On Our Way to Remote Audio Post- Production

Enhanced Media
4 min readJun 25, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed daily life, isolating people from one another and forcing companies across all industries to shift focus to a home office and remote work to keep their businesses running. In the entertainment industry, audio post-production companies are struggling to set up teams to work from other locations, while complying with lockdown regulations, so they can keep projects on schedule.

Many audio post-production companies have managed to keep their businesses more or less as usual. That’s because the vast majority of teams of sound and audio professionals have been working remotely for a long time, but what about those who still struggle to find a way to keep their workflows going?

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Going remote

This new reality will definitely bring a lot of changes in the way we work. Regardless of the nature of every business, it is likely that many will consider going fully remote or, at least, having a fully remote part of their team. Traditionally, audio post-production companies are composed of a network of freelance audio professionals who work remotely from their own studios, providing mixing and sound design services.

And even though no one could have predicted the situation we are currently in, the positive fact about this new reality is that our industry can adapt to it much more seamlessly than others. We can still offer our services on a remote basis to a global clientele.

Many sound professionals started freelancing as sound editors and mixers, working directly at their studio homes. Back then, there weren’t many professionals offering remote services, so they all kind of started the concept of remote workflow, which was possible thanks to the tools that allowed them to do and review their work and sign off on a completely remote basis.

In fact, many companies were born this way. As new technology emerged and more talent started to appear, audio post-production companies progressed into a fully remote post-production powerhouse. The network structure makes it much easier to attract specific talent for specific projects and increase the workload by bringing in more freelancers while eliminating the high overhead of having everyone work in-house. This actually enables all employees to be more competitive.

Audio post-production studios work on a wide range of projects — from short-form commercials and online content to long-form TV and films. Having a diverse and talented team of remote (and in-house) sound specialists is what enables us to work amidst this pandemic, meeting deadlines and delivering end-to-end audio post services. Although many films have been delayed or put on hold, studios have also found the opportunity to give some extra touches both sound and production-wise.

The only way they can keep working and delivering good quality content (paramount in times like this) is by connecting with this network of post-production studios and their remote network of freelancers. Perhaps this forced shift will end up establishing this as the new way of collaborating. Be that as it may, we will find a way to thrive.

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Having the right tools

Managing to establish a fully remote network of freelancers will, of course, rely on the tools we use for our daily job. Pro Tools software, for example, certainly is at the heart of every remote studio. In fact, many studios, even before the pandemic, would do all of their creative work using the same tools major audio post-production houses traditionally use, enabling them to meet and deliver the same high-quality standards. What sets them apart, though, is their cloud-based solutions.

For this new way of working to succeed it will be necessary to find a way to seamlessly share files with one another. There are plenty of cloud-based sharing platforms, but some of them are really slow and don’t work particularly well with big files. Digital Pigeon, for example, offers really quick uploads and downloads, and it also allows you to add notes to files while reviewing them.

The platform also enables sound supervisors, producers, and directors to review media files in real-time in a web browser for approval — without the need of having to download the files in the first place.

For voiceover and ADR work, there are also plenty of tools you can use to sync Pro Tools systems remotely, being able to record sessions with the talent in one location while having the rest of the team elsewhere. This is actually pretty common, but it will certainly gain more participation in the near future.

As audio post-production studios continue to grow and remote working comes to the forefront, in part to this pandemic, we believe this new juncture is the perfect opportunity for the industry to adopt new methodologies and ways of working that allow us to grow, bring more talent in and achieve greater results. The viability of remote working in the post-production industry had already been proven in the past, and it will possibly be the only way this industry will succeed in the future.

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Enhanced Media

We tell stories through sound. We specialize in creating a complete audio post-production and sound design experience. https://enhanced.media/