For Independent Filmmakers
Film Audio Post Workflow
Every film starts with a conversation. We watch your picture, listen to your tracks, and sit down with you scene by scene. That way, when we give you an estimate and a timeline, it fits your film exactly, not a film like yours.
The Screening
Send us your current cut and your production audio. Think of it as a friendly checkup for your soundtrack.
Your picture, top to bottom, with your production tracks. A private link to your current cut is all we need to start. It does not have to be locked yet for this step.
Dialogue condition, noise floor, perspective, clipping, coverage gaps. By the end, we know your film well enough to talk about it like collaborators, not vendors.
Nothing. The screening and the conversation that follows cost you nothing but the runtime of your film.
The Spotting Session
A working session with you, scene by scene. You tell us what the film should feel like. We tell you what it will take to get there.
Every dialogue fix, every ADR candidate, every design moment, every music cue. If a clipped or noisy line can be repaired instead of re-recorded, this is where we find out. The original performance is always plan A.
Your vision for the sound, your references, your deadline. Films whose sound you love are the fastest way to align on taste before a single fader moves.
A spotting sheet: the complete inventory of the work, scene by scene. This becomes the blueprint for your estimate, your schedule, and the mix itself.
Your Estimate & Timeline
Once picture is locked and the film is spotted, we build your estimate: what gets done, in what order, by when, and what it costs. Honest, specific, and shaped to fit your budget.
Picture Lock
Your estimate comes from viewing the locked cut. Editorial changes after sound work begins mean conforming work, which adds time and cost. Not locked yet? We can still screen and spot the current cut, then confirm your estimate and timeline at lock.
A 12 minute short and a 95 minute feature are different animals. Series episodes scale differently again.
Clean location sound moves fast. Clipped takes, heavy noise, and off-mic performances need repair, and modern repair tools often save the original performance before ADR is even on the table.
How many lines, how many actors. ADR is recorded through supervised remote sessions, so your actors can record from wherever they are. Every ADR line also carries an edit and a fit-to-picture pass.
Two people talking in a kitchen is one workload. A car crash is another. Action, stylized sequences, and world-building all add design hours.
Original score, licensed tracks, or supplied stems. Each path has a different footprint in the mix.
Festival specs, streaming, broadcast, stereo, 5.1, M&E for foreign sales. The delivery list shapes the back end of the schedule.
Festival submission dates are real. Tell us the date on day one and we build the schedule backward from it.
The Road To Your Mix
Phases overlap by design: dialogue leads, design and music run in parallel, and everything converges at the mix.
Sample Session · Typical Short
Every line cleaned, smoothed, and matched. Noise reduction, de-clip and spectral repair where the production track can be saved.
Only the lines that truly need it. Supervised remote sessions with your actors, wherever they are, then edited and fit to picture so it disappears into the scene.
The world of your film: backgrounds, effects, hard-cut moments, performed Foley. Built to picture, scene by scene, from the spotting sheet.
Original composition, licensed tracks, or your supplied score. Edited, conformed to picture, and prepared for the mix.
Everything converges. Dialogue, effects, Foley, and music balanced into one soundtrack, mixed to your delivery spec.
You review the mix remotely, in full 5.1, using APL Virtuoso. You hear the actual surround mix from wherever you are, give notes in real time, and approve without ever booking a room. The entire workflow is remote from first screening to final approval.
If the budget allows, a final screening pass on a local dub stage. One last listen at theatrical scale before delivery. Optional, and we will tell you honestly whether your film needs it.
Final audio masters to spec. Festival and streaming loudness specs, printmasters, stems, M&E if you need foreign delivery. Checked, logged, and delivered, ready for your DCP or finishing house.
Before You Reach Out
None of this is required to start the conversation, but the more of it you have, the faster we get to your estimate.
- A link to your current cut, with burned-in timecode if you have it.
- Your lock date, or the honest status of the edit.
- Your production audio: all original location recordings, not just what made the cut. The takes you rejected sometimes save a scene.
- An AAF or OMF export from your edit, with handles. Your editor will know exactly what this means, and our delivery and prep instructions walk through every setting.
- Where the film is going: festivals, streaming, broadcast. This defines the formats we master to.
- Your deadline: submission dates, premiere dates, anything fixed.
- Your references: films whose sound you love.
Ready When You Are
Send us your cut. We will watch it, spot it with you, and come back with a real number and a real date. That conversation costs you nothing but the runtime of your film.