Frank Serafine Sound Effects For Mac
Frank Serafine We recently sat down to talk with film industry veteran Frank Serafine, who’s body of work spans almost 40 years from film, to events, to education and much more. Throughout his career, Frank has help set the standards for sound quality and innovation in the industry, and in this interview, he talks about his career, his passion for high quality audio, and his love for Direct Sound Headphones. Direct Sound: Talk about how you got started in the business. Frank: My first film in Los Angeles was the first Star Trek film, the motion picture. I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I owe a lot of my success to the people who taught me how to do it, which were all my friends that showed me how to do Star Trek back in the days.
Direct Sound: Who were some of those early influencers? Dungeon siege updater 1.2 free download for mac. Frank: Cecilia Hall, George Waters, Richard Anderson, all the great sound editors that were all Oscar winners from that era.
I was the new kid on the block that knew how to create sounds on a synthesizer, which nobody could do at the time. Listen to a podcast interview with Frank: Audio Player (Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.) Direct Sound: What was the business like then? Frank: I came in from the music industry side, and it was back in the day when I could get on the Paramount lot. It was before 9/11, so I could sneak on the lot. I had my Sony cassette unit and I’d make lasers, and warp acceleration effects, and all the different Star Trek sound effects.
The wormhole, the transporter effects, I’d make them on my synthesizers. Direct Sound: What did you do with the samples once you had them? Frank: I was a pioneer of being able to work out of my home with my synthesizer-based studio. I was a session musician at the time, and had a little recording setup where I could actually do my own recordings.
Direct Sound: What year was it? Frank: This is 1978. Home recording studios, first of all, weren’t even allowed by the city officials. They wouldn’t let you work out of your home back then. I was bucking the system — not only the codes, but doing music and sound in my home, which was, as we all know now, is the joy of making music, really. I was able to create a lot of sound effects in my home studio, and back then, it was out of my one-bedroom apartment.
Direct Sound: Were you mixing at home too? Frank: Yes, I used headphones a lot because I was working out of an apartment. So I’ve gotten used to using headphones over the years because you can hear so much more in headphones. It really puts things under the microscope, so to speak. Direct Sound: So a lot has changed for you since the one-bedroom apartment days!
Frank: It’s been almost forty years since I did that first Star Trek movie, and I’ve seen the industry come to where it is now from total analog. I was working on thirty-five millimeter magnetic film back when I did that for a Star Trek film, and watched it go through the digital era. Direct Sound: You were using Pro Tools back then, right? Frank: Yes, I was one of the first ones to initiate Pro Tools on a major motion picture.
Pro Tools back in the day was just a music program, and no one would allow us to use it in the film industry. It was 35 millimeter, that’s the way it was. We were pioneers, and there were a lot of things that couldn’t be done at the time, especially when we were editing dialog.
Direct Sound: Did your film career start picking up after Star Trek? Frank: Yes, I did the sound design for the movie “Hunt for Red October,” and I used Pro Tools on that film.
That was the first film to actually use Pro Tools for a major motion picture and it won the Oscar that year. That was a great thing. It thrusted us into the industry and proved to everybody that we could go digital. Then, my next film was “Lawnmower Man,” and the director on that film let me cut all the dialog on Pro Tools. So we were the pioneers of bringing Pro Tools into the industry, starting back in the ’80s. Direct Sound: Did you do any work outside of film? Frank: Over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of educational things.
I taught at UCLA Extension for quite a few years. And, I wrote the curriculum and set up the sound department for the Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood. Recently, I launched a 33-city educational tour throughout U.S. And Canada that toured this last Summer. Direct Sound: Which brings us back to your current work with DigitalTutors.com Frank: Yes, now I’m working with Digital Tutors, which is one of the top creative training sites for super high-end visual effects programs like Nuke, Maya, After Effects, Illustrator. A lot of architects are on it – professionals who use Civil 3D and AutoCAD, so it attracts a really interesting group of super high-end visual effects professionals and trainers. And DigitalTutors.com has chosen me to be the sound educator for the site.
Frank Serafine Sound Effects For Mac
Direct Sound: How did you get involved with DigitalTutors.com? Frank: After coming off this 33-city tour, I was inspired to do what I could to make sure the next phase of education is of the highest caliber, and Digital Tutors has a community of the highest-end trainers throughout the world in visual effects, basically. That’s what they specialize in, and sound is the companion to visual effects. There are so many different programs that we’re going to be able to introduce through Digital Tutors, it’s going to be great. Direct Sound: What’s your role with the company? Frank: I’m going to help raise the bar of the way they have been doing training.
Up to now, their productions have been fairly simple with screenshots and narrations. With regards to audio, there’s going to be a lot more involved. They’re sending a camera crew around with us during our productions right now. Direct Sound: What else are you involved with currently?
Frank: We’re in the process of finishing a film called “Voodoo,” and we’re going to be doing the mix for it. We’re also working on creating sound design for Dolby Atmos theaters with the new Zoom F8, which is an eight-channel portable field recorder that records in the highest resolution, 196 kilohertz, 24 bit. It’s a very sophisticated little lunar module, I call it, because it’s just so darn high-tech. It’s got a built-in time code output on it, and we’re able to lock up two of them, which gives us 16 channels of fully-portable, 196 kilohertz resolution out in the field.
