Open House

Sound Designer is needed in India.

I’m the director, writer, producer and editor of this project, so yes, I’m wearing quite a few hats. I suppose that’s just the life of an independent filmmaker.

I’m reaching the final stages of post-production on my psychological thriller feature, OPEN HOUSE, which is approximately 80 minutes long.

I’ve already done a fair amount of the sound design myself and placed music where I felt it worked creatively. Once you hear the current cut, you’ll probably get a good sense of the style and direction I’m going for.

Most of the music has either been sourced online or created through Suno, but I’m now looking for someone who can take the film further from a professional sound perspective.

What I really need is someone who understands how important sound is in a psychological thriller. I’m not looking for constant loud effects or wall-to-wall music. I’m much more interested in tension through ambience, silence, perspective, subtle details, room tone, unsettling textures and moments where sound almost becomes part of the psychology of the film.

Some of my main influences for the tone are David Fincher, M. Night Shyamalan, Ari Aster and, to a lesser extent, James Wan.

The film is very close to picture lock.

The work would potentially involve:

• Dialogue editing and cleanup
• Preserving as much natural production dialogue as possible
• ADR integration for the few lines that genuinely need it
• Foley
• Ambience and room tone
• Additional creative sound design
• Improving and expanding on some of the sound design I’ve already created
• Music integration and balancing
• Final 5.1 or 7.1 surround mix
• Stereo mix/downmix
• Dialogue, music and effects stems

One important thing for me is that I don’t want the dialogue to feel overly processed or artificially clean. I like the natural quality of the production recordings, so ADR should really only be used where necessary.

I’m editing the film in DaVinci Resolve and can provide an AAF, reference picture with timecode, production audio, ADR recordings, temp sound design, music and any other material you need.

Since we would be working remotely, I’d also like to understand how you normally handle feedback, revisions and review mixes.

Have you worked on an approximately 80-minute feature film before?

I’d also be happy to share a few frames from the film first so you can understand the visual mood and overall tone before I send over any scenes.

Ideally, I’d like to begin with a short scene as a test so we can see whether our creative tastes and workflow match before moving onto the entire film.

Let me know a little about your experience, the kind of films you’ve worked on, your surround mixing setup, and how you would normally approach a project like this.