WRITTEN BY KATE FINAN, CO-OWNER OF BOOM BOX POST
There are many different ways to be a great leader and a lot of different philosophies that can get you there. But this post isn’t to cover the theoretical side of leadership. This is a nuts and bolts how-to with specific tips regarding software, meetings, organization, and communication specifically pertaining to being a supervising sound editor. Obviously, there are many approaches on this front as well, but here’s what we do here at Boom Box Post with much success.
This is our team at Boom Box Post celebrating our latest Showcase Night where we show clips of everyone’s work from the past year and give each other kudos! This is another great way to motivate your team through inspiration, positive feedback, and group activities!
Step 1: Introduce Your Team
Have a kick off meeting so everyone can meet each other and understand each other’s roles, ask questions, and get on the same page. This is your chance to start the project right and let everyone know that they’re a team rather than just a random group of people who happen to work on the same material. This should include all editors, mixers, and support personnel such as mix techs, machine room operators, and assistant editors. Everyone is equally important when getting the job done—we all just have different roles to play.
We’ve found that the best time to have your kickoff meeting is after the first client spotting session. That way everyone will already be staffed, scheduled, and you’ll be able to walk the whole team through the technical requirements, any out-of-the-ordinary client requests, specs, templates, and overall creative direction all at once. This is really crucial for showing everyone that they’re just part of a greater team, so I would highly recommend video conferencing in anyone who may freelance from outside a drivable area.
For those of you who are against meetings in general—I swear, this only takes us about 20-30 minutes and is generally a very efficient way to quickly and easily key everyone into crucial information. It’s also often the one opportunity for team members to speak up about things others could do to help them (my mixers are especially vocal, and I love it!).
Step 2: Outline everyone’s role
You might be thinking that you don’t need to take the time to introduce everyone. It’s such a corny cliche of all corporate meetings, right—”Go around the room and introduce yourself!”? Maybe everyone already knows each other and you think it’s obvious that the dialogue editor will cover dialogue and the sound effects editor will cover the sound effects. And it is. But I’m talking about getting into the specifics as they pertain to this project.
During your kickoff meeting, make sure to talk about any crossover between team members like habitual foley props that could be recorded once and then cut thereafter in SFX to save stage time for more important things, or vice versa something like collar movement for a dog for which a sound effects editor could create patches and a digital foley editor could easily trigger to match the footsteps as part of their routine on every episode. Or maybe an assistant editor could properly place the main title stems in each mix template to save the mixer time. Working out these workflow best practices with everyone in one room is essential to a smooth-running team. Questions and ideas always come up that I never would have thought of on my own, and the solutions often benefit everyone! And since everyone signs off on the plan together, no one feels like they were left in the lurch.
Step 3: Discuss the Overall Style
While you have everyone in the room for your kickoff meeting, make sure to talk about the general style of the project—both from a visual and sonic standpoint. What’s the overall vibe? Who is the audience? Where will it premiere? Maybe even show a short clip. Once you’ve established the overall aesthetic and the client’s general direction for the sound, you can talk about what that means in terms of each individual’s role during one-on-one spots/previews. Often I’ve found that my team members will leave the room really energized and excited about a new genre or direction, and they’ll often ask me if they can pull similar projects from our archives to reference or ask for suggestions of things to watch on their own before starting their work. An early introduction into the style is a great way to get everyone’s brains activated and gives them time to get inspired before they dive into what is often a hectic schedule!
Step 4: Set Up an Easy Way to Communicate
Email is practically an artifact of the stone age when it comes to team communication. There are so many options for really well integrated software that lets you communicate in group channels, direct message, link your favorite calendar system, and more all in one place. We love to use Slack for our team. Keep your email inbox clean and for client-only communication—that way you’ll never miss an important message. You’ll thank me when getting to Inbox(0) is that much easier.
There are tons of options for team communication, but Slack is our choice! Check out how it works here.
