The MZed Sound Advice Tour is the latest traveling workshop is a continuing series presented by Monte Zucker – Education for Creatives (which we’ve covered here at DV Info Net before; most recently with MZed’s Illumination Experience with Shane Hurlbut). The Sound Advice Tour is currently swinging through 33 cities in the USA and we’re looking forward to seeing them next week in our own neighborhood when it reaches Austin, Texas on June 8th. Designed for filmmakers, editors, and aspiring sound engineers, the Sound Advice Tour is an all-day workshop covering the techniques and tools that will expand any videographer’s skill set.
MZed corralled two impressive instructors for the Sound Advice Tour — Frank Serafine and Mark Edward Lewis. Both have IMDB pedigrees as long as your arm (click their names for links!) and both have a solid background not only in sound editing but in a wide variety of filmmaking roles. Serafine has been a sound designer, supervising sound editor, sound effects creator, re-recording mixer, and composer on a wide variety of popular Hollywood titles including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, TRON, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, The Addams Family and The Hunt for Red October, to name just a few. We caught up with Frank in Las Vegas at NAB2015 where he was representing Zoom and working in the Sony booth — which was huge — and very busy. I’m pretty sure that he was more than pleased to step out to the main concourse of Central Hall, and speak with Barlow Elton for DV Info Net about the Sound Advice Tour (run time for the video below is 6min. 48 sec.).
Frank ran the Sound Advice workshop for the first half of the tour, while the second half is taught by Mark Edward Lewis. It’s a bit difficult to describe Mark’s filmmaking accomplishments because it seems like he’s done just about everything, in every department! At various points throughout his career he’s been a writer, producer, director, cinematographer, production manager, musician… yes, he’s even been a stunt double. He’s also appeared in front of the camera as well, acting most recently in Star Trek New Voyages: Phase Two and Omega 1 television series. Most of his screen credits, though, are for editing, sound design and composing. We’re looking forward to seeing him at the Austin workshop next week. Look for a follow-up to this article to appear on DVi shortly thereafter.
This comprehensive audio workshop is a full day, starting at 9am and going to 7:30pm. It’s conducted in a large meeting room of a major metro area hotel with plenty of lunch and dinner locales nearby. The exact location varies with each city; in Austin it’ll be at the Hilton downtown (for info about other cities and dates, check out the Sound Advice tour registration page at MZed). The cost is $299 which includes post-workshop downloadable access to all of the material used in the course plus a collection of Frank Serafine’s collection of 200 sound effects and more. Be sure to bring a set of headphones, and arrive early so you can meet and greet your fellow workshop participants.
| Sound Advice Workshop Itinerary (9am – 7:30pm) | |
|---|---|
| Sound Recording | 3 Hours |
| Sound Editing | 1 Hour |
| Sound Effects | 1 Hour |
| Sound Mixing | 1 Hour |
| Sound Tracks | ½ Hour |
| Sound Design | 1 Hour |
| Sound Inspiration | ½ Hour |
For those folks who are interested in Sound Advice but live outside the USA or are otherwise unable to attend in person, there’s good news. A big reason why we like MZed so much is that they make their course materials available for download after the conclusion of the tour (in this case, after June 30th). It’s the next best thing to being there, and it includes Frank’s sound effects collection mentioned above. We’ll have a promo code available pretty soon, but meanwhile here’s the order link.