We’re recording all of our sound effects, and then we bring that back into the Dolby Atmos theater where we listen back. Frank Serafine and Mark Lewis with Direct Sound headphones Direct Sound: Talk a little bit more about the 33-city Sound Advice tour. Frank: It was 33 cities in seventy days. I pretty much set up that tour and got the whole thing rolling, and then one of my partners, Mark Lewis, performed at quite a few of the cities. I set the whole tour up, and I wrote it, but it was a little bit too tough for me personally to do all 33 cities. Mark Lewis picked up and did a great job on a lot of the cities, because there were times where it was three cities in three days, and it’s a ten-hour day. Direct Sound: Talk a little bit about the new Star Trek film.
What’s your role in that, and how is that evolving? Frank: About a year and a half ago, we did the Disney-Marvel interactive Avengers museum in New York City, and Alec Peters was one of the producers on that show.
It was probably one of the world’s highest-tech interactive theaters, integrating incredible sound technology, screen technology, touch-screen technology. And, there’s a planetarium in it. Direct Sound: Is the exhibit still up?
Frank: They’re currently taking it down and moving it to Las Vegas, where it will be for the next year or two. So, I met Alec Peters through that project, and he was producer on “Axanar,” which is a Star Trek film. We did a 15-minute version of the film, which was put up on Kickstarter and it ended up pulling down a million bucks. They’ve already put together their shooting stages in Valencia, just north of Los Angeles, so we’re in the process of shooting the film right now.
Direct Sound: When will it be done? Frank: I’m hearing that it’ll be done by the end of this year.
Although, I don’t know for sure because I haven’t done anything yet, and usually I’d be working by September if it was a December release. So, my guess is that it’s probably a summer release.
Direct Sound: Let’s switch gears. Talk about Direct Sound headphones and why you like them. Frank: Headphones are going to play a really big part here very soon in the way that we mix films due to the technology that we’re getting through these companies like DTS with Headphone:X and Dolby with their Atmos theaters. You need major real estate in order to replicate a 64-speaker Atmos theater. Direct Sound: What does that have to do with headphones?
Frank: Here is what’s happening with the future of mixing. These multi-speaker theaters are basically dominating the theater business now. Headphones are not only going to be playing a big part in the way that we listen back to those films in your headphones coming off of your iPhone, your iPad, your laptop, or in your studio, they’re going to play a very big part of how we perceive 3D audio.
Direct Sound: Why is that? Frank: Because the thing about headphones is that they create the upper sphere of dimension that we don’t have unless we create a 64-speaker theater. Unless we’re able to do that and go into one of these big theaters and listen back to full high-resolution Dolby Atmos sound, the only other option to hear it that well is in headphones. Direct Sound: So the need for a pair of high quality headphones is going to increase? Headphones are going to be the standard by which we listen to 3D audio and how we end up mixing it until we get to the final theater stages.
Direct Sound: What is it you like about the Direct Sound Extreme Isolation headphones? Frank: There are three different things.
They feel good, that has to be number one in order to want to wear headphones for long periods of time. They sound excellent, and they have the isolation I need when I’m out in the field and I really need to hear what I’m getting with my field recording. Direct Sound: So you don’t just use them in the studio? Frank Serafine – in the field with Direct Sound EX-29s Frank: They play a fantastic role out in the field, and when I get back into the studio, they also play a big role because that’s how I’m monitoring a lot of the materials that are coming in. There’s no other way to monitor those polyphonic sound effects except through headphones or a giant 64-speaker theater. The Direct Sound headphones are a pro utility headphone that I’ve been using for a long time now. I have quite a few of them, so they end up being used for a lot of different things.
Direct Sound: Which models do you use? Frank: I have both the EX-29s and the EX-25s, and they’re both great.
I probably have four pairs of them, so they’re all over the place. I’ve got so many recording devices that I need headphones for, like the Zoom H6, which is my handheld recorder. I just got the new Zoom F8, which is 192 kilohertz, and when you’re listening at the highest resolution like that, you need to have the highest quality headphones to hear that resolution. So we’re depending on the Direct Sound headphones to be able to listen to the frequency we’re recording at high resolution. They’re playing a big role in what we’re doing. Direct Sound: Is there a current project you’re using the headphones to mix with?
Frank: Right now, I’m editing this film called “Voodoo.” We’re editing at the director’s house, and he doesn’t have a studio there. Like most people, he’s got cheap little speakers coming out of his TV, so we listen through headphones, and that’s how we do all our sound editing.
We’re editing on my high-end Mac laptop using Pro Tools. Direct Sound: What about current work in the field?
Frank: We’re shooting a lot of stuff for DigitalTutors.com out in the field, and we’re using these new Zoom cameras to do a lot of that footage. The headphones are playing a big part in listening to what we’re doing out in the field getting good production sound.
The EX-29s and the EX-25s are really good for production sound, because you really need good isolation when you’re on the set or you’re out in the field, and the fatigue factor when it comes to wearing headphones can be tough. Direct Sound: Sounds like you’re pleased with the results from your Direct Sound headphones! You guys have figured out is how to make nice, comfortable headphones, very light, that sound really, really good, and have excellent isolation.
I don’t think you can get much better than that.