Whatever software you choose, get a group channel going so that everyone can be alerted immediately when new materials are available, receive spotting notes, or if something needs to be done like an urgent conform to new picture. But keep criticisms and individual notes or requests to direct messages. You want to encourage a cohesive and positive team—not scare people with public shaming.
Step 5: Create a Shared Project Calendar
I am not a fan of keeping people in the dark about the project schedule. Some supervisors treat client dates as “need to know” information. But, honestly, I feel like if everyone understands why things are due when they’re due, there are way fewer mishaps along the way. It also encourages everyone to get on board with my “Don’t come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution” supervising mentality. This just means that I (and, honestly, probably every other supervisor of anything in the entire world) hate it when people come to me with personal problems and expect me to instantaneously come up with several awesome solutions on the spot. Instead, it’s so much better if my team members come to me with an issue that has come up for them and at least one idea of a way to work around it. Then I just have to say yes! But, this is only possible if everyone has the information they would need to figure out a solution. So, trust me, do yourself a favor and stop being stingy with information.
For this purpose, we love having a shared project calendar that everyone has access to. Google Calendar or something similar is wonderful for this. Make sure to let everyone know if the due dates for handing in their work should be implied from that calendar (like 2 days before the client preview, or the end of their last shift). Having a shared project calendar can also help immensely when everyone is trying to decide when to conform and where that conform should be sent (to the supervisor or directly to the stage), etc.
Maybe you’ve been living under a rock and have never seen Google Calendar before. If so, this is what it looks like. It’s included in the G Suite. If you have a Gmail address, then you already have Google Calendar. Start a new calendar by creating a series email, and then share that calendar with all of your team members. Make sure to add and remove access as team members come and go to keep things clean and secure.
Step 6: Be Upfront About Any Policies
When you first hire your team, make sure to be upfront with everyone about any shift or pay policies. This means things like whether or not overtime needs to be pre-approved, whether there is any leeway in shift counts, whether or not to bill downtime, if they loose their work due to technical issues will they be paid to reproduce it, etc. This helps immensely to avoid hard feelings in the case of misunderstandings. The last thing anyone wants is for anyone to feel like they weren’t properly paid for their time! In my opinion, this conversation should be had immediately upon hiring someone and in a private setting in case anyone has questions that pertain only to them personally and in case they might be shy or feel embarrassed asking in a group.
Step 7: Assign A Second in Command (Or Two!)
Let people know who to contact when they can’t reach you. If you’re like me and you supervise multiple projects at the same time, then you may be with clients and therefore unreachable by your team periodically throughout the day. I love pointing out a go-to person who can answer questions simple about style, schedule, or materials if I’m unavailable. This helps everyone get the timely answers they need and keeps my inbox from overflowing. And that go-to person can be different for different needs. Don’t be afraid to tell everyone that one of your senior SFX editors is a great person to ask about general style ideas, while the assistant editor should be their go-to for materials questions. This makes everyone feel important and valued.
This is Sam, my assistant editor and general right hand around the office. Sometimes she knows even more than I do about what’s happening—and I love that!
Being a Great Leader
Now that we’ve covered the nuts and bolts of how to organize your team, I wanted to mention that acting like a great leader is just as important as the day to day logistics of leadership. There are so many qualities that you can cultivate in yourself to reach a leadership style that you can be proud of—and each of us has a different array of leadership skills that come naturally to us. Some of us are confident, or an easy communicator, or incredibly trustworthy, or boldly upfront. I can’t tell you how to be the best leader for yourself or your team.
But, here’s some food for thought: think about all of your bosses (the best AND the worst!) and ask yourself, “What did I love/hate about each? How could they have made my job easier/better/more enjoyable?” And then remind yourself of those qualities each day and try to be THAT kind of leader. I always say that there’s something to be learned even (or ESPECIALLY) from your worst job experience. And in no other arena is that as true as in leadership skills.