A COLLABORATIVE POST
WRITTEN BY BOOM BOX POST
This past week, we chatted with one of our supervising sound editors, Tess Fournier! Tess is no stranger to the blog. She has shared so much insider knowledge here over the years, but we felt it was time to get an update on both a professional and personal level!
How long have you been working at Boom box post?
It’ll be 10 years next June! I started as a SFX editor in June 2015.
TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE SERIES YOU’VE SUPERVISED in THat time
I’ve supervised a lot of projects in my time at Boom Box. It would be hard to list them all here, but I’ll tell you about a few of note!
Storybots: Answer Time was a really fun project to work on. There are a lot of little vignettes within each episode, so we really got to have fun with different styles of editorial. We were thrown new sound challenges with each episode and it kept us on our toes! I also love the educational aspect of this series. I learned a bunch while working on it!
Fright Krewe was really different from the shows I normally supervise. It’s a horror show with lots of creature design and voodoo. It was important for this series that we didn’t make the supernatural/ghostly elements too magical, since voodoo is a real religion and we didn’t want to make light of it. That note forced us to be more thoughtful with our approach to sound design, and because of it we incorporated instrument sounds that are associated with voodoo. Our team came up with some really cool designs for this series and it was a really fun challenge for us all.
Gabby’s Dollhouse has been running for several years and it’s the show that people in my daily life recognize the most. I don’t have kids, so I don’t tend to run into too many people who watch the content I work on, but if I know someone who has kids (or nieces/nephews/friends with kids/etc) then they definitely know about Gabby and her dollhouse friends! The series is really adorable and fun to work on. It’s really exciting when I get to actually meet fans of the show!
WHICH OF THE sERIES YOU’VE SUPERVISED IS MOST SPECIAL TO YOU?
Well, I love all of the series I’ve had the pleasure of working on. However, The Loud House has a special place in my heart since it was the series that started my editing career. Jeff and I designed a whole library of toon SFX for the series so that it would have its own signature language and I tried to do the same with all of the recurring sounds in the show. I recorded a BUNCH in those early days, and a lot of what I made from scratch has been in the series now since it first aired in 2016.
What is your favorite sound effects build that you have made?
I worked on a feature for Nickelodeon called ‘Lucky’ a few years ago and I created dragon vocals that I’m really proud of. I consider monster/creature vocals to be a bit of a weak spot in my personal skillset, and it took a lot out of me to make them, but I think in the end it was really worth it and they sounded great in the final mix.
WHAT’S A GO-TO PLUGIN YOU COULDN’T IMAGINE EDITING SOUND EFFECTS WITHOUT?
Pitch plugins. I guess that isn’t a SUPER exciting answer, but I pitch sounds constantly, so I think I consider them the most valuable. I like Pitch Legacy and The Graphic Pitch Shifter. (See our past blog post about pitch plugins)
OUTSIDE OF THE SOUND WORK ITSELF, WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT WORKING HERE?
The people. I love the team here. I consider them friends and think they’re all so fun and creative. It’s a joy to work with such kind, silly, hard working people.
WHAT’S A PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WERE GIVEN EARLY IN YOUR CAREER THAT YOU’D LIKE TO PASS ON?
I was a pretty slow editor when I first got started at Boom Box. I asked Jeff if he had any tips to get faster and he suggested I map my Pro Tools tools to the buttons of my trackball and use those instead of the Smart Tool. I was a little clumsy with it at first, but once I gained muscle memory, I got so much faster! It was huge in helping me speed up my editorial and now I tell every new editor I meet to try it.
IF YOU HAD TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS A SOUND EFFECT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
A party horn!
All SFX libraries are 50% off at www.boomboxlibrary.com with code NOVEMBER50!
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All SFX libraries are 50% off at www.boomboxlibrary.com with code NOVEMBER50! 〰️
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