 20 minutes would be a different situation than, say, a minute at an airport, a minute at the beach, a long chase sequence careening around the streets in a car, a gun battle, and a plane crash.

I think you need to sit down with a sound supervisor going over your intentions, the script, and the state of your existing (presumably temp) tracks. If you have alternate tracks, multi-track isos, and OMF export capability, this will help your sound editor quite a bit. Note that sound editing and sound mixing are very different job functions, and both will be needed for the final mix.

The people on the Gearslutz Forum's Post section may have some recommendations for you in Chicago. I know of a half-dozen places that cater to indie filmmakers in LA, but that's a big jump from the midwest. I think a couple of meetings with different mixing stages can yield a "good/better/best" price range designed to meet your budget and schedule. Literally, I've seen mixes for a 20-minute film take a day, and others take over a week. Realistically, I think 2 days for a dialog edit, 2 days for sound effects, a day for a rough mix, and a day for the final are not unreasonable. Not all of these need to take place in an expensive room -- it could be one guy in a home studio for some of the meat-and-potatoes editing, then a final mix stage for the last two days